Coturnix' "obligatory reading of the day" brought me to this interesting essay on open science. I think it catches most of the most important idiosyncracies of the modern science business and offers some very promising avenues for change. However, I think it treats one crucial, important point only in passing: there currently are too many incentives not to share ideas and critical comments with the rest of the scientific community. There is the very real risk of being scooped, of critical comments coming back to haunt you at your next peer-reviewed submission or of an important person in a search committee branding you as 'trouble maker' because you criticized his paper on your blog. On top of that, there's absolutely zero credit to be had for any such activities. On the contrary, writing a blog such as this one can be seen as time wasted better spent writing papers or doing experiments. Apart from the question of whether the perfect scientist is the one who only spends his time writing papers and doing experiments, what incentives can one think of to provide for blogging, commenting, sharing? I think because all of science relies on creativity, information and debate, the overall value of blogging, commenting and sharing can hardly be overestimated, so what incentives can there be for the individual scientist? To be honest, I don't have many ideas. I don't even have two. I have one: these sorts of activities need to be aggregated somewhere where it can be used to show to others as a sign of quality, creativity, ingenuity, whatever. A place that can be used to build a reputation, where people can compete for having the most creative thoughts and sharpest minds. How to technically implement this, I have some ideas, but I consider none of them to be in a state worth considering, yet. That's pretty pathetic! What else is there?
18 Jul 08: 14:44
|
Build a reputation -- yes; build it by competing -- no! Science has too much damn competition already. What I think we need is a space that can demonstrate the power of community, the way Jean-Claude's progress shows what can happen when you *allow* collaborators to find you by working Openly. I'm thinking of a sort of "gift culture" where reputation grows as one contributes to the pool of ideas and projects -- reputation means respect in the community, respect in the community translates into opportunities for collaboration, these opportunities translate into papers being published, and so gradually the wider research community will see that there is an incentive for Open discussion.
These thoughts are all half-baked, it's just that your mention of competition hit one of my sore spots...
Anonymous
Guest
18 Jul 08: 14:46
|
Forgot to sign, too lazy to log in -- the last comment was me, Bill Hooker.
19 Jul 08: 06:12
|
I'm glad it hit your sore spot! I like your reply. And I most definitely agree that there is already too much competition in science now. However, if the competition for grants and positions remains as it is now, and reputation in a gift culture is one factor in obtaining grants or positions, then people will inevitably compete also for this reputation. Obviously, that's more in the long term, though and not immediately...
Submit comment
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the terms of the GNU GPL License.
feedburner.com
Anonymous
