Are there any obvious relationships between data scientists’ (DS) work and moral virtues?  Definitely.  Moral virtues are the guidance for all type of professions or works–from politicians to the garbage collectors.  It does not matter what the profession is–without moral virtues used as a guidance consciously in the work place will only produce garbage.  It is particularly important in the DS professions for their work, or research results and recommendations will be used by the policy makers.  Therefore, if one works with tainted data, then the results are obvious.  The jargon of data integrity is often used in the DS profession.

Make thing extremely important in the DS profession is that the amount of data or observations that one usually works with is often gigantic.  It is not abnormal if a DS works with million observations to just come out with one estimated regression equation.  Therefore, there is a chance that users will understand the whole research process.  For example, if data integrity has been compromised by omitting or data altering to produce a (more) favorable result?  This is particularly critical in the pharmaceutical company–in the clinical trials for new drugs or drug improvement efforts.  That is the reasons why the FDA’s approval on new drugs can take years, expensive, involved meticulous steps and documentation of evidences in the process of the trials.  Unfavorable results will bring the share of the company down to the sink, but the reverse is true for a success trial.

Note that any clinical trials for the new drugs are heavily regulated by the FDA.  What about in other industry, say education?  How often data were manipulated or change so that favorable results can be reported?  This is a critical issue when federal or state awards any funding based on “performance” metrics such as retention or graduation rate for under-represented students’ group?  Unlike in the pharmaceutical area, the education industry may have been regulated in reporting, but it certainly less rigorous than those in the pharma industry.  The question is this?  Who is going to check in detail if certain minority group enrollment has or has not been compromised?  Here is the question that related to moral virtues.  As a DS or IRI expert will you take the risk to alter the data sets or observations, because someone else wants you to?  Your (level of) consciousness of moral virtues will guide you on such a situation.  Hint: There are 4 levels related to moral virtues.