Displayr Machine Learning: Pruning Decision Trees

Machine learning is a problem of trade-offs. The classic issue is overfitting versus underfitting. Overfitting happens when a model memorizes its training data so well that it is learning noise on top of the signal. Underfitting is the opposite: the model is too simple to find the patterns in the data. Simplicity versus accuracy is a similar consideration. Do you want a model that can fit onto one sheet of paper and be understood by a broad audience?