Consider how much data is arriving every day from scientific satellites. Much of it is available for the amateur to go over if he wants to download and do whatever analysis he chooses. So much data is already archived that it would keep doctoral candidates in astronomy loaded with possible dissertations for hundreds of years. The data is just sitting, maybe once looked at for a purpose and then filed.
Yep, I’m still amazed though. I had a friend who started his own statistical consulting business after grad school. Part of his pitch was to tell potential clients that he could tell them what their data were trying to tell them — which was true, but it also involved pulling a little bit of wool over the client’s eyes. No matter how sophisticated your analysis and how powerful your computers are, if you’re not looking for exactly the right thing, you’re going to miss it (or may miss it).