The tree methodology discussed in this book is a child of the computer age. Unlike many other
statistical procedures which were moved from pencil and paper to calculators and then to
computers, this use of trees was unthinkable before computers.
Binary trees give an interesting and often illuminating way of looking at data in classification or
regression problems. They should not be used to the exclusion of other methods. We do not claim
that they are always better. They do add a flexible nonparametric tool to the data analyst’s
arsenal.