You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: How Blockchains Could Fix Science
What you say is probably right, but slightly too general. I don't know whether you have information on what is going on in particle physics. But to summarize:
- we have the arxiv platform where articles are posted before even being submitted to journals.
- all our major journals are open access thanks to the scoap3 initiative mainly driven by CERN.
- We even have the scipost platform that is an open access journal where everything is open, including the peer-reviewing.
Those examples should serve to other fields. In particular the last one. So much money is spent for these publishers... I am not so sure about what a blockchain could bring on top of something like scipost, but I am more than happy to read ideas :)
Don't hesitate to contact me on discord if you want to discuss further! This is a topic very important to me. I could tell what I do, but I guess this is not the place :)
[upvoted for visibility]
When I think about blockchains, the major strengths they have over other networked data sources are decentralization, cryptographic verification, and (depending on the tech) anonymity and smart contracts.
There's a lot to be said for decentralization as a 'probably a better idea than letting Elsevier run the show', but it's kind of vague in my head still. The examples you point out from your own field solve a lot of that pain point without a blockchain, albeit not completely. (I feel I must note I have serious discipline envy, my field's leading journal finally said that arxiv-like prepints don't count as prior pub.)
The big thing for me are smart contracts. I keep returning to the idea that there's eventually going to be more public support of science and it's going to be directly, democratically funded through these. Not as a replacement to grants, SBIRs, etc, but as an additional cool source.
I am not sure anonymity is mandatory here. Actually, it is more the opposite: we need to know who writes what, potentially including the referee reports too. These reports should be public for sure. I am however not too sure about releasing the name of the referee. That is maybe the only place where anonymity may be necessary.
The grant issue is important as well, but this is not connected to publications. Although if I would be a funding agency, I would impose everyone to publish in open-access journals. Science should be freely accessible to anyone. Period. No discussion. :D
Oh yeah, I was a little unclear there. I think anonymity is a strength of some blockchain technologies. I don't think it's a strength relevant to a science-blockchain.
Then we agree :)
Anonymity could serve in reviewing papers without being biased knowing who and where made the research.
That is impossible in my field. We always know authors as every single paper is posted on the arxiv before being submitted to a journal :D
Bias in physics may be not that important, but with social sciences it can be pretty strong. I know that the best papers have this system of review, that the reviewers don't know in which country the experiment took place, who conducted it etc, they also don't know other reviewers. The other big problem is publishing papers that PROVED something and not publishing the ones that didn't prove anything extraordinary, which also distorts the overview of the field. So I heard the best journals 'order' the research and is going to publish it regardless of the results. I don´t know how spread are those kind of practices, but this is a way to make (social) sciences better and more accurate. Blockchain could be a mediator in that for sure.
Unfortunately, I can't speak for social sciences, for obvious reasons. Having everything public (papers + reviews) may be good, IMO, regardless the field. At least, this will remove some biases.
I think the main thing the blockchain can bring is not necessarily financial, but social. It would be difficult without primary and centralised investors to consistently fund projects, but as a little extra side incentive for the individuals - a big deal in poorer countries where they depend on sci-hub just to get the citations they need, for example - by encouraging them to simplify and popularize their content in a social media environment.
The problem I see as it stands is that people are becoming alienated to science because it's just not accessible to the regular layman. A bunch of equations come along and people have already moved on to the next pop-sci video about how avocados can revolutionise the car industry.
If scientists are incentivised to make their personal work more appealing to the masses, it could really pave the way to a more informed society, and I think blockchaining is the best way to do that. Not sure how with the details yet... still working on that
I think you actually mix two things here. You have scientific research on the one hand, that may be cryptic for anyone external to a given field, and communicating about it (that could go through a social medium). What is true is that scientists are very bad with communication. Very few actually communicate at all with the general public, and this is a real problem. I am belonging to a class of people who really think that this is a part of our jobs. This is also the reason why I write a post on steem about most of my papers (without any single equation;) ). I am trying to convince others (from my field) to do it, start blogging, etc... but this takes time. In my case, it is true that I may publish one paper less every year. But I think the counterpart is worthy.
You are one of the good guys =D
Thanks :D
Upvoted because I can
Yeah, we know! :P
:p