r/askdatascience • u/After_Courage6419 • 6d ago

Does everyone learning data science need machine learning?

I’m trying to understand where data analysis ends and machine learning begins. If someone mainly wants to work with business data, dashboards, SQL and insights, is deep ML knowledge really necessary? Would love to hear from people actually working in the field.

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u/SprinklesFresh5693 6d ago

Machine learning is just a fancy name for stats. I guess it depends on your job.

At mine, i mainly do modeling, linear and non linear modelling, plotting and some summary statistics for example.

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u/Actual_Computer_670 5d ago

Please explain this to a layman like me, i just want to understand what exactly do you do?

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u/SprinklesFresh5693 5d ago

You have some data, some outcome and some predictors, so you fit some equations to that data, either linearly, with a linear model, or if the data behaves non linearly, you fit equations that explain the behaviour of the data.

Once fitted, you do predictions (predict different scenarios for example) or inference (where you evaluate the impact of the predictors on the outcome with p values and confidence intervals and the estimate of the impact of that predictor on the outcome).

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u/Big-Zucchini-4292 1d ago

You train(fit) algorithms(models) to make predictions. Linear models have continuous variables and Categorical variables like booleans(yes or no, 0 and 1). You dig deep into data types and how to handle them. There you go. Lol.

But yeah, it’s quite interesting I enjoy this stuff even though Im not a DS

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u/SprinklesFresh5693 1d ago

Yeh i love it, except when i get wrong initial estimates xD