Few things have driven human innovation more than how we measure and organize information. Very few, if any, scientific achievements have come from thin air, but rather every one is the culmination of endless cycles of the scientific method, gathering and regathering information until it can be used to support a conclusion. Additionally, improvements in measurement have allowed us to reach levels of understanding never imagined possible; Hooke’s microscope showed us cells, X-ray crystallography showed us DNA, and so on. Just as Sinan Aral said, “Revolutions in science have often been preceded by revolutions in measurement.” And as Geoff West said, the same is true for every one of our advancements in understanding, whether it be of an economic process or social one. Our attempts to predict the growth of certain stocks in class or to model access to resources in lower-income countries are only the simplest examples. In reality, data science allows us to see and model complexities we never could before.

Projects like the ones we did have demonstrated the revolution of data science: we can build off of each other’s findings and achievements more than ever before by gathering and sharing the information that drives them. Whether we were getting topographical data through WorldPop or getting information on stock prices, we were able to use the same database to understand it for our own purposes. Not only that, but each project relied on a different set of tools created by others, whether it was ggplot, tidyquant, or R itself. Data science makes use of improvements in measurement and turns it into a globally collaborative process.

Its ability to improve the human condition is clear. Issues that generations of humanity have simply taken as facts of life are becoming burdens we can finally free ourselves from. We can identify genetic diseases like Cystic Fibrosis before a baby is even born thanks to the vast knowledge shared from the Human Genome Project. Improvements in population modeling and better models of disease may be able to prevent the next global pandemic. Hopefully, we’ll even be able to predict exactly how proteins fold, and create drugs to serve any purpose imaginable.

Of course, our new abilities come with very serious potential for removing our freedoms. Whenever it is used for profit, data science can be a tool to categorize and organize us so that we become the perfect consumers. Modern-day moneymakers like the TikTok algorithm or targeted ads can seem almost eerie in their ability to know so much about us. Politically, governments are now able to identify individuals by our faces and even the way we walk. And even on a biological level, thanks to data science’s contributions to genetic engineering, those of us who can may be on the road to editing our very selves, with obvious ethical implications.

Ultimately, like many other advancements in history, data science has the potential to concentrate power (in its many forms) in a few hands. That’s the clearest, and hardest to overcome, obstacle to its improving the human condition. However, I have hope that we can all benefit from our deeper understanding of the world.