Chuck Hollis calls Data Scientists “rock stars” and argues that they are “a fundamentally different profession with a different profile than the BI analysts that came before [them].  They’re more likely to have advanced degrees, frequently have a background in the sciences (vs. business) and they interact with data in more ways — and using different tools.”

Over at Vator they call them “rocket scientists” and “data junkies.” And an article in the November/December issue of the IEEE Intelligent Systems explores a “what if” scenario in which data scientists are criminals. No quotation marks.