Philosophy of Science IBA

Assignment 1

Paper: Leonelli, Sabina (2019). Data — from objects to

assets. Nature, 574, 317-20.

Name: Nina Ozsekerci – 2054759

Group members:
Maurits van Elteren,
Danny van de Pol,
Floris Sizoo,
Lars Vink

Date of submission: 24-09-2021

Date of tutorial #2: 30-09-2021

 Section 1

The main question mentioned in the paper investigated was “Why did ‘data’ get so big and what
shaped the movement towards this new adjustment of data management?”. Sabina Lionelli’s paper
discusses the place of data throughout the last 150 years including its collection, perception and
management. The discussion is interesting and important to understand because it captures the
changes of data usage and the idea of data through phases not only due to the accelerating constant
changes we see politically, socially and economically in the world of globalization but also to answer
the crucial question of who should be in charge of storing data and should it be revealed to the
public.

 Section 2

One of the main reasons given in the articles argued that all the years leading up to especially the
twentieth century resulted in a more unionized and compatible world that depended on each other
more than ever. Rise of nation states, liberal economy increasing demands of international trade
initiated the accelerating globalization which was given as the driving force to expand data
dependence and need for sophisticated approaches of quantification. This later developed by the
introduction of digitalized infrastructures for further data sharing and archiving. In fact it is clearly
mentioned that widespread data sharing is one of the key fundamentals to a better research. Alas,
the need for careful data labelling and management created various journals for publication of
datasets as well as specific guidelines for data management have been in the major investments of
data infrastructure. Therefore efficient data sharing in a comprehensive and global environment
resulted in new areas of research and science such as artificial intelligence. Therefore throughout 150
years data research took a deep grasp into diversifying the way data is collected, shared and stored.

 Section 3

One example used in the paper was regarding the subject of globalization of data collection and
analysis. The example explained that League of Nations Health Organization created a Permanent
Commission where drugs tests from 1924 were analyzed and monitored. By this example we can
argue that this step alone is one of the many forces that fueled information data to open up more
and more to the world to a larger population. By bringing in a large group of researchers,
administrators, merchants and politicians this created a more systematic and objective approach to
analyze data.