Briefly (just about out the door for Whistler), this article by Google researchers is worth a read: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data. There is a lot in it with which I agree - especially the stuff on mining tables (my thesis was on Information Extraction from Tables). However, keep in mind a few points when you read it:
- Data may be unreasonably effective, but effective at what?
- Despite all the ontology nay sayers, a big chunk of our world is structured due to the well organized, systematic and predictable ways in which industry, society and even biology creates stuff.
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Data with no theory is all very well, but reasoning cannot be done without a world of semantic objects.
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