大数据问题症结: 短期内数据不适合推测

 BBC News – You may be familiar with the statistic¹ that 90% of the world’s data was created in the last few years. Indeed, every two years for about the last three decades the amount of data in the world has increased by about 10 times.

BBC新闻 – 你可能熟悉这个统计数据，世界上90%的数据是过去几年创建的。确实，在过去的大约30年中，世界上的数据量每两年就增加10倍左右。

One of the problems with such a rate of information increase is that the present moment will always loom² far larger than even the recent past. Short-sightedness is built into the structure, in the form of an overwhelming tendency to over-estimate short-term trends at the expense of history.

这样的信息增速带来的问题之一是，目前时刻总是比过去时刻，甚至是刚刚过去的时刻显得重要得多。短视成了思维结构的内置功能，表现为以忽略历史为代价高估短期趋势的压倒性倾向。

To understand why this matters, consider the findings from social science about ‘recency bias³’, which describes the tendency to assume that future events will closely resemble recent experience. It’s a version of what is also known as the availability heuristic: the tendency to base your thinking disproportionately on whatever comes most easily to mind.

要理解为什么这很重要，不妨想想社会科学关于“近期偏差”的发现，它描述的就是人们倾向于认为未来事件与近期经历大体相似。它的另一个版本又被称为可用性启发法：不管什么，最容易浮上心头的，人们往往不能对它进行恰如其分的思考。

It’s also a universal psychological attribute. If the last few years have seen exceptionally cold summers where you live, for example, you might be tempted⁴ to state that summers are getting colder – or that your local climate may be cooling. In fact, you would need to take a far, far longer view to learn anything meaningful about climate trends.

这也是一种普遍的心理属性。例如，过去几年你生活的地方出现了格外冷的夏天，你可能会说夏天在变冷 – 或当地气候在变冷。事实上，你可能需要看得很长远很长远，才能了解有关气候趋势的有意义的现象。

The same tends to be true of most complex phenomena⁵ in real life: stock markets, economies, the success or failure of companies, war and peace, relationships, the rise and fall of empires. Short-term analyses aren’t only invalid⁶ – they’re actively⁷ unhelpful and misleading.

同样的道理往往也适用于现实生活中最复杂的现象：股市，经济，公司成败，战争与和平，人际关系，帝国兴衰。短期分析不仅无效，而且越帮越忙，南辕北辙 – 积极却误导。

It’s also worth remembering that novelty tends to be a dominant⁸ consideration when deciding what data to keep or delete. Out with the old and in with the new: that’s the digital trend in a world where search algorithms are intrinsically biased⁹ towards freshness. A bias towards the present is structurally¹⁰ engrained in almost all the technology surrounding us.

还值得记住的是，在决定要保存或删除什么样的数据时，新颖往往是首要考虑。除旧迎新是搜索算法本质上偏重新鲜度的世界中呈现的数字化趋势。对目前的偏重结构化地渗透在我们周围几乎一切技术中。

What to do? This isn’t just a question of being better at preserving old data. More importantly, it’s about determining what is worth preserving in the first place. Mere¹¹ accumulation is no kind of answer. In an era of bigger and bigger data, what you choose not to know matters just as much as what you do.

怎么办呢？这不仅仅是更好地保存旧数据的问题。更重要的是，这首先是确定什么值得保存的问题。一味积累不是什么答案。在数据越来越大的时代，选择不知道什么与选择知道什么同样重要。

1 statistic   

n.统计量；adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• Official statistics show real wages declining by 24%.官方统计数字表明实际工资下降了24%。
• There are no reliable statistics for the number of deaths in the battle.关于阵亡人数没有可靠的统计数字。

2 loom   

n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近

参考例句：

• The old woman was weaving on her loom.那位老太太正在织布机上织布。
• The shuttle flies back and forth on the loom.织布机上梭子来回飞动。

3 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

4 tempted   

v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词）

参考例句：

• I was sorely tempted to complain, but I didn't. 我极想发牢骚，但还是没开口。
• I was tempted by the dessert menu. 甜食菜单馋得我垂涎欲滴。

5 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

6 invalid   

n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的

参考例句：

• He will visit an invalid.他将要去看望一个病人。
• A passport that is out of date is invalid.护照过期是无效的。

7 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

8 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

9 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

10 structurally   

在结构上

参考例句：

• The house roof was (structurally) unsound. 这屋顶（结构）不牢固。
• Pinhole on shot-hole damage is never structurally significant. 针孔和蛀洞所造成的危害对结构的影响不大。

11 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。