1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136700703321

Autore

Leonelli Sabina

Titolo

Data-Centric Biology : A Philosophical Study / / Sabina Leonelli

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago : , : University of Chicago Press, , [2016]

©2016

ISBN

0-226-41650-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)

Classificazione

WC 3420

Disciplina

570.285

Soggetti

Biology - Data processing - Philosophy

Biology - Research - Philosophy

Knowledge, Theory of

Biology - Research - Sociological aspects

Research - Philosophy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2016.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Making Data Travel: Technology and Expertise -- 2. Managing Data Journeys: Social Structures -- 3. What Counts as Data? -- 4. What Counts as Experiment? -- 5. What Counts as Theory? -- 6. Researching Life in the Digital Age -- 7. Handling Data to Produce Knowledge -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In recent decades, there has been a major shift in the way researchers process and understand scientific data. Digital access to data has revolutionized ways of doing science in the biological and biomedical fields, leading to a data-intensive approach to research that uses innovative methods to produce, store, distribute, and interpret huge amounts of data. In Data-Centric Biology, Sabina Leonelli probes the implications of these advancements and confronts the questions they pose. Are we witnessing the rise of an entirely new scientific epistemology? If so, how does that alter the way we study and understand life-including ourselves? Leonelli is the first scholar to use a study of contemporary data-intensive science to provide a philosophical analysis of the epistemology of data. In analyzing the rise, internal dynamics, and potential impact of data-centric biology,



she draws on scholarship across diverse fields of science and the humanities-as well as her own original empirical material-to pinpoint the conditions under which digitally available data can further our understanding of life. Bridging the divide between historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science, Data-Centric Biology offers a nuanced account of an issue that is of fundamental importance to our understanding of contemporary scientific practices.