Battleangel

The latest Nature editorial brings up the issue of open access and the detrimental culture that sometimes prevails among scientists.

Nature via BB - Web tools now allow data sharing and informal debate to take place alongside published papers. But to take full advantage, scientists must embrace a culture of sharing and rethink their vision of databases.

Scientists may be justified in retaining privileged access to data that they have invested heavily in collecting, pending publication — but there are also huge amounts of data that do not need to be kept behind walls. And few organizations seem to be aware that by making their data available under a Creative Commons licence (see http://creativecommons.org/license), they can stipulate both rights and credits for the reuse of data, while allowing its uninterrupted access by machines.

As web services empower researchers, the biggest obstacle to fulfilling such visions will be cultural. Scientific competitiveness will always be with us. But developing meaningful credit for those who share their data is essential, to encourage the diversity of means by which researchers can now contribute to the global academy.

I would of course expand on this problem and note that it goes hand in hand with the “corporatization” of universities and a general infectious economic thinking that has swept society in the last decades, as the field of economics has taken on almost mythological proportions. One would hope that the scientific community could indeed become a community in terms of sharing, thus a bastion of good practise and a model for a future society not so much based on greed and short term rights.
There is much at stake at academies around the world. Not just in terms of research but in the precedence they set. People from every ideological camp would like to set the agenda and shape future technocrats. As such the possibilities are limitless but so are the dangers in promoting the wrong sort of ideals.