{"id":4277,"date":"2026-10-05T01:07:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/?p=4277"},"modified":"2026-10-05T01:07:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:07:55","slug":"prediction-or-inference-tool-or-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/?p=4277","title":{"rendered":"Prediction or inference, tool or model"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/50-Years-of-Data-Science.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of 50 Years of Data Science.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-e25e505d-beca-4972-8709-e3f16aacab44\" href=\"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/50-Years-of-Data-Science.pdf\">50 Years of Data Science<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/50-Years-of-Data-Science.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-e25e505d-beca-4972-8709-e3f16aacab44\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The \u201cgenerative modeling\u201d30 culture seeks to develop<br>stochastic models which fit the data, and then make inferences<br>about the data-generating mechanism based on the structure of<br>those models. Implicit in their viewpoint is the notion that there<br>is a true model generating the data, and often a truly \u201cbest\u201d way<br>to analyze the data. Breiman thought that this culture encom<br>passed 98% of all academic statisticians.<br>The \u201cpredictive modeling\u201d culture31 prioritizes prediction<br>and is estimated by Breiman to encompass 2% of academic<br>statisticians\u2014including Breiman\u2014but also many computer<br>scientists and, as the discussion of his article shows, important<br>industrial statisticians. Predictive modeling is effectively silent<br>about the underlying mechanism generating the data, and<br>allows for many different predictive algorithms, preferring to<br>discuss only accuracy of prediction made by different algorithm<br>on various datasets. The relatively recent discipline of machine<br>learning, often sitting within computer science departments,<br>is identified by Breiman as the epicenter of the predictive<br>modeling culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">LLM prefers tool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201cgenerative modeling\u201d30 culture seeks to developstochastic models which fit the data, and then make inferencesabout the data-generating mechanism based on the structure ofthose models. Implicit in their viewpoint is the notion that thereis a true model generating the data, and often a truly \u201cbest\u201d wayto analyze the data. Breiman thought that this culture encompassed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/?p=4277\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Prediction or inference, tool or model&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4279,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4277\/revisions\/4279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softbeam.net\/hobby\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}