Guest Blogger Steve Koch
Steve Koch is an experimental biophysicist. He is an assistant professor of physics at the University of New Mexico and the author of the blogs Steve Koch Science, Steve Koch Research, and Steve Koch Teaching. You can find him on NextBio, FriendFeed and Twitter.
Thank you, Lisa, for inviting me to post a blog here! In thinking about what to write, I noticed two previous entries on this blog: the first was one by Lisa discussing Francis Collins possibly being the next director of the NIH. Francis Collins was the leader of the wildly successful, amazingly collaborative human genome project—an awesome project that demonstrates the huge accomplishments that can come from scientists openly collaborating. Dr. Collins was the principle investigator of the first lab I joined at the very beginning of my academic research career. He is one of my science heroes, and I am really hoping that he becomes the next director of the NIH. With Collins at the helm, I have great confidence that the NIH will be a strong leader in funding and promoting Open Science and Science 2.0 innovations. The second post that caught my eye was by Jean-Claude Bradley discussing the possible necessity of science blogging. Jean-Claude is a huge proponent of Open Science and a leader in Open Notebook Science. Reading these posts made me wonder whether readers of the NextBio would like to know, “what is open science?”
I’m here to tell you that I can’t precisely answer the question. It’s actually a tough question that many well-known proponents of open science do not yet agree on (see, e.g., this summary from last year). To me, an exact definition of open science is not critical because there is usually (but not always) a bright line between open and closed scientific practice. Open is the opposite choice from closed. One way of directing a row boat is to find a landmark 180 degrees opposite from where you want to go, and then keep rowing directly away from that landmark. For me personally, there is a parallel device in the pursuit of open science: I try to move away from all of the icky, unproductive, unhappy, and unnatural closed science behaviors that I have been taught.
Many of these closed science practices are considered traditional, prudent, or even necessary. One example is the practice of keeping scientific ideas secret until making formal publication. The standard thinking is that if you share your unpublished ideas, someone will steal your ideas and become famous at the expense of your reputation, funding, and career promotion (this is called getting “scooped”). I have thought about these arguments and I am personally convinced that the risk of scooping pales in comparison to the rich rewards that are gained by completely open discussion of scientific ideas. But convincing myself is a much different story than proving I am right. There are in fact many examples of the devastating effects of scooping and given the realities of the science world today, it’s not a risk to be taken likely. For this reason, and many others, carrying out open science is quite challenging. You can get a flavor of these challenges from Michael Nielsen’s fascinating essay on the challenges of “achieving extreme openness in science.”
I have been lucky to obtain a position as principle investigator of a research lab. For the past three years, I and my lab members have been pointing our research in the direction of openness. We’ve been taking steps towards open notebook science, sharing data and protocols, open sharing of ideas, and participation in online science communities. Each step we take seems to have been rewarded by a stronger connection to the global scientific community as well as a healthy dose of feeling happy and productive. I reflect back to when I was that young, green undergraduate joining my first research lab. I believed that scientists were all on the same team, sharing discoveries, and working together to help humanity. I had to be taught otherwise during my graduate career. From my vantage point as leader of a research lab, I can see that that young scientist was not only naïve, he was right! Now my task is to help students in our lab trust their own gut instincts about openness in science and help them achieve it while successfully advancing in their own careers.
Ah, the thrill of exploring uncharted territory!
Steve – thanks for the nod!
It really is quite motivating to have you involved in OS and discussing the issue so much.