Data Centrism and the Core of Data Science as a Scientific Discipline

Data science is one of the most significant developments in computing in the 21st century. It is also described as a discipline in the making, drawing principles, methods and tools from established fields like computer science, statistics, science, business, politics, and any domain with adequate data. What are data science’s underlying principles and techniques (models, methods) that are applicable across different use cases and fields of application? What novel aspect of science underlies this emerging discipline? We argue that it is data centrism – the reliance on data itself, in mindset, methods and products – that makes data science more than the sum of its parts, as this is not done in any other discipline.