David Brooks, "What You’ll Do Next": Data Mining Will Help Find the Perpetrators of the Boston Marathon Terror Attack

Two bombs have killed at least three people at the Boston Marathon. A small part of my life has been devoted to the war against terror, and I again recoil at this latest travesty, but I am confident that those responsible will be swiftly identified. Voluminous quantities of physical evidence will be collected, videos from every angle will be reviewed, and the data will be sifted. The murderers have left a trail and will not get away.

And in case you were wondering, Mr. President, this was a terror attack, and you need not hesitate to label it as such. In this instance, there is no cause for political correctness or ambiguity.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "What You’ll Do Next" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/opinion/brooks-what-youll-do-next.html?_r=0), David Brooks muses over the theory of big data. According to Brooks:

"The theory of big data is to have no theory, at least about human nature. You just gather huge amounts of information, observe the patterns and estimate probabilities about how people will act in the future."

A theory with no theory? Interesting. And what has it yielded? As observed by Brooks:

"Wal-Mart executives looked at the data and noticed that, as hurricanes approach, people buy large quantities of Strawberry Pop-Tarts. They began to put Pop-Tarts at the front of the stores with storm supplies."

I rebel at the thought of using data to sell Pop-Tarts, be they strawberry or any other flavor.

There is indeed a data revolution underway. Today, vast quantities of data can be collected and stored, but without a theory, it cannot be analyzed in a meaningful way.

Theory combined with data will lead to the capture of those responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.

Theory combined with data can lead to the rationalization of America's health care system.

Theory combined with data will lead to the next generation of potent medicines against cancer and other diseases as well as personalized medicine.

Brooks writes:

"Big data is like the offensive coordinator up in the booth at a football game who, with altitude, can see patterns others miss. But the head coach and players still need to be on the field of subjectivity."

Indeed, without proposed solutions deriving from instinctive human thought processes, i.e theories, you can't possibly mine and make use of that ocean of data in a meaningful manner.

Unless you might be hoping to seek new ways of marketing Pop-Tarts . . .