1.2 Data Frames and Indexing
1.2.2 DataFrame Indexing
In the next part, we work towards exploring and visualising real-life datasets using Python and Pandas and query questions about racial bias in death sentences. Before we can explore real-life datasets, we need to discuss a couple of more advanced Python constructs. First, indexes of data frames.
To introduce Pandas indexes, we will use the famous iris dataset, which every data analyst will know. It contains observations about flowers/irises. The details can be found here: https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/iris.
Read up on the history of the dataset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_flower_data_set. It was published by a famous statistician called Ronald Fisher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher), who was also a eugenist. It is important to know about this dark history of statistics, too. Check out the Wikipedia entries for more information.
In the notebook in Google Colab, we will learn about the different ways of viewing this dataset with Pandas.
REFERENCES
- Iris flower data set. (2023). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iris_flower_data_set
- Ronald Fisher. (2023). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ronald_Fisher