The Two Cultures: Statistics and Machine Learning in Science

Abstract:In his 2001 Statistical Science paper, Leo Breiman called attention to "two cultures" of data analysts, the first associated with computer science and the second with statistics. Breiman saw flaws in the traditionally-oriented statistical culture and advocated the predictively-oriented approach he identified with computer science. Although many of his observations were accurate and useful, Breiman failed to acknowledge the merits of statistical modeling, and he mischaracterized the role of statistics in science. To explain, I discuss machine learning and artificial intelligence; excessive cautiousness in statistics; dangers of statistical modeling; potential accomplishments of statistical modeling; the statistical paradigm; the nature of statistical models; and statistical methods that work well in practice. Everyone who is interested in the use of computer science and statistics in data analysis should grapple with the issues raised by Breiman's article.