DATA 0080 Exam 1

Folk wisdom

Knowledge based on tradition, informal experience, and commonly held beliefs rather than systematic data analysis.

Data-driven approach

Using measurable evidence and data analysis to form conclusions or make decisions.

Folk wisdom vs. data-driven knowledge

Folk wisdom asks what experience and tradition suggest; a data-driven approach asks what systematically collected evidence shows.

Natural history

Knowledge developed by observing and describing nature over time. In the guide, a farmer predicting rain from recurring bird behavior illustrates observational knowledge.

Bias toward the measurable

The tendency to prioritize things that are easy to quantify while overlooking important qualities that are harder to measure.

Bias toward the measurable: baseball example

A team might emphasize OBP while giving insufficient attention to harder-to-measure defensive contributions.

Normative ethics

The branch of ethics that asks what we should do and what makes actions right or wrong.

Normative ethics vs. laws and social norms

Normative ethics evaluates what should be right; something being legal, customary, or religiously approved does not by itself settle its ethical status.

Ethical lens

A framework for evaluating a moral problem by emphasizing particular concerns, such as outcomes, duties, rights, fairness, character, relationships, or self-interest.

Consequentialism

A broad family of ethical approaches that judges actions by their consequences.

Utilitarianism

An ethical approach that seeks the greatest overall good by considering benefits and harms to everyone affected.

Consequentialism vs. utilitarianism

Consequentialism broadly evaluates consequences; utilitarianism is one consequentialist approach focused on maximizing overall well-being.

Utilitarianism: central question

Which action produces the greatest overall good and least overall harm?

Utilitarianism: main critique

Maximizing total benefits can justify serious harm to a minority or overlook individual rights.

Deontology

An ethical approach that emphasizes duties, obligations, and moral rules rather than judging actions solely by outcomes.

Deontology: central question

What duties or moral rules must I follow?

Deontology: main critique

Rigid adherence to rules can create poor outcomes, and duties can conflict.

Rights lens

An ethical approach that emphasizes protecting people's fundamental rights and autonomy, even when violating them might benefit others.

Rights: central question

Are the rights and autonomy of the people involved being respected?

Rights: main critique

Rights can conflict, making it difficult to decide which takes priority.

Autonomy

A person's ability to make their own informed choices without coercion.

Consent

Voluntary agreement to an action or participation. Consent can authorize some actions that would otherwise violate a person's rights; not every right can simply be waived.

Justice lens

An ethical approach that asks whether people are treated fairly and whether benefits and burdens are distributed fairly.

Justice: central question

Who benefits, who bears the costs, and is that distribution fair?

Justice: main critique

People disagree about what fairness requires, such as equal treatment versus attention to different needs.

Treat equal situations alike

A justice principle that people in relevantly similar situations should receive similar treatment.

Systemic patterns

Recurring arrangements across institutions or society that distribute advantages and disadvantages; the justice lens examines these alongside individual decisions.

Virtue ethics

An ethical approach centered on good character and the kind of person one should become.

Virtue ethics: central question

What would a person with good character do?

Moral exemplar

A person whose admirable character and judgment provide a model for ethical behavior.

Virtue ethics: main critique

People can disagree about which traits are virtues and what a good person would do in a specific situation.

Care ethics

An ethical approach that emphasizes relationships, care, people's particular circumstances, and responsiveness to their needs.

Care ethics: central question

How should I respond to the needs and relationships of the specific people affected?

Care ethics: feminist critique

Care ethics challenges approaches that treat people as abstract, detached individuals and neglect relationships, dependency, and caregiving.

Care ethics: main critique

Giving special attention to close relationships can make it difficult to weigh obligations fairly toward distant people or outsiders.

Ethical egoism

An ethical approach that treats advancing one's own interests as the basis for choosing actions.

Egoism: central question

Which action benefits me most?

Egoism: main critique

It can disregard harms to others when those harms do not affect the decision-maker's interests.

Traffic-routing app case

An app sends drivers through a neighborhood to shorten travel time, benefiting drivers while potentially increasing residents' noise, congestion, pollution, and safety risks.

Traffic-routing case: utilitarianism

Compare the total travel-time benefits for drivers with the total harms to residents and choose the option with the best overall outcome.

Traffic-routing case: deontology

Ask whether the routing decision follows relevant duties and rules, even if breaking them would save time.

Traffic-routing case: rights

Ask whether the decision respects residents' and drivers' rights and autonomy; identify the rights at stake rather than assuming every inconvenience is a rights violation.

Traffic-routing case: justice

Ask whether it is fair for many drivers to benefit while one neighborhood bears most of the burdens.

Traffic-routing case: virtue ethics

Ask what a responsible, compassionate decision-maker would do about the effects on residents and drivers.

Traffic-routing case: care ethics

Attend to residents' particular needs and relationships, such as children's safety or the circumstances of vulnerable neighbors.

Traffic-routing case: egoism

A driver favors the shortest commute, or the company favors what advances its own business interests.

Utilitarianism vs. justice

Utilitarianism emphasizes total benefits and harms; justice emphasizes how benefits and harms are distributed.

Deontology vs. utilitarianism

Deontology asks whether an action follows duties; utilitarianism asks whether it produces the greatest overall good.

Rights vs. care ethics

Rights emphasizes autonomy and protections; care ethics emphasizes relationships and the particular needs of people involved.

Effective altruism (EA)

An approach that uses evidence and reasoning to determine how one's actions and resources can do the most good.

Effective altruism vs. standard utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a moral theory about maximizing overall good; effective altruism emphasizes acting on evidence to find the most effective uses of resources. They overlap but are not identical.

Effective altruism: donation example

Compare charities to determine where a $100 donation can create the greatest positive impact rather than choosing only by familiarity or emotion.

Impartiality

Considering people's interests without automatically giving greater moral weight to oneself or one's own group.

Longtermism

The view that effects on the long-term future deserve substantial moral attention; the guide connects this to effective altruism's expanding focus.

Claude's Constitution

A human-written set of principles intended to guide Claude's behavior and decision-making; the guide presents it as combining multiple ethical lenses.

Claude's Constitution: EA influence

As presented in the guide, it emphasizes positive impact, impartial concern, and attention to serious long-term risks.

Claude's Constitution: virtue ethics

It describes the kind of AI Claude should be and the qualities that should guide its behavior.

Claude's Constitution: deontology

It uses rules and guardrails that constrain actions rather than deciding every case only by expected benefits.

Ancient uses of data

Data helped societies manage commerce and government, including goods, quantities, censuses, and population counts.

Aristotle's Organon

A collection of Aristotle's works on logic; the guide uses it to represent deriving knowledge through logical reasoning from principles.

First principles

Foundational assumptions or starting propositions used as the basis for reasoning.

Scientific Revolution

A shift toward systematic observation, measurement, mathematical explanation, and experimentation in studying nature.

Aristotelian approach vs. Scientific Revolution

The guide contrasts explanations starting from principles and logic with explanations developed and tested using observations and experiments.

Clockwork universe

The idea that nature operates according to fixed mathematical laws, like a machine, so complete knowledge of laws and initial conditions would allow prediction.

Determinism

The view that events are determined by prior conditions and fixed laws: the same conditions and laws produce the same outcome.

Limits of the clockwork universe

Complexity, incomplete information, and variability make exact prediction difficult, especially for human traits and populations. Difficulty predicting does not alone prove events are undetermined.

Statistical Revolution

A shift toward studying probability, variation, and patterns across populations rather than seeking exact predictions for every individual outcome.

Clockwork vs. statistical thinking

Clockwork thinking emphasizes fixed laws and exact prediction; statistical thinking emphasizes probability, variation, and patterns across populations.

Statistical thinking: height example

We may not predict one person's exact height, but can study a population's average height and factors associated with height.

W. E. B. Du Bois

A scholar who used empirical research and data to challenge racist claims and document Black social conditions, illustrating data's use against race science.

Correlation

A statistical association between variables; association alone does not establish that one variable causes another.

Regression

A statistical method for describing or estimating relationships between an outcome and one or more other variables; it does not establish causation by itself.

Colossus

An early electronic computer used at Bletchley Park during WWII for codebreaking; it illustrates the connection between computing and national security.

Bletchley Park

Britain's WWII codebreaking center, associated in the guide with Colossus and the growth of computation.

Big data

Large or complex datasets whose storage, processing, and analysis rely heavily on computational tools.

Historical arc of data

Ancient commerce and government; logic and first principles; scientific observation and experiments; clockwork determinism; statistical probability and populations; computation and big data.

Positivism

The view that an objective reality can be understood through scientific observation, measurement, and testing.

Three pillars of positivism

An objective reality exists; researchers can study it objectively; empirical scientific methods can produce knowledge about it.

Ontology

Beliefs about what exists and what reality is like. Key question: What is real?

Realist ontology in positivism

Reality exists independently of our beliefs or awareness; for example, gravity operates whether or not we understand it.

Epistemology

Beliefs about what knowledge is and how we can know reality. Key question: How can we know?

Objectivist epistemology in positivism

Researchers aim to gain knowledge from a neutral or detached position, minimizing the influence of personal values and interpretations.

Methodology

The overall approach and procedures used to investigate questions. Key question: How do we study or test reality?

Empirical or experimental methodology in positivism

Use observations, measurements, hypotheses, and tests; controlled experiments manipulate conditions to evaluate explanations.

Hypothesis

A proposed explanation or prediction that can be assessed against evidence.

Positivism vs. determinism

Positivism concerns how knowledge is obtained through scientific evidence; determinism concerns how events arise from laws and prior conditions.

Progressivism in the guide

A historical movement emphasizing social improvement through scientific knowledge and reform; this course usage differs from treating it simply as a current political label.

Darwinism

Evolution through natural selection: inherited differences affecting survival and reproduction can change populations over generations.

Natural selection

The process by which heritable traits associated with greater reproductive success become more common across generations.

Eugenics

An ideology seeking to shape human populations through selective reproduction, based on judgments about supposedly desirable and undesirable hereditary traits.

Eugenics and the Statistical Revolution

New tools for studying relationships and heredity were used to support eugenic claims, often embedding biased assumptions about people and traits.

Institutionalization of eugenics

Eugenic ideas became embedded in organizations and government policies rather than remaining individual opinions.

Coercive sterilization

Preventing people from reproducing without their voluntary consent; the guide identifies it as a major harm of eugenic policies.

Historical path of eugenics

Statistical study of heredity; institutionalization and policy influence; coercive practices; Nazi racial policies and atrocities; postwar discrediting and stronger attention to research ethics.

Eugenics' fall from grace

Its coercion and association with Nazi atrocities exposed its ethical failures and helped discredit its claims to scientific legitimacy.

Eugenics and cracks in positivism

Data and sophisticated statistics do not automatically make research objective or ethical; biased questions, definitions, assumptions, and interpretations can produce harmful conclusions.

Scientific validity vs. ethical acceptability

A study must meet scientific standards and protect people; scientifically useful findings do not by themselves justify harmful methods.

Values in scientific research

Researchers make value-laden choices about questions, measurements, groups studied, interpretation, and how findings are used.

Nuremberg Code

A set of ethical principles for human experimentation developed after WWII, emphasizing voluntary consent and protection from unjustified harm.

Nuremberg Code: voluntary consent

Participants must freely agree to research participation, with sufficient understanding and freedom from coercion.