Big Data -- Does It Make The End Of The Theorist?

Are computers going to actually become capable of understanding subjects like human history and literature? Is Big Data going to make your theorist "useless" much like the internal combustion engine made the use of horses as energy drivers obsolete?

Ian Steadman of Wired takes a look at this and draws a number of important conclusions...

1.  Big Data (and the processing power of supercomputers) and better analyses tools mean that massive volumes of data can now be processed within very short time frames. Once areas that have been restricted to the theorist can be treated as a big data problem, they could be analyzed as such with often very remarkable (or rather interesting results).

2. Whereas previous approaches to analyses depended on starting with a hypothesis and then stepping out to prove or disprove, Big Data gives the researcher the opportunity to spot real patterns that have nothing to do with previous bias. In other words, the hypothesis follows analyses and NOT the other way round. Seemingly unconnected data sets can eventually turn up interesting patterns that couldn't have been possible otherwise.   Read other conclusions here...