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Collecting Experiments: Making Big Data Biology
Databases have revolutionized nearly every aspect of our lives. Information of all sorts is being collected on a massive scale, from Google to Facebook and well beyond. But as the amount of information in databases explodes, we are forced to reassess our ideas about what knowledge is, how it is produced, to whom it belongs, and who can be credited for producing it. Every scientist working today draws on databases to produce scientific knowledge. Databases have become more common than microscopes, voltmeters, and test tubes, and the increasing amount of data has led to major changes in research practices and profound reflections on the proper professional roles of data producers, collectors, curators, and analysts. Collecting Experiments traces the development and use of data collections, especially in the experimental life sciences, from the early twentieth century to the present. It shows that the current revolution is best understood as the coming together of two older ways of knowing—collecting and experimenting, the museum and the laboratory. Ultimately, Bruno J. Strasser argues that by serving as knowledge repositories, as well as indispensable tools for producing new knowledge, these databases function as digital museums for the twenty-first century.
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Collecting Experiments: Making Big Data Biology
Databases have revolutionized nearly every aspect of our lives. Information of all sorts is being collected on a massive scale, from Google to Facebook and well beyond. But as the amount of information in databases explodes, we are forced to reassess our ideas about what knowledge is, how it is produced, to whom it belongs, and who can be credited for producing it. Every scientist working today draws on databases to produce scientific knowledge. Databases have become more common than microscopes, voltmeters, and test tubes, and the increasing amount of data has led to major changes in research practices and profound reflections on the proper professional roles of data producers, collectors, curators, and analysts. Collecting Experiments traces the development and use of data collections, especially in the experimental life sciences, from the early twentieth century to the present. It shows that the current revolution is best understood as the coming together of two older ways of knowing—collecting and experimenting, the museum and the laboratory. Ultimately, Bruno J. Strasser argues that by serving as knowledge repositories, as well as indispensable tools for producing new knowledge, these databases function as digital museums for the twenty-first century.
Databases have revolutionized nearly every aspect of our lives. Information of all sorts is being collected on a massive scale, from Google to Facebook and well beyond. But as the amount of information in databases explodes, we are forced to reassess our ideas about what knowledge is, how it is produced, to whom it belongs, and who can be credited for producing it. Every scientist working today draws on databases to produce scientific knowledge. Databases have become more common than microscopes, voltmeters, and test tubes, and the increasing amount of data has led to major changes in research practices and profound reflections on the proper professional roles of data producers, collectors, curators, and analysts. Collecting Experiments traces the development and use of data collections, especially in the experimental life sciences, from the early twentieth century to the present. It shows that the current revolution is best understood as the coming together of two older ways of knowing—collecting and experimenting, the museum and the laboratory. Ultimately, Bruno J. Strasser argues that by serving as knowledge repositories, as well as indispensable tools for producing new knowledge, these databases function as digital museums for the twenty-first century.
Bruno J. Strasser is professor at the University of Geneva and adjunct professor at Yale University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction Biology, Computers, Data Biology Transformed Naturalists vs. Experimentalists? The Laboratory and Experimentalism The Museum and Natural History Chapter One. Live Museums Microbes at the American Museum of Natural History The Industrialization of Mice Corn in an Agricultural Station Sharing Flies Viruses, Bacteria, and the Rise of Molecular Genetics Putting Stock Centers on the Federal Agenda Biological Collections Become Mainstream Chapter Two. Blood Banks Measuring Species, ca. 1900 Alan A. Boyden’s Serological Systematics A Museum in a Laboratory Between Field and Laboratory: Charles G. Sibley Collecting in the Field Hybridization, Not Invasion Chapter Three. Data Atlases Understanding How Proteins Work Cracking the Genetic Code From the Field to the Laboratory Margaret O. Dayhoff, Computers, and Proteins The Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure A Work of Compilation? The Gender of Collecting Research with the Atlas Whose Data? Whose Database? Chapter Four. Virtual Collections From Physical to Virtual Models The Systematic Study of Protein Structures The Creation of the Protein Data Bank The Natural History of Macromolecules Privacy, Priority, and Property A New Tool for Research Chapter Five. Public Databases Information Overload on the Horizon Margaret O. Dayhoff vs. Walter B. Goad Europe Takes the Lead Mobilizing the National Institutes of Health Collecting Data, Negotiating Credit and Access Distributing Data, Negotiating Ownership A Conservative Revolution Chapter Six. Open Science Databases, Journals, and the Gatekeepers of Scientific Knowledge Databases and the Production of Experimental Knowledge Sequence Databases, Genomics, and Computer Networks The Rise of Open Science Databases, Journals, and the Record of Science Conclusion The End of Model Organisms? The New Politics of Knowledge Archives Consulted Bibliography Notes Index
