> We've been over this before, but yes, that's a long-standing tendency, but I'm certain the Internet has made it worse. Nick Carr cites oodles of studies on what it's done to our thinking habits.
I liked this piece by Jim Crutchfield, which is a slightly different take on the issue:
<http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/10-12-033.pdf>
"Let’s take stock. We have two trends, each driven by inexorably improving technology. On the one hand, we have Data Literalism born of the Data Deluge: All we need is data. “Data describes nature”, full stop. This rides tandem with the skepticism experimentalists hold of theory: “In any case, theory leaves out essential details of Nature and is, perforce, incomplete.” Its a short step to the production of large data sets becoming a goal unto itself. On the other hand, we have Computationalism born of high-performance computing: A computer code is a theory of the phenomenon it simulates; the programmer understands the mechanisms that produce the natural system’s behavior; and to be believable a simulation model must include all of a phenomenon’s detailed components.
"In short, Data Literalism conflates science with data gathering and Computationalism conflates it with detailed simulation. Where is understanding in all of this? With Data Literalism pressing in from the side of experiment and Computationalism attempting an eclipse from the technology side, we are poised to squeeze out the path to understanding through theory. This is the challenge."