A Kuhnian Perspective on Data Analytics

Before starting to analyze about my field of interest, Data Analytics with respect to Kuhns ideas, one
should know what Data Analytics is and where it is used. According to www.whatis.com, Data analytics
(DA) is the science of examining raw data with the purpose of drawing conclusions about that
information. Data analytics is used in many industries to allow companies and organization to make
better business decisions and in the sciences to verify or disprove existing models or theories. So what
this essentially means is that, Data Analytics is a field which comprises of other fields like Statistics,
Computer Science and Business.
Statistics as a field of study has been in existence for centuries now and hence is a very mature practice
of study. However, Computer Science is still not completely mature yet because new inventions and
technologies keep arising by the day. Data Analytics, bring a combination of these fields, is very new and
came into light hardly a couple of decades ago. This practice became a topic of study when the big firms
and enterprises of the world realized the amount of data they had collected knowingly or unknowingly
over the course of their existences. So, these firms started researching and implementing scientific
theories from matured practices and invented new technologies, theories and applications that would
not only harness the existing data to help them grow their business, but also device methodologies that
does the same with the data they collect real-time. For example, today, some of the big retail chains
analyze the purchases made by their customers and automatically generate personalized offers and gift
coupons that might be of interest to them.
The main problem that arose when this area of study started developing was its feasibility of application
and usage by everyone. Initially, only firms and scientists who could afford to spend a lot of money were
able to utilize and make use of the effects and results of this field. This was mainly because the devices
and applications that could handle so much of data and its processing were limited and hence were very
expensive. Nowadays, there has been improvements in this field making it monetarily feasible for
everyone. However, the main limitation that has been there right from the conception of this field till
date is the number of people specializing in this area of study. Though one can argue that there are
enough people studying Data Analytics, it is nowhere close to the number of people that would be
required, given the rate at which new technologies are invented and data is collected.
Data Analytics, I feel is in the pre-paradigm stage as there are scientists studying it from various angles
and sometimes from conflicting schools of thought. So, there are new concepts, theories and
terminologies being built around this by the day and new applications are being found to apply this area
of study.