But a key difference is that ethnographic work critically assesses the role of the researchers as an explicit, expected part of the research process. If data science projects were truly determined by the data alone (sensor data, click data and so forth), then repeated analyses should yield identical results. They don't. More light has been shed on this recently and is captured by concepts like "p-hacking". Minimally, it's clear that data science processes could benefit from more documentation and critical reflection on the effect of the data scientist themselves. The ethnographer's ability to identify and explicate researcher biases and social pressures could be helpful. — https://www.epicpeople.org/data-science-and-ethnography/