Open Science
Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/apr/19/1
Ted talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnWocYKqvhw
After dedicating much of his career to research in the fields of quantum information and computing, Michael Nielsen shifted his focus towards developing new tools for scientific collaboration. One of the projects he helped develop was the Polymath Project, and online forum on which mathematicians and scientists can openly exchange ideas and solve complex problems. Through this project, collaborating mathematicians were able to find new and innovative solutions to difficult problems. The first of these solutions were then published under the pseudonym DHJ Polymath (DHJ standing for density Hales-Jewett theorem, the first theorem to be proved in this manner). This concept of “open science,” in which scientists and mathematicians could openly share their works and publications, is a way to accelerate the way discoveries and innovations are made.
This approach, however, is not without the pitfalls presented by game theory and Nash Equilibrium. GrrlScientist, an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist writing for the Guardian pointed out that although free and open collaboration to accelerate scientific development is beneficial both society and the scientific community, it is not the best choice for the individual researcher. In the fields of science and academia, a researcher’s most valuable resource is credit for his or her ideas. It is this credit that that gets respect and with it funding to continue doing the research he has spent his life doing. If there is no credit to be gained, then there is no incentive to contribute. This is why Qwiki, a wiki for quantum physics, failed. As Nielsen said, “writing a single mediocre paper will do much more for your career and your job prospects than a long series of brilliant contributions to such a site.” It seems, as John Nash predicted, that self-interest will lead to a sub-optimal outcome.
To see how Nash Equilibrium plays into the concept of open science, we must imagine research as a game between scientists working in similar fields. Each scientist has a choice of whether to contribute his research to an open online resource, or retain his research for his own use and eventually publish it in a peer reviewed journal. We can see that if both scientists decide to retain their research, then both scientists will eventually come to some scientific conclusion after several years of separate work and publish it. Both scientists get a moderate payoff. Let’s say one of the scientists decides to contribute his research to the online resource, while the other one decides to retain his own research. The scientist that retained his research now has access to all of the research the other scientist has done, and now can work much faster using the data and hypotheses the other scientist worked so hard to acquire. This scientist will be able to write and publish his work much faster, now that he has access to this resource, and gain much acclaim for it, while the other scientist gets left in the dust. The scientist who decided to contribute his work will take just as long as before to publish his findings but may even lose some credit over it because another scientist published similar works first. The last scenario occurs when both scientists decide to contribute their work to the online resource. Now both scientists have access to all of the research done in their field and have more time to bigger better ideas than they would have on their own. These scientists can both publish newer more innovative papers at a faster pace, although they do risk competing for the same ideas, and society will benefit from this boost in scientific innovation.
| Scientist A | |||
| payoff: (A,B) | Contribute | Retain | |
| Scientist B | Contribute | ++, ++ | +++,- |
| Retain | -,+++ | +,+ | |
Although both scientists may be better off contributing, their most dominant strategies are to retain their research and hope to get the most credit for their work. There is, however, hope for Open Science. Much like how participants in a game like this can collude to produce optimal outcomes, scientists in the research community can cooperate and maybe even share credit. Like the article states, open science will not likely work until scientists make sharing and open communication a community goal, and provide real rewards to those who contribute.
-lz228