The author seems to have a very narrow view of &quot;data science&quot;. In the comments he criticizes all of machine learning as simply unprincipled revival of nonparametric curve estimation. While there&#x27;s much truth to the &quot;unprincipled revival&quot; accusation, some aspects of machine learning arose for good practicality-beats-purity software engineering rather than simple ignorance.<p>My interpretation of the term &quot;data science&quot; is much more in line with practicality of engineering rather than the purity of traditional statistics. To that end, Python is leagues ahead.