Web 2.0 and the ever elusive balance between information explosion and data mining

Abstract

In a fascinating tussle of perspectives in Volume 6 and issue no 3 of april 2008 Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Martin A Nuñez and Gregory M Crustinger enlist ways to brace up with the recent literature. They advocate that PhD students should choose a well studied system to have better chances of success. On the other side of this fascinating tussle Daniel Simberloff and Nathan J Sanders agree with there enthusiastic case and approaches for bracing up with the recent literature. However, they disagree with the play safe strategy of start-ups in ecology and evolution.For me this tussle of perspectives is really fascinating. It underlines the story of our times. In the times of information explosion, should we concentrate on mining this information for knowledge or should we keep adding to this information explosion. This dilemma fits well in the context of the tussle by a quote from Nassim Nicholas Taleb “ It is almost impossible these days to finish PhD without excessive intellectual curiosity and it is impossible to get a faculty position without narrowly specializing in a chosen field ”.Here in this letter, I want to harmonize the two perspectives by arguing that coexistence of information explosion and data mining is possible. We should strive for that ever elusive balance and I discuss below how Web 2.0 will enable it. Web 2.0, still in its infancy already shows promising results and I discuss below these usages.

Knowledge does not explode but increases linearly over time

“…This question has been raised, but no answer has been given due to the di culty of measuring knowledge 12 . Some studies indicate that the network structure may potentially balance information explosion and knowledge mining 29 . Developing such an idea, the recently proposed knowledge quanti cation index (KQI) 30 provides a metric for knowledge by conceptualizing knowledge as a network structure, which embodies the certainty of information the structure brings.…”