All raw means is scene-referred data. The idea that somehow raw means "raw" data from the sensor is an often repeated idea, but unfortunately is completely nonsense. Modern sensors do on-chip noise reduction, they can be programmed to give data in all kind of formats and with different processing done to it. The same sensor used in different cameras can have different ISO. The same sensor used in different cameras can produce different RAW files even at the same ISO. Not just in the sense of a different file format, in the sense of different data in the file, from the exact same sensor, but programmed differently.

Source? There are lossless and lossy transformations. In many scientific contexts raw implies no lossy transformations in terms of information.

"scene-referred data", as opposed to... something consciously edited?