To the uninitiated, the job of a data scientist probably doesn’t seem all that exciting, and certainly, it doesn’t seem like the kind of career where there would be too many occupational hazards that could pose a risk to your well being.

But these assumptions are wrong. All told, the job of a data scientist is one of the most diverse careers around – these days, pretty much every organization across every industry needs someone to crunch the facts and figures that they collect, and with that job comes a large degree of responsibility.

One of the problems with responsibility is that it also carries an element of risk – as the following unfortunate geniuses were to find the hard way.

A War Hero Persecuted

Our story begins with one Alan Mathison Turing, a man who is widely regarded as the father of modern computer science and artificial intelligence for the breakthroughs he made in algorithms and computation.

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Turing, who worked in the UK’s top secret Bletchley Park, its war-time codebreaking center, is often said to have shortened the duration of World War II by as much as two years, thanks to his unique skills in cryptanalysis. Turing single-handedly devised numerous techniques for cracking previously impenetrable German ciphers that had confounded some of the UK’s brightest minds. The most famous of these was his electromechanical ‘bombe’, which was able to discover the settings for the Nazi’s Enigma machine.

Alan Turing, cryptographer and the father of modern computer science

Sadly for Turing, he didn’t receive the kind of recognition that perhaps he would have hoped for. Rather than being honored for his contributions to the war effort, Turing was actually persecuted once authorities discovered that he was gay.

Prosecuted and humiliated, Turing was given the option of prison or chemical castration for his ‘crimes’. He chose the latter, but being in disgrace due to his conviction, his security clearances were removed and Turing was no longer allowed to continue his cryptographic work at GCHQ, the UK’s signals intelligence agency established after the war.

Turing never recovered from this humiliation, and spent the remaining two years of his life continuing his work in the confines of his own home, until, driven to despair by his treatment, he eventually committed suicide.

The Price Of Getting It Wrong…

Big data has brought many advantages to the modern world, especially when it comes to the art of prediction. Retailers, for example, analyze data in an effort to predict their customer’s behavior, whilst meteorologists these days are more accurate than they’ve ever been before, thanks to the data they receive from hi-tech weather satellites.

One of the more ambitious projects in recent times saw a team of Italian scientists attempt to use seismological data they had gathered to see if they could predict earthquakes before they take place.

Italian scientists attempted to predict the risk of a major earthquake

Following a series of minor shocks in the city of L’Aquila, in early 2009, authorities gave the go ahead for the scientists to establish a risk-assessment committee and investigate the tremors, to see if they could establish whether or not a major shock was likely to take place. Now, earthquake prediction, for all our technology and data analysis capabilities, remains somewhat hit and miss – and in this case, the scientists got it wrong.

On March 30, 2009, the committee publically announced that the minor tremors were “not necessarily a precursor to a larger event”, and stated that they didn’t think there would be any major quakes soon.

Unfortunately for them, just one week later, L’Aquila was hit by a powerful quake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale. The resulting carnage saw 308 people lose their lives, making the quake Italy’s deadliest natural disaster for almost 30 years.

For the scientists, their predictions were to have disastrous consequences on a personal level too – just this week, seven of them were tried and convicted of manslaughter for ‘misleading’ the public, and jailed for six years each.

The Marconi Deaths

For all the good that big data does in the world today, there’s a much shadier side to the business as well. The defense business to be precise.

As military technology evolves to make extensive use of computerized systems, defense contractors around the world are hiring data scientists in their droves to help them develop ever more sophisticated harbingers of doom.

Working for an established company like Marconi Electronic Systems (MES), (previously GEC-Marconi) might seem like a good career move for budding data scientists at first glance, but they’d be wise to think twice if ever they’re offered such an opportunity.

During the 1980’s GEC-Marconi was at the forefront of numerous highly sensitive projects for clients including the US military, the UK military, and other western governments. Some of the projects it worked on included the computer-based weapons systems on the Type 23 frigates used by the Royal Navy, and the AI.24 (Foxhunter), a radar system developed especially for the UK’s Panavia Tornado fighter jets.

GEC-Marconi’s scientists worked on dozens of top secret projects for the military

GEC-Marconi’s biggest project however was the so-called ‘Sting Ray’ project, better known as Star Wars – a missile shield that would be capable of protecting the United States from nuclear attack by shooting down enemy missiles before they could hit their targets.

Sounds like an exciting project, right? But sadly, for an worryingly high number of scientists, their work on the Star Wars project didn’t have a happy ending.

From 1982 to 1988, at least 25 GEC Marconi scientists turned up dead in mysterious circumstances, most of them having apparently committed suicide, after working on projects related to Star Wars.

Among the dead were Professor Keith Bowden, a noted supercomputer expert who died in a car mysterious car accident; Vimal Dajibhai, a computer software engineer who apparently left work and drove 100 miles away from his home in London to Bristol, where he threw himself from a bridge; and Arshad Sharif, a satellite engineer, who most horrifically placed a rope around his neck, tied the other end to a tree, got in his car and drove off into the sunset.

Following each death, police would typically offer plausible but unconfirmed explanations for the apparent suicides or accidents, but in almost every case, family members and friends of the deceased insisted that they had seen no signs of depression. Several UK MPs voiced their concern too, demanding a government inquiry into the deaths (none ever took place).

For its part, the UK Ministry of Defense denied that the scientists had been working on Star Wars or any other classified projects, and insisted that it had no reason to believe the deaths were in any way connected.

Meanwhile, to this day, Marconi has refused to make any comment whatsoever.