Are today's "data scientists" really just software devs who have specialized in digging around in data and using various data mining algorithms with only a superficial understanding of their inner workings?
Ideally, no. We're witnessing an overuse of the name "data scientist" (which has its own problems, but that's another story). There's a non-trivial difference between a data scientist who understands the theory used for the EM algorithm or belief propagation, and a "data scientist" who is performing large-scale data analysis using various data mining tools.
Unfortunately, they're both getting lumped together. To become one of the former, you need graduate-level maths, CS, and statistics, while this certificate caters to the latter.
Ideally, no. We're witnessing an overuse of the name "data scientist" (which has its own problems, but that's another story). There's a non-trivial difference between a data scientist who understands the theory used for the EM algorithm or belief propagation, and a "data scientist" who is performing large-scale data analysis using various data mining tools.
Unfortunately, they're both getting lumped together. To become one of the former, you need graduate-level maths, CS, and statistics, while this certificate caters to the latter.