Data Vs Pattern

Often times most of the data / variables that we come across appear random and we start taking decisions based on gut. If gut works , its great. However before bringing in the gut part , it might be sensible to stretch a bit and look at data carefully and examine the details.Some time, just by changing the our view, we might see patterns. well PCA is all about that. I don’t have to go that far to make this point. For example, if one looks at the current graph of sin(x) for some values of x, it looks like this:

The data points appear completely random. However just by tweaking the aspect ratio(x:y), the same data looks like this:

I tend to believe to that there are patterns everywhere and it all boils down to spending time with data and trying to understanding it carefully.However one also needs to be skeptical about all the patterns that one finds and have a null hypothesis that pattern is random, back test the pattern and then form an opinion. Instead of having a null hypothesis that data is random, it is better to have a null hypo that data pattern is random.