Beschreibung:
<p>The term “Big Data” may serve as a useful marker for particular kinds of questions, practices, and relationships for collecting and using data. Some of the ways of talking about Big Data suggest that there might be something, if not entirely new, then at least importantly different at work in Big Data practices and problem-solving approaches. By using three examples taken from the biomedical sciences—artificial neural networks, the construction of reference genomes, and the usage of the Ensembl database—this essay shows how Big Data practices cannot be understood as mere scaling up of pen-and-paper methods but constitute qualitatively different kinds of knowledge-making practices. These practices are characterized particularly by types of human-computer interaction that are labeled “a feeling for the algorithm.”</p>