[CPLX]

> Exactly. I have a lot of acquaintances who self-describe as data scientists.

My understanding is that "data scientist" is a term meaning "statistics person who lives in San Francisco"

[ForHackernews]

Alternatively, "Does statistics, but on a Macbook"

[Perceval]

I know you're joking, but Wizard (http://www.wizardmac.com/) for OS X is a really nice place to start before delving into SPSS, Stata, and R.

[hnnewguy]

Or, another version, "programmer who read an inferential statistics tutorial online".