<p>I so wanted this to happen!! :D</p>
<p><a href=“http://fqxi.org/community/forum.php?action=topic&id=72[/url]”>http://fqxi.org/community/forum.php?action=topic&id=72</a></p>
<p><a href=“Nature Precedings”>Nature Precedings;
<p>
</p>
<p>==
<a href=“http://fqxi.org/community/forum.php?action=topic&id=59[/url]”>http://fqxi.org/community/forum.php?action=topic&id=59</a></p>
<p>wow, this is always what i wanted to see in a forum</p>
<p>bloody hell - these are posters and presentations, not actual research articles</p>
<p>IMO journal articles should be replaced with online forums – too many scientists feel the need to make their research as complete as possible before showing it to other people, retarding academic progress and discouraging collaboration. How great would it be if you could just go online and post a message saying “oh, I just ran these gels and I got these results, what do you guys think?” instead of spending six months making sure the results were perfect and submitting it to some journal that may or may not accept it?</p>
<p>It would
(a) substantially reduce the threat of people “scooping” each other because if results were reported at the time of their creation, it’d be very clear who did what. Plus, you’d actually know if someone from Singapore was already working on your research, so you’d know not to be writing the exact same programs he is.
(b) make people talk more, thus giving everyone new ideas. also, often academic papers are indecipherable, and online forums might give the research a more informal, understandable tone.
(c) make people report all their results instead of just the ones that they thought were important enough to go into papers.
(d) make research happen a lot faster. if everyone checks the forums, you don’t have to spend days hunting down the right person to talk to – all you have to do is post a message asking for help.</p>
<p>Among other things.</p>
<p>Yes, I definitely agree with your points. I expressed similar sentiments some months ago, but was too lazy to elaborate (after all, I had no audience). I think I made the comparison of the open source software movement with the closed-source mode of academia and put it in a facebook note.</p>
<p>I need to copy your points into my forum-blog or something. And then it’ll get lost in the morass of other points there. :p</p>
<p>Found it: (hmm, doesn’t address forums per se - although I certainly did think of that months back)</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>Open Source Libertarians are Common. But Research Libertarians?
Share
7:31am Monday, Jan 8 | Edit Note | Delete
It’s an interesting phenomenon.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.rpi.edu/~winner/cyberlib2.html[/url]”>http://www.rpi.edu/~winner/cyberlib2.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/08/1430210[/url]”>Cyberselfish: Technolibertarianism - Slashdot;
<p><a href=“http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70/personal_archives/nettime-l-archive|/MAILDIR-MESSAGE/939[/url]”>http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70/personal_archives/nettime-l-archive|/MAILDIR-MESSAGE/939</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.salon.com/tech/log/1999/09/10/cybercommunism/[/url]”>http://www.salon.com/tech/log/1999/09/10/cybercommunism/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Loves_Eric_Raymond[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Loves_Eric_Raymond</a></p>
<p>I think a lot of Internet “geeks” trend towards libertarianism because they’re highly self-motivated. They see the “invisible hand” as the way that they can contribute towards society, the “invisible hand” towards the technical oeuvre [aka open-source] or the “invisible hand” in a capitalistic society. Many of them desire no social obligations other than the desire to produce their own code. In that, many of them are similar to academics, in that they seek the production of knowledge.</p>
<p>But yet,</p>
<p>Open-source software is now a very popular movement. A lot of people in that movement are libertarians. However, most scientists work in universities funded by taxpayer dollars, and there are far fewer libertarians among the latter group. Could the latter group be just as enthusiastic about its research as much as the open-source movement is enthusiastic about its software?</p>
<p>The problem is access. You need a PhD to go into academia. You don’t need any credentials to go into open-sourcing.</p>
<p>Expense too. Since academic research is often expensive, it can afford to take far fewer risks than open-source development. As a result, it is less open to novel but creative ideas. But is this expense necessary? This expense of for-profit journals and software packages?</p>
<p>Moreover, academia is overly hierarchical and institutionalized. The Internet is not, having only been in existence since 1993.</p>
<p>But yet, could it be possible that MOST academic research could be done without requiring university resources? Granted, particle accelerators will always require a hierarchy to manage any data that is collected. But MUCH research in other fields do not require so much expense. Do you need an university for mathematics research, or do you only need an Internet archive for those mathematics journals? Sadly, journals want money. Huge amounts of it. Further discouraging innovation from those who don’t have PhDs. Because many potential candidates don’t have the access to the journals. Whereas it’s far easier to obtain access to open-source software.</p>
<p>If only there could be a parallel to the “open source movement” in academia, motivated only by the pursuit of recognition (and the best system is the one that accommodates human nature).</p>
<p>Despite what they may appear to be, universities are not exactly meritocratic. It’s due to the hierarchy, as I said before. The open source movement is different. But I think that there can be such a foundation for academia too, given the many parallels between open-source software and academic research that doesn’t require particle accelerators.</p>
<p>Obviously, those who read this will already know, but the most innovative people are the youngest and non-institutionalized, those who have not been socialized by the academic hierarchy to do what Kuhn calls “normal science.”</p>
<p>Granted, there are some differences between the two camps. In academia, there are far more topics to pursue, and far less competition for the same topics. In open-source, there is much competition to produce the most efficient software that performs a certain function. Due to this, widespread recognition in academia for solving a problem is far less likely, for it is relevant to fewer people. Especially as the academic oeuvre increases. We know no promising physicists now. In the 1920s, many of those who did their best research before their PhDs gained near-instant recognition. It was a closer-knit community too, based around Gottingen.</p>
<p>Speaking of which, the Internet may make Anarcho-Communist Libertarianism possible. The Internet allows access to all, giving special privileges to none. Indeed, the open-source movement has two political subgroups: one Communist, one Libertarian. Both groups have a common pathos: a disdain for authority, tradition, and hierarchy.</p>
<p>Still, I’m partial towards Capitalism, since it provides another motive towards innovation.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>Wow at Perelman:</p>
<p>"[edit] Withdrawal from mathematics</p>
<p>As of the spring of 2003 Perelman no longer works in the Steklov Institute.[4] His friends are said to have stated that he currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss; some even say that he has abandoned mathematics entirely.[15] According to a recent interview, Perelman is currently jobless, living with his mother in St Petersburg.[4]</p>
<p>Although Perelman says in the New Yorker article that he is disappointed with the ethical standards of the field of mathematics, the article implies that Perelman refers particularly to Yau’s efforts to downplay his role in the proof and play up the work of Cao and Zhu. Perelman has said that “I can’t say I’m outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest.”[3] He has also said that “It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated.”[3]</p>
<p>This, combined with the possibility of being awarded a Fields medal, led him to quit professional mathematics. He has said that “As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice. Either to make some ugly thing” (a fuss about the mathematics community’s lack of integrity) “or, if I didn’t do this kind of thing, to be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit.�?[3]”</p>
<p>Some note:</p>
<p>“Slashdot recently had a discussion on the war on drugs, and majority of the posts and moderation was pro drug legalization. But, there was hardly a mention of the libertarian party or the green party that support drug legalization. If there was some direct democracy option, all these people could express themselves on policy matters instead of voting democrat and republican who are both supporters of the drug war. I can understand doctors and the AMA supporting the drug war because it legitimizes the FDA and regulation of prescription drugs to some extent, but even they would be free to vote for legalization of marijuana etc. if there was some direct democracy. I know we have referendums, but it needs to be a little easier to start them, and collect votes on the internet instead of having to get physical signatures. Interestingly even the liberal DailyKOS had a pro drug legalization article. Unfortunately their readership was not as rationally articulate on the matter…”
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Updated about 7 months ago</p>
<p>And I took the care to attribute the ideas to you. 
I’m careful of attribution, being keenly aware of the history of ideas and to motivational theory.</p>
<p>The reason why many researchers don’t want to share their ideas is because that want to be able to take all the credit for themselves, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Research data is very valuable in the academic field, and most of the time, is kept confidential. It’s not something you would want to post on a public forum. Corporations and the government often fund these such research projects, and they are paying for these data. They would not want their competitors to get their hands on this information. </p>
<p>For example, I worked in a lab for the nuclear engineering department last semester, and one time, the professor I was working for had to give an presentation to the Secretary of Energy to request more funding. </p>
<p>In the long run, open-sourcing research may be better and more idealistic, but the fact is that research equipment and procedures, especially in the science fields, cost a lot of money that requires some sort of funding. In the end, you would want all the credit for yourself because it is you who spent a lot of money running tests. So when you publish your paper, you would want to give yourself (and your colleagues) the credit.</p>
<p>The major question is - why does the open source model work for software engineering but not for academia?</p>
<ul>
<li>Perhaps it’s because you HAVE to be recognized as an individual in academia - much more so than you have to be in software engineering.</li>
</ul>
<p>Writing software also costs less. Anyone with a computer can write software, and many people love doing it as a hobby, which is why they’ll do it for free. </p>
<p>Research costs a lot of time and effort, and if you aren’t compensated for it, it isn’t worth it.</p>
<p>InquilineKea, you are heavily idealizing the open source movement. I’m not sure if you have much programming experience or what kind of projects you’ve done (I’m not trying to be rude, just pointing out important points).
I use to think that OSS was awesome because I could just jump in and start coding and it would be sweet. </p>
<p>The truth is that you cannot just jump in, especially on any significant project. It takes years and years and years before you are good enough to actually contribute to any of the big projects. By this I mean things like the Linux Kernel, GNU Compiler Collection, X-Windows, Firefox, etc. The knowledge you need for this type of programming is not gained from books, but from years of actual experience with code. Also in big existing open source movements, you have to spend a long time building a reputation with solid work before you can influence the direction of the entire project. </p>
<p>You should however check out the field of synthetic biology, which is going under the ideas of Open Wetware.</p>
<p>Also, from my understanding, the reason journals are still important is because it keeps out crackpots. Yes you could argue that it would get rid of some maverick. But I think it’s educational to read this blog post at cosmic variance: <a href=“สล็อตเว็บตรง อันดับ1 ฝากผ่าน ทรูวอเลท ไม่มีขั้นต่ำ เว็บตรง ใหม่ล่าสุด”>สล็อตเว็บตรง อันดับ1 ฝากผ่าน ทรูวอเลท ไม่มีขั้นต่ำ เว็บตรง ใหม่ล่าสุด;
<p>Ah yes - thanks for the post differential. I don’t necessarily have a conviction on open source science - it’s just that taking a stance on it on a forum makes it much easier for others to address (and refute my comments).</p>
<p>Thanks for the cosmicvariance post as well - I keep on missing entries there. :p</p>