Arguments For Open Science
Some recent controversies around scientific publications illustrate the potential benefits of open science.
- Open access publication of research reports and data allow for more rigorous peer review
An article published by a team of NASA astrobiologists in 2010 in Science reported a new bacterium known as GFAJ-1 that was purported to metabolize arsenic (unlike any previously known species of lifeform). This finding, along with NASA's claim that the paper "will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life", was roundly criticized within the scientific community. Much of the scientific commentary and critique around this issue took place in public forums, most notably on Twitter, where hundreds of scientists and non-scientists created a hashtag community around the hashtag #arseniclife. University of British Columbia astrobiologist Rosie Redfield, one of the most vocal critics of the NASA team's research, also submitted a draft of a research report of a study that she and colleagues conducted which contradicted the NASA team's findings in arXiv, an open research repository, and called for peer review of both their research and the NASA team's original paper on her lab's research blog.
Read more about this topic: Open Science
Famous quotes containing the words arguments for, arguments, open and/or science:
“Compared to football, baseball is almost an Oriental game, minimizing individual stardom, requiring a wide range of aggressive and defensive skills, and filled with long periods of inaction and irresolution. It has no time limitations. Football, on the other hand, has immediate goals, resolution on every single play, and a lot of violence—itself a highlight. It has clearly distinguishable hierarchies: heroes and drones.”
—Jerry Mander, U.S. advertising executive, author. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, ch. 15, Morrow (1978)
“Yesterday the Electoral Commission decided not to go behind the papers filed with the Vice-President in the case of Florida.... I read the arguments in the Congressional Record and can’t see how lawyers can differ on the question. But the decision is by a strictly party vote—eight Republicans against seven Democrats! It shows the strength of party ties.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Luxury, then is a way of
being ignorant, comfortably
An approach to the open market
of least information.”
—Imamu Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.”
—J.G. (James Graham)