The Petabyte Age: Making science obsolete...??

1 Terabyte = 1,000 Gigabytes; 1 Petabyte = 1000 Terabytes

Did you know that Google's servers process 1 Petabyte of data every 72 minutes?

A recent issue of WIRED magazine carries a series of articles on how the Petabyte Age is changing the world. While all of them make a good read, one in particular seems rather bold, to say the least...and has created a controversy of some sort...

The End of Theory: All models are wrong, science is obsolete!

Click on the link to read the full article and judge for yourself. The author suggests that today we have so much data and data processing (computing) power at our disposal that we don't need models (simplistic representations of reality) and theories (generalizations that broadly explain the logic behind the data and the models). Rather far-fetched, I would think.

Every scientist, researcher and statistician understands that mere correlation between data means nothing for explaining causation. Petabytes of data on how many times this article was read, by whom, from where and for how long will say nothing about the quality of the article or agreement / disagreement among the readers. Sure, it might provide some hints, but data is JUST data...and will always remain that.

Interpreting data and converting it into information requires wisdom, which comes from knowledge, which comes from all the theories and science that constantly keep evolving. Garbage In, Garbage Out... and the more garbage you put in, the more of it will come out UNLESS it is processed scientifically.