We live in the age of data and the social sciences are becoming more data-driven. The promise of data-driven research is to let data speak for itself, without relying on problematic and contested social theories. This philosophy of science project challenges this idea by noting that data is not yet evidence as such, but must be interpreted as such in light of theories of the phenomena it is derived from, and having reliable data does not yet amount to having strong evidence. The project develops these key insights in collaboration with current data-driven social scientific research projects with the aim of improving 1) the usability data-driven predictions 2) the integration of multiple data sets and different kinds of data and 3) the theoretical interpretability of data-driven results.

2023

2027