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John Weaver &#38; Thiago Ranniery (2020)Cultural Studies ↔  Critical Methodologies, 20(3), pp. 283-291 Abstract. This article focuses on Hallem Stevens’ work Life out of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics and stresses the important process of data generation and how this process has now become an issue, in some fields, beyond human control. We suggest the best way to approach the proliferation of data is to adopt an onto-epistemic position. We further explore the rise of an algorithmic society and the problem “gaps” created in date generation. We finish the article by exploring the fruitful ways Mark B. N. Hansen’s latest work, Feed Forward, plays in helping researchers understand the proliferation of data generation.Excerpt. "Alain Desrosières (2009, p. 312) raises a similar  question to St. Pierre’s when he asks “what is the purpose of the very  act of quantification and whom does it serve?” Like St. Pierre,  Desrosières’  question raises the issues of power. To what power structure does data  owe its allegiance? Of course, if data are meaningless, as Rosenberg and  Bowker suggest, then data owe its loyalty to no one and nothing, but  this cannot explain the obvious power plays  surrounding the manipulation of data in the name of profits. In fact,  Desrosières question may demonstrate that Rosenberg and Bowker’s  approaches to data are at best amoral and apolitical. From the beginning  of the development of statistics and numerical data,  state powers understood the importance of these tools for meaning  construction. The word statistics itself refers to state officials who  collected information to control and govern the populace (Hacking,  1990). Desrosières (2009) points out that “political  unification and statistical unification go hand in hand”(p. 318). From  the beginning then, statistics and numerical data were connected to  governing powers. “Quantification serves to provide tools for  comparisons,” Desrosières (2009) suggests, “to coordinate  them by standardizing them, and to control and stimulate players by  ranking their performances on normative scales” (p. 312). What areas of  the kingdom are more likely to be filled with crime; where should the  police force be located; which units in the military  are more effective and combat ready; where are the suicide rates higher  and why; what government officials are more efficient in carrying out  their duties; and which schools are better performing schools to get  students ready for the job market? All of these  are questions raised by institutions of power, in which each question  can be quantified to give a streamlined account of who and what performs  best. Data serve state powers to evaluate, judge, condemn, deploy,  honor, disgrace, monitor, regulate, and promote  its population. Data remind us all that we live in a society as points  on graphs, tables, reports, and numerical markings of all kinds. These  power configurations highlight the strange human and non-human  environments data have constructed and the power players  behind the databanks and algorithms hiding in the open."Link to the review