In 2012, the Harvard Business Review caused a stir by calling data scientist "the sexiest job of the 21st century." 1 The denomination "data scientist" refers to a profession that makes sense of the vast amount of big data. However, scientists, statisticians, computer scientists, librarians, and other professions have been analyzing and "making sense" of data for ages. As such, the term "data science" is not new and can be traced back to 1962 when John W. Tukey published a book titled The Future of Data Analysis. 2 In his book, Tukey, one of the most influential statisticians of the 20th century, suggested that statistics is "pure mathematics," but data analysis is "intrinsically an empirical science," and, therefore, it should take the characteristics of science rather than mathematics. 2 As such, Tukey acknowledged that the two are related but are separate disciplines, and to make progress in data analysis, it is important to focus on the tools and attitudes.Today we're witnessing explosive growth in the field. This increase can be attributed to the growing amount of data generated by digital activities in our lives. According to the International Data Corporation, more than 59 zettabytes of data were captured in 2020, and the number is expected to increase with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 26%. 3 Data science enables companies not only to understand data from multiple sources but also to enhance decision making. As a result, data science is widely used in almost every industry, including health care, finance, marketing, banking, city planning, and more. With advances in technology, new approaches to the field, and people's positive attitudes toward data science, there is every reason to believe that the field will continue to grow in the future. WHAT IS DATA SCIENCE?The term data science is so widely used today that its definition has become blurry. Some associate it with computer science and some with statistics; most frequently, it is linked to machine learning (ML) and data mining. 4 ML deals with algorithms for extracting patterns from data, while data mining pertains to the analysis of structured

Exactly a year ago, we delved into the rise and appeal of data science in this same column. 1 Now, we look to see if the prediction holds.