Any field of study followed by the word “science”, so goes the old wheeze, is not really a science, including computer science, climate science, police science, and investment science. And then there is the saying, “when sex is used to pitch something besides sex, someone is trying to get in your back pocket rather than the front.” If both of these are true, then Thomas Davenport and D.J. Patil’s rather hyperbolic declaration that the “data scientist is the sexiest job of the 21st century....