To Know, but Not Understand: David Weinberger on Science and Big Data

by David Weinberger, The Atlantic, Jan 3, 2012

In an edited excerpt from his new book, Too Big to Know, David Weinberger explains how the massive amounts of data necessary to deal with complex phenomena exceed any single brain’s ability to grasp, yet networked science rolls on.

… Now there is a literally immeasurable, continuous stream of climate data from satellites circling the earth, buoys bobbing in the ocean, and Wi-Fi-enabled sensors in the rain forest. … All this data and much, much more became worth recording once we could record it, once we could process it with computers, and once we could connect the data streams and the data processors with a network. How will we ever make sense of scientific topics that are too big to know? …

For full text of the article, visit To Know, but Not Understand: David Weinberger on Science and Big Data – Atlantic Mobile.

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