I’d be interested in more thoughts on your comment that you expect that data will be the most important output of scientific work. Doesn’t this imply that scientists will just turn into mindless data generating machines?
Generating data, in my opinion, is the most important scientific process. It requires ingenuity and skill to design & execute experiments and generate high-value data. While I still think that data interpretation and the narrative-based communication are important, the current system places too much emphasis on the narrative and much of valuable data are lost (or misinterpreted) when they don't fit the scope of a publishable narrative. So by explicitly evaluating the scientific value of underlying data, we can focus our efforts on designing & generating data that are most impactful to scientific progress.
Interesting! I like that perspective, but I think it applies more to fundamental wet lab biology than other fields. For example, in my field of public health microbiology, I would say that interpretation is still more important. Although, of course you are limited in what you can interpret by what data you have collected.
I’d be interested in more thoughts on your comment that you expect that data will be the most important output of scientific work. Doesn’t this imply that scientists will just turn into mindless data generating machines?
Generating data, in my opinion, is the most important scientific process. It requires ingenuity and skill to design & execute experiments and generate high-value data. While I still think that data interpretation and the narrative-based communication are important, the current system places too much emphasis on the narrative and much of valuable data are lost (or misinterpreted) when they don't fit the scope of a publishable narrative. So by explicitly evaluating the scientific value of underlying data, we can focus our efforts on designing & generating data that are most impactful to scientific progress.
Interesting! I like that perspective, but I think it applies more to fundamental wet lab biology than other fields. For example, in my field of public health microbiology, I would say that interpretation is still more important. Although, of course you are limited in what you can interpret by what data you have collected.