Big Data and reality

Autor: Ryan Shaw
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: Big Data & Society, Vol 2 (2015)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2053-9517
20539517
DOI: 10.1177/2053951715608877
Popis: DNA sequencers, Twitter, MRIs, Facebook, particle accelerators, Google Books, radio telescopes, Tumblr: what do these things have in common? According to the evangelists of “data science,” all of these are instruments for observing reality at unprecedentedly large scales and fine granularities. This perspective ignores the social reality of these very different technological systems, ignoring how they are made, how they work, and what they mean in favor of an exclusive focus on what they generate: Big Data. But no data, big or small, can be interpreted without an understanding of the process that generated them. Statistical data science is applicable to systems that have been designed as scientific instruments, but is likely to lead to confusion when applied to systems that have not. In those cases, a historical inquiry is preferable.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals