'''Exploratory data anaysis'''.or '''(EDA)''', is the name given by [[John Tukey]] to that part of [[statistical practice]] concerned with reviewing, communicating and using [[data]] where there is a low level of knowledge about its [[cause system]]. It was so named by [[John Tukey]].
[[John Tukey|Tukey]] held that too much emphasis in [[statistics]] was placed on evaluating and testing given [[hypothesis|hypotheses]] ([[confirmatory data analysis]]) and that the balance was in need of redressing in favour of using [[data]] to suggest [[hypothesis|hypotheses]] to test. In particular, confusion of the two types of analysis and employing them on the same set of data can lead to [[bias (statistics)|bias]] owing to the effect of [[testing effects suggested by the data]].
