Jul
13
Standing on the shoulders: but the shoulders are 200 years old
"Houston, we have a problem. We're standing on the shoulders of old scholars, but it feels a bit shaky."
Well, no wonder. While rocket science has clear foundations, the physical laws of nature, for many other research fields it's trickier. We rely on hundreds of years of knowledge and assume (not trust) that work to be true. And that knowledge is seemingly disappearing very fast (remember my graveyard of chemical literature observation). Published literature, generally, is too hard to reproduce to be seen as an accurate capture of research history. In other words, these shoulders are 200 years old, and our support is failing.
Open Science attempts to overcome these issues.
Well, no wonder. While rocket science has clear foundations, the physical laws of nature, for many other research fields it's trickier. We rely on hundreds of years of knowledge and assume (not trust) that work to be true. And that knowledge is seemingly disappearing very fast (remember my graveyard of chemical literature observation). Published literature, generally, is too hard to reproduce to be seen as an accurate capture of research history. In other words, these shoulders are 200 years old, and our support is failing.
Open Science attempts to overcome these issues.
