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The Conversation USA

Big data's 'streetlight effect': where and how we look affects what we see

  • Written by The Conversation Contributor
imageDon't just look where the streetlight shines.darwinbell/flickr, CC BY

Big data offers us a window on the world. But large and easily available datasets may not show us the world we live in. For instance, epidemiological models of the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa using big data consistently overestimated the risk of the disease’s spread...

Read more: Big data's 'streetlight effect': where and how we look affects what we see

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