Chapter 1: What Are Data and Data Science?

Petroglyphs of animals and other symbols. — **Figure 1.1** Petroglyphs are one of the earliest types of data generated by humanity, providing vital information about the daily life of the people who created them.Petroglyphs are one of the earliest types of data generated by humanity, providing vital information about the daily life of the people who created them. (credit: modification of work “Indian petroglyphs (~100 B.C. to ~1540 A.D.) (Newspaper Rock, southeastern Utah, USA) 24” by James St. John/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

Many of us use the terms “data” and “data science,” but not necessarily with a lot of precision. This chapter will define data science terminology and apply the terms in multiple fields. The chapter will also briefly introduce the types of technology (such as statistical software, spreadsheets, and programming languages) that data scientists use to perform their work and will then take a deeper dive into the use of Python for data analysis. The chapter should help you build a technical foundation so that you can practice the more advanced data science concepts covered in future chapters.

Adapted from Principles of Data Science by OpenStax (openstax.org), licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Changes were made. License: CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0.