Big Data and Cloud Culture - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 205

laureate Paul Krugman raised a concern familiar to big-data specialists.
The Reinhart and Rogoff paper, Krugman complained, uses big data
to draw conclusions based on correlations, not on causality: “All it does
is look at a correlation between debt levels and growth. And since debt
levels are not sharp extreme events, there's no good reason to believe that
they're identifying a causal relationship. In fact, the case they highlight—
the United States—practically screams spurious correlation: the years of
high debt were also the years immediately following WWII, when the
big thing happening in the economy was postwar demobilization, which
naturally implied slower growth: Rosie the Riveter was going back to being
a housewife” (Krugman 2010). In addition to identifying the limitations
of correlational analysis, the case reveals that, by its nature, big data can
create big problems. First, errors in entering data in key cells can create
signiicant changes throughout the analysis, amplifying the consequences
of the original errors. In this case, errors led to a powerful inding con-
genial to policy makers and corporate leaders predisposed to austerity,
which turned out to be, at the very least, grossly exaggerated. Second,
the size of the data sets makes it dificult for peer and other reviewers to
catch errors. It is not common for reviewers to have access to original data
inputs, and certainly not in the case of data sets with multiple variables
spanning numerous nations and time periods. In this case, if it were not
for the work of a highly motivated doctoral student, it is unlikely that
the errors would have been caught, and the paper would have retained its
stature as the intellectual cornerstone for pro-austerity policies. Big data
can contain and mask big errors with big consequences. As one business
educator concluded, “Don't get me wrong: Data is critical. But history
suggests that it plays tricks on our ability to objectively understand all of
the variables that are at play in the world. So be careful: Although many
professionals tell you that the data is only one of many decision points, I
have found that too many people rely too heavily on its information. But
as we have seen, the data can lie!” (Langer 2013).
Cloud Culture
The technical criticisms directed at big data's singular reliance on quantii-
cation and correlation, and its neglect of theory, history, and context, can
help to improve the approach, and perhaps research in general—certainly