There are varying concerns about what constitutes a causal model, the degree to which data is biased, certainty that the model is predictive about the future, and, that the model itself is a truthful depiction of nature. Over the course of the past two weeks I’ve talked with many people about their perspectives – data scientist, developers, technologies, product managers, brand managers, statisticians, consultants, professors, executive producers, and founders. We’ve talked about everything from why analysts and their customers won’t accept narrow models, why it’s far easier to summarize data than it is to describe the relationships in it, and the intractable differences between what is performance reporting and what constitutes an insight. The verdict is not in. There are varying beliefs[…]