Big data and the historical sciences: A critique

Social media, government, industry and science use data in the same way, through the pursuit of correlations in large data sets. As this critique shows, however, there is greater dialogue about the potential pitfalls of Big Data and the Big Data Cycle in non-historical science fields, such as medicine and advertising. Pitfalls, such as the Big Data Hubris, the Filter Bubble and correlation superseding causation, are discussed in relation to the historical sciences.