The author is a social scientist who believes in big data. According to him, big data has four central virtues. First, it’s a “digital truth serum”: it supplies honest data on matters people lie about in surveys. Second, it offers the means to run large-scale randomised controlled trials which is the best evidence based studies commonly used in medicine but still relatively new in social sciences such as in economics and politics. Third, the massive quantity of data allows us to zoom in precisely on small subsets of people in a way that was previously impossible. Finally, it provides new types of data.
Another interesting fact from this book is from Prosper, a peer-to-peer loan website, showed that there are five expressions in particular that one should beware of when reviewing applications for loans that have higher probability of default :
“God”
“promise”
“will pay”
“hospital”
and “thank you”
I believe it is quite unethical for not approving loans based on this words alone used by the applicants. However, this data provides us some sort of guidelines in giving loans to our associates. Next time when someone asks you to borrow some money, make sure you screen for these words beforehand.
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