Cameron Neylon: Time for total scientific openness

Note: Cameron Neylon is a biophysicist with an interest in how to make the internet more effective as a tool for science. He writes and speaks regularly on scholarly communication, the design of web based tools for research, and the need for policy and cultural change within and around the research community.


It's nice that ... lately, I see to be seeing more "humans" expressing themselves in the field that matter so much to us... "little people" who rely on the scientific communities (and their adjuncts) to actual be about what is right, proper, useful, constructive, and generally 'of service' to our world... rather than commercialism, politically expedience, and 'persuasion' of the self-serving kind....

The article "Camero n Neylon: Time for total scientific openness" I am pointing to here is the work of the above-mentioned scientist and blogger who it makes quite apparent, that not all researchers (corporate/government or otherwise), academicians, and perhaps even 'celebrity' talking heads are lost in a morass of ego-stroking opportunism...

WITHIN scientific circles there is a lot of chatter about "openness". As the reach of the web grows ever wider, scientists face increasing demands to share their data and results - not just with other scientists but with everybody.

The UK's Royal Society recognises the importance of the issue and recently set up a major study on openness. Should you care? Is it just an issue for academia, or is there a bigger picture? My view is that we should all care a great deal.

Aside from the direct attribution of the awareness of the 'importance' of openness to the UK's Royal Society; the sentiment is very true: We should care a great deal for this dialog and we should be strongly encouraging it.

If you care about the place of science in society or are worried about the quality of information on the web, then openness offers massive potential to engage people more deeply, educate them about how science works and increase the store of quality information on the web.

If you care about evidence-based policy then making that evidence available for criticism and investigation by any interested party, including those you disagree with, can only be a good thing.

Above all, you should care because science thrives on new ideas and critical analysis, wherever they come from....

I encourage you to visit his blog Science in the Open and give some time to thinking about the very important message of which his musings are part.

Consider this, dear readers: What kind of world could this become if we could actually, rightfully, and genuinely trust the information we discuss about;

1. Climate Change
   
2. Applied Agricultural technology
   
3. Bioengineering risks and benefits
   
4. Pharamcologcal efficacy
   
5. Economics and associated statistics
   
6. Evidence-based Medicine
   
7. Non-traditional medical information
   
8. Corporate collaboration at a supranational scale
   
9. Mass communication controls and Social engineering
   
10. 'Real' as opposed to expedient history
    
11. Globalization
    
12. Anthropoligical and historical "anomalous" evidence
    
13. Unexplained phenomena
    
14. Ecology and ecolgical load-bearing information
    
15. Education sciences
    
16. Exobiology
    
17. Medical Protocol development
    
18. Actuarial-table based social controls and policy development
    

... will that day ever come? Or will those who claim to "know the 'hidden' truth" continue demand ransom for the knowledge; while scientists keep "their" data from others to secure the social and academic currency it provides them?

Knowledge is power, hence the secretive nature of much scientific research, this may happen on a college level, openness and sharing.

On a governmental, corporate level, never going to happen.