what do you think of this? "By contrast, early bioinformatics work was almost invariably founded on biological concepts from the onset. A biological issue was raised and then a technique to address that issue was presented. That is, theoretical biology was the foundation on which [early] bioinformatics was built. I fear this is being lost in the mass-data and technology-hype driven bioinformatics. It seems to me that unless companies and research groups are careful many will waste time and money “stamp collecting and cataloging”. Certainly the organized data is useful, but only if it is applied with biological principles." - Attila Csordas from Bookmarklet

I think one downside of the 'data deluge', is that it's easy to get divorced from (biological) reality and treat the data as numbers. But of course, this can be said of any field where there is large amount of data. - Rajarshi Guha

It could also be considered a challenge. How do you get meaning from all that data - Deepak Singh

But that's the point - just playing with the numbers doesn't necessarily get you to meaning (though it might). The biological context is vital - in absence of that, what is the value of any conclusions? - Rajarshi Guha

Rajarshi, not disagreeing at all. But to be able to reach those conclusions you need to learn how to manage that data (in a meaning biological context), which in itself is a challenge - Deepak Singh from IM

and the response http://mndoci.com/2009... ... well not exactly a response - Deepak Singh

I wonder if the robots know what they're looking at? - Deepak Singh

Duncan, both :), but you can think of his stamp collection as a way of managing his data. Those days you could wear both hats - Deepak Singh

I would be happier if this post targeted a certain, perhaps quite large, class of bioinformaticians, rather than bioinformatics. My interest in becoming a computational biologist has always been driven by my fascination with theoretical biology. My leisure reading is dominated by popular expositions of biology. I read textbooks such as _Evolution_, _Ecology_, and _Brock Biology of Microorganisms_. My most recent book purchase was _Laws, Theories, and Patterns in Ecology_. But theory cannot develop properly without enough data. There's already a problem with some experimental biologists distrusting or dismissing computational biologists. Posts like this that tar all bioinformaticians with a broad brush just make this problem worse. - Ruchira S. Datta

A number of comments in this thread do not reflect what was written in my article. I would encourage people to ask me at my blog site if you have concerns or are confused. I did not write "data organisation is a waste of time/money" and I *certainly* did not "tar all bioinformaticians". (I do not "tar" people; implying that I did offends me.) Ruchira: I would encourage you to re-read the article, you have it the wrong way around on several points. Best wishes to everyone! - Grant Jacobs

Grant, I'm very sorry to have offended you. - Ruchira S. Datta

Ruchira, I accept your apology, but I'm not so much "offended" as concerned at being misrepresented. This article has been fairly widely read and, bad practice that it is, many people on the internet unfortunately judge an article through commentary on it, esp. if the article is long. I've added a comment to the article on the blog to try draw attention to some points that may confuse readers, esp. as some are reading this in the present day, not from the time it was written. - Grant Jacobs

Grant: it's really good to see you here, every time I cite somebody living here I have the hidden motive to draw the author into this community, get her/him involved, make him/her part of a 'community of equals'. The paragraph cited is itself a good source to initiate a standalone conversation here w/o reflecting to everything in your article. That sad, I encourage people to continue this conversation here. :) - Attila Csordas