Ep 12: Data Science – What are its potential perils? Dectech Discusses
Posted: 08/07/2025

Welcome to Dectech’s podcast, Predicting People! In our twelfth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the many nuanced challenges of data science. They explore five common, but often overlooked, pitfalls – from missing causes to spurious correlations. In a world where data science is of rapidly increasing interest to businesses, addressing these issues is highly relevant to avoid flawed data-driven decisions.
Drawing on scientific principles and many years of practical experience, Henry and Nick present recommendations to help businesses gain more reliable insights from their data. They discuss how rigorous techniques, such as randomised controlled trials, can avoid false conclusions and improve the validity of outcomes.