Data-Centric Biology

Over the last two decades, digital access to data has revolutionized research methods and ways of doing science in the biological and biomedical fields. Prominent scientists have characterized this shift as leading to a new, "data-intensive" paradigm for research, encompassing innovative ways to produce, store, disseminate, and interpret huge masses of data. In this book Sabina Leonelli explores the epistemological challenges this poses to how life is researched and understood. By following how data travels across research contexts, and the role played by standards, theories, models, and human agency in shaping their evidential value, she shows the conditions under which digitally available data further our understanding of life. Turning to how the characteristics of data-intensive science bear on philosophical debates, Leonelli explores the shifting criteria for what counts as scientific evidence and how data are transformed into new knowledge. In short, she argues that a philosophical characterization of how data and knowledge move from one context to another is of fundamental importance to a productive philosophical understanding of contemporary scientific practices.