Open Science: the Very Idea

265 Pages·2022·5.106 MB·English

by  Frank Miedema

Frank Miedema
Open Science:
the Very Idea
Open Science: the Very Idea
Frank Miedema
Open Science: the Very Idea
Frank Miedema
UMC Utrecht
Utrecht University
Utrecht, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-94-024-2114-9 ISBN 978-94-024-2115-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2115-6
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For Yuna and Mare,
It’s all about your future
Preface
First, I want to thank the readers for starting to read my book. Somehow it got your
attention despite the daily tsunami of information, infotainment and entertainment
that is thrown at you. Most of us are pressed for time, even in months of lockdown
because of COVID-19, so I will keep this introduction short. I will do without the
usual clever well-worded academic introduction, referring to Aristotle, Popper and
Foucault. I will go straight to the relevant question any reader from academia, pub-
lic or policy could ask with no need to be ashamed of:
Why a book about Open Science? It is a hype isn’t it? So, is there not a lot already written
about it? Ok, it is a big thing in Europe, Australia, and even China it seems, but what about
the USA and Canada, and are the Germans really in? I do recall, in the USA during the
Obama administrations there was some action of Open Access and Open Data, and academ-
ics who started DORA in 2012 in San Francisco.
or
A book about Open Science? Open Access you mean? Does that start again? Wasn’t that the
movement that, since the year 2000 had a few starts already, sympathetic but that just didn’t
take of? Does the EU still believe in it? Really? Why?
In this book I address these questions, without any beating around the bush. It
is truly amazing, that a way to do science and research, that for the majority of its
practitioners and the public and policy makers makes a lot of sense, and which has
been around for quite some time, has not been embraced to become common
practice. To answer this question, we have to delve deep into the science of sci-
ence and research. We have to understand ‘the idea of science’ that does exist in
the plural. We have to analyse why in particular one of these concepts and its cor-
responding public image has been dominant practically since 1945 and what that
has done to science and scientists. That philosophical/sociological idea has been
the basis for the ideologic narrative with which science has been internally orga-
nized and is being used to claim a unique position, authority and funding for sci-
ence. With this narrative, the scientific community promised that science would
be there to the benefit of society, at least when her autonomy and neutrality are
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respected. How come that although this legendary image and its narrative by the
philosophers, historians and sociologists has no philosophical and timeless foun-
dation, scientists apparently without knowing this demise of their Legend keep
using that narrative? It may well be the fear, the insecurity that comes with the
awareness that knowledge production in science is based not on a given meta-
physical foundation, but rests on a firm social process of a community of inquirers
that relentlessly criticize, question, debate what the best knowledge claims are.
Knowing very well that the consensus reached may work well but is never abso-
lute and may be replaced by better ones by this same process of inquiry called
science. Having said this, we realize that, despite the commonly held views, the
‘method’ of the ‘hard’ sciences and that of the ‘soft’ social science and humani-
ties may not be all that different after all!
In our present-day world of hyper-modernity, where knowledge is everywhere to
be found and always contested by some, the process of the production of knowledge
cannot be insulated from potential users and interested critical other parties.
Clinging to the idea of a unique method for absolute truth and a foundation for sci-
ence is understandable but a wrong reflex in debates with the public about its prob-
lems. Explaining how science really works and produces knowledge would be the
best response.
In this book, I and you readers need to be totally frank about science, and we
need to be ‘biting the bullet’ and bringing up several difficult issues. We need to
discuss ‘therapeutic’ interventions required to opening up research and academia
for transition to a more open science that works better for the world. You may won-
der, ‘is the relationship with the public then the problem?’ It sure is, since I believe,
with many colleagues, that scientists have a moral obligation to engage with the
major societal problems and challenges of their time. I may seem very optimistic,
but I am not naïve, to think that the practice of Open Science will be a major
improvement regarding the relationship between science and society in several criti-
cal ways.
In contrast to the critical questions, it appears that since 2016 the idea of Open
Science has been adopted by many institutions and governments around the
world and it is well possible that we have passed the tipping point of its global
breakthrough. Life is never perfect, and as we know Open Science to function
properly needs an Open Society, but this requirement is not universally fulfilled
and needs the attention of academia. I clearly see an opportunity for a leading
role of the Open Science approach of the EU, now the USA has lost a lot of its
position as a world leader in science. I have touched upon the problem of geo-
politics, for instance in relation to China, the new science superpower, as this is
not specific for science but a general problem of democracy it is outside the
scope of this book.
The good news is that in the heat of the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic, with
its unprecedented global threat to public health and our socio-economic life, we see
Preface ix
the opening up of the different practices of science, publishing, data and biomaterial
sharing, and doing research and in real time opening up to public, at national and
international levels. It is argued here that science should always be done like that, as
Open Science.
My Journey
This book results from my journey in science since the early 1970s. I had the oppor-
tunity of being at the bench of biochemistry laboratories of different knowledge
institutions: in the Netherlands at The National Institute for Public Health and the
Environment, the non-profit Blood Supply Foundation and two University Medical
Centres, with a six months ‘sabbatical’ in 1994 at DNAX Research Institute, Palo
Alto, CA. From 1975 on, I was intrigued by the social aspects of science. While in
my academic development I discovered the practice of research, in parallel I discov-
ered the science of science and developed an interest as a science observer. Ever
since, while being totally engaged in research, at the same time I was a science
observer and obsessively studied the many aspects of that social game called sci-
ence. It is this dual experience and the broad view of science that has led to my
writings and actions to improve science of which this book gives witness reporting
from both tracks of my journey in science.
Finally, I have provided a broad and, in some cases, an in-depth background
analysis of different aspects of science. Importantly, regarding the images of science
that still distort our image and practice of science, most writers about the practice of
science mention the problem but almost all refrain from such in-depth analysis.
Almost all stay even further away from the directly connected discussion of the
incentive and rewards systems because that unavoidably opens the black box, or
rather the can of worms of academic politics, the game of reputation, power and
money. Since, as I argue in Chap. 2, I believe that the obsolete philosophy and pub-
lic image of science are the major cause of many problems in the practice of sci-
ence, I went all out to present the major different arguments for the lack of foundation
for the methods of empirical positivism, and its analytical foundational philosophy.
I also dwell on the analyses of the problems of the practice of science in academia,
since I do regard this in many ways an important and necessary step for the transi-
tion to Open Science. Finally, there is a lengthy description of the development,
from early initiatives to finally the institutional start of Open Science in the research
agenda of the European Union. I realize that most of you shall want to read selec-
tively according to your main immediate interests. Therefore, I provide four distinct
reading tracks below.
x Preface
Four Recommended Reading Tracks
0. For the general concise view of science and society since 1945
Chap. 1.
1. Philosophy and sociology
If you are more interested and have read in the philosophical and sociological
origins of our current ideas about science, Chaps. 2 and 4 will be serious reading
but are highly recommended.
2. A critique of science
If you want to grasp the more recent critical thinking about science, with
analyses and arguments in the pre-Open Science time, then go for Chaps. 1,
3 and 6.
3. New avenues
If you don’t want the diagnosis, but rather read about attempts and ideas how,
by engaging with society, to improve the relationship of science with society,
that is to be found in Chaps. 5, 6 and 7.
4. Transition to Open Science
If you want an impression about early actions in the past 20 years and the
more recent actions taken to promote Open Science, go to Chaps. 5 and 7, and
for some of the local initiatives in Utrecht, I refer to Chap. 6.
Utrecht, The Netherlands Frank Miedema
Synopsis
Chapter 1 : Science and Society An Overview of the Problem
Science promised to society to contribute to the grand challenges of the United
Nations, WHO, the EU agenda and national agendas for change and improvement
of our life. It will be discussed how this social contract between science and society
has developed since 1945. The first phase from 1945 till 1960 was characterized by
autonomy, building on the successes of the natural sciences and engineering in
World War II. In the second phase, the late 1960s till approximately 1980, govern-
ment and the public lost trust and saw the downside of science and technology. The
response from politics and the public was a call for societal and political responsible
research inspired by broader socio-political developments in society. The third
phase from 1980 till 2010 was built on the idea that science and technology would
bring economic growth, which should make nations internationally competitive.
There was also increasingly room for societal problems related to environment and
sustainability, health and well-being. In this approach of the so-called knowledge
economy, strong relations with government and the private sector were established
characterized by short-term accountability, control from government and funders at
the level of project output, using accordingly defined metrics and indicators. This
model became firmly and globally institutionalized.
Within science, since 2010 among scientists there is growing frustration, mostly
implicit but increasingly explicit disillusion of scientists, regarding governance,
agenda setting in relation to the outside world and significant impact of the research.
Science fails, it is felt, its promise to society to contribute to the quality of life as the
system has adapted to the culture of new public management. Production of robust
and significant results is mainly secondary to output relevant for an internal credit
system for academic career advancement at the individual level. At the higher orga-
nizational level output and impact are focused on positions on international ranking
lists which drive highly competitive social systems which results in a widely felt
lack of alignment and shared value in the academic community.
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