eScience and the need for data standards in the life sciences: in pursuit of objectivity rather than truth

Abstract

Referring to European history of natural sciences as an example, I discuss the relation between development of standards and the emergence of new epistemic virtues. I distinguish standards relating to scientific argumentation from standards relating to data production. The former are based on truth-seeking epistemic virtues and use criteria of logical coherence and empirical grounding. They are important for the justification of an explanatory hypothesis. Data and metadata standards, on the other hand, concern the data record itself and all steps and actions taken during data production and are based on virtues of objectivity. In the second part I focus on data and metadata standards and argue that, in order to meet the requirements of eScience, the specification of the currently popular minimum information checklists should be complemented to cover four aspects: (i) content standards, which increase reproducibility and operational transparency of data production, (ii) concept standards, which increase the semantic transparency of the terms used in data records, (iii) nomenclatural standards, which provide stable and unambiguous links between the terms used and their underlying definitions or their real referents, and (iv) format standards, which increase compatibility and computer-parsability of data records. I discuss the role of scientific terminology for standardizing data and the need for using semantically standardized and formalized data-reporting languages in the form of controlled vocabularies and ontologies for establishing content standards for data in the life sciences. Finally I comment on the necessity of community participation in the development and application of standards and in making data openly available.

Key words:

• concept standard
• content standard
• epistemic virtue
• eScience
• format standard
• nomenclatural standard
• objectivity
• truth

Acknowledgements

I thank Peter Grobe for reading and criticizing an earlier draft of this manuscript. I also thank Hilmar Lapp and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive critique and competent comments. It goes without saying, however, that I am solely responsible for all the arguments and statements in this paper. I am also grateful to the taxpayers of Germany.

Associate Editor: Elliot Shubert