Knowledge Discovery in Bioinformatics. Data Mining Significant Patterns in Epigenetics and Phylogenetics Data

Mediocristan: the province dominated by the mediocre, with few extreme successes or failures. No single observation can meaningfully affect the aggregate. The bell curve is grounded in Mediocristan. There is a qualitative difference between Gaussians and scalable laws, much like gas and water. Narrative discipline: the discipline that consists in fitting a convincing and well-sounding story to the past. Opposed to experimental discipline. Narrative fallacy: our need to fit a story or pattern to a series of connected or disconnected facts. The statistical application is data mining. Nerd knowledge: the belief that what cannot be Platonized and studied does not exist at all, or is not worth considering. There even exists a form of skepticism practiced by the nerd. Platonic fold: the place where our Platonic representation enters into contact with reality and you can see the side effects of models. Platonicity: the focus on those pure, well-defined, and easily discernible objects like triangles, or more social notions like friendship or love, at the cost of ignoring those objects of seemingly messier and less tractable structures ...»