Re:Tradeoffs (Score 1)

I believe that broadening collaboration (expanding collective knowledge) and rapid development (increasing the "effective population size" of a meme pool to use a popgen analogy) are much more compelling arguments for adopting this type of science than are problems publicizing work.

Couldn't agree more. I was just pointing out that there is incentive already for scientists to start doing this now, instead of waiting for big changes in how the reward system works.

I also think that any work worth doing is worth rewarding and/or scooping. Just because a young scientist may not have a thesis or project "worthy" of publishing in Science or Nature, doesn't mean other scientists in similar situations wouldn't be interested in reading that work or getting credit for it. A publication in a medium to low impact factor journal can count towards graduation in most places, and therefore is VERY valuable to an individual student.

I think the bars for work being valuable to an individual student and work being so good that someone else is going to secretly steal it, race you to the results, and publish first (e.g. "scoop you") are dramatically different. I'm not arguing that work that's not published in the tabloids isn't good work / valuable -- im just saying that people overestimate the odds that someone will steal their work -- to the detriment of open science.

And most of these journals have ambiguous policies with regard to novelty and its intersection with "Science 2.0". As a result, even with "unworthy" publications, there is significant risk to going open source if there is ambiguity as to how the work will eventually be disseminated.

This is actually a misconception, IMO. Nature has recently started a pre-print type server (Nature preceedings) and as I understand it they are trying to get together a list of publishers to sign off on saying they'll publish something that was "shared" earlier through a non-media, non-journal route (just to put this issue to rest). Every journal editor I've spoken to about this is happy to accept work that has been shared online previously.

I think it is essential that the incentive and reward systems for science should definitely change to incorporate this framework. Science can and has changed in the very recent past, and I don't think requiring this sort of organizational change to promote open source science is a deal-breaker at all.

The reward system is essentially tied to academic hiring and that process moves at a glacial pace. we need to get started now.

This is another train of thought that doesn't feed directly into my arguments, but here goes. I disagree that going completely open-source science for most projects at all stages of development is ultimately healthy for science. I would tend to think that this would create one huge echo-chamber that is extremely efficient at amplifying its own dogma. ... If your new idea is immediately challenged by the community before you've had time to develop it fully, would you not be less likely to pursue it?

Yeah, this is interesting. I tend to think the walls that are up between labs and institutions already create echo chambers. If folks could shoot a crazy idea out into the open science ether and find a few people that return the signal then there might be a much better chance it gets pursued. But you might be right, not sure.

The benefits of "Science 2.0" are legion and probably outnumber the costs. But I think adopting and promoting it can be done cautiously. After all, even if it takes 10-20 years to fully integrate these advances, we've really only lost the blink of an eye. And when I'm advising students, I'll certainly educate them about the pitfalls of this approach. As a system, this approach may be the best system, but I don't want anybody I've given advice to be the roadkill that litters the road to the new paradigm if I can help it.

Well don't let them miss the open science train, either ;)

That being said, if I'm ever on a committee at a university that takes up such issues, I'm likely to promote policy changes that are congenial to this kind of science.

Need more folks like you.