How would you explain Data Science to someone in simple layman terms?

Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge and actionable insights from data across a broad range of application domains.

But if I want to explain it to someone in simple layman terms, I can't explain the concept of Data Science to a layman or grandma.

Inspired by this post the below quote

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

-- Albert Einstein

How would you explain Data Science to a layman, probably with example?

Topic intuition definitions

Category Data Science


Everyday in our life we make decisions which are based on our past experiences.

Suppose you go to office from destination X to Y. Their are 2 routes available to reach from X to Y and vice-versa. How will you know which path to choose?

You may say that you will look at your commutes time previously and choose one. When you start utilizing data to make informed decision considering all the parameters you are performing data science

Google Map real time travel routes are an example of data science being valuable in real life. At every moment when it is analyzing traffic data to provide you the best route its using Data science.

As given the amount of decision we take and amount of data available to take those decisions we cannot do that in out mind. So we use huge machines and algorithm to take those decision not only for us but millions of customers.

In short, Data Science Utilises Data to either understand what has happened or suggest what to do next.


I would use something along these lines:

data science is about teaching a computer how to discover interesting information hidden in some big pile of data. The computer is very stupid, so it can't understand what to do by itself. But it's also very fast at calculating, so it can do the job very fast once it's been taught correctly.

About

Geeks Mental is a community that publishes articles and tutorials about Web, Android, Data Science, new techniques and Linux security.