Are characteristic practices of modern data-driven science—the compiling of databases, quantitative analysis of large data sets, standard graphical representations of data patterns—a product of the computer era? I explore this question through a comparative analysis of nineteenth- and twentieth-century data approaches in paleontology. Drawing on examples of large-scale quantitative data collection and analysis of both paper-based taxonomic compendia and eventual electronic databases, I argue that, in fact, paleontologists engaged in what we might call “databasing” long before computers arrived on the scene. The arrival of computers in paleontology, I argue, fits closely into a pattern that Jon Agar has described whereby preexisting practices and epistemologies are adapted to new technologies. However, I also attend to the ways in which changes in the technology and material culture of data between the nineteenth and later twentieth centuries affected the “moral economy” of data. Each era faced particular challenges for coping with “data friction,” and new technologies and materialities of data had consequences for the professional division of labor in data-driven taxonomic sciences.

中文翻译：

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计算机之前的数据库？

现代数据驱动科学的典型实践——数据库的编译、大数据集的定量分析、数据模式的标准图形表示——是计算机时代的产物吗？我通过对 19 世纪和 20 世纪古生物学数据方法的比较分析来探讨这个问题。通过对纸质分类纲要和最终的电子数据库进行大规模定量数据收集和分析的例子，我认为，事实上，古生物学家在计算机出现之前很久就从事了我们可能称之为“数据库”的工作。我认为，古生物学中计算机的出现与乔恩·阿加 (Jon Agar) 所描述的模式非常吻合，即先前存在的实践和认识论适用于新技术。然而，我还关注 19 世纪和 20 世纪后期数据的技术和物质文化的变化如何影响数据的“道德经济”。每个时代都面临着应对“数据摩擦”的特殊挑战，数据的新技术和物质性对数据驱动的分类科学的专业分工产生了影响。