Given that backdrop, Taleb’s misgivings on big data and analytics aren’t at all surprising: “We’re more fooled by noise than ever before, and it’s because of a nasty phenomenon called “big data.” With big data, researchers have brought cherry-picking to an industrial level … Modernity provides too many variables, but too little data per variable. So the spurious relationships grow much, much faster than real information … In other words: Big data may mean more information, but it also means more false information … In observational studies, statistical relationships are examined on the researcher’s computer. In double-blind cohort experiments, however, information is extracted in a way that mimics real life … This is not all bad news though: If such studies cannot be used to confirm, they can be effectively used to debunk — to tell us what’s wrong with a theory, not whether a theory is right.”

via Big Data Caveats, Front and Center – Information Management Blogs Article.