Inspiring Imagination In Data Science: Qualitative Profiling

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable" John Kenneth Galbraith Predictive modeling and traditional ratemaking is an exercise of forecasting the future, whether directly or indirectly (indirectly as generalizing historical lessons to the future). But is such forecasting so hopeless as being same as seeing into a crystal ball? The advantage of data scientist and actuaries is their close in contact with other business professionals. That means leverage to obtain, generate and apply a lot of expert judgment to try to overcome the shortcomings of quantitative modeling. Perhaps that is why such methods have been so successful over time. 'Data scientist' and'actuary' will be used synonymously here.