> this article above is being discussed on another list. haven't had time but
> for a skim, but something tells me that 1. this has probably already been
> discussed before (that is, goog didn't invent it) and/or 2. that the
> article's authors are confused as to how theory construction actually
> proceeds in the sciences.
The original article came up at slashdot and some other forums. I guess the author figures we can dispense with worrying about the causation leading to correlation. It was invented by whoever did something because it worked, without understanding why. I was using it yesterday with signal analysis. :-) Why anybody would want to as a scientific strategy, I don't know. I think it would take a lot of discipline to not come up with theory ("God did it" for starters).
We got skidillions of data, but that alone isn't going to tell you where else we should be looking for more, or what different kinds, etc. etc. Plus it's nice to be able to winnow down your options because it's usually expensive to get. It's not all nice and digitized and on the web. A little like bloggers vs. reporters.
This sounds like one of those dumbass things where computers make people believe weird stuff and then Wired publishes it.
-- Andy