155 karma · joined September 13, 2012
It takes someone/something with some ability to make something happen. Are they going to change how all academic science is done? Probably not, but could they have an impact and begin a process in which academic science begins to respond/change? Yes, that is probable. Between YC and Google life science, things are happening...and it's going to take us (I'm assuming you are a scientist) to support this change.
No bioinformatics, or even an understanding of biology is needed.
Bonus points if you’ve worked with BigQuery, cluster computing, or have a bioinformatics background.
Benefits: Health/ Dental/Vision,stock options, lunch/beer, good tech,happiness, and working on something that matters. More info can be found here or you can email me at keith@stirplate.io https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/76598/php-dev-interes...
Re: PhD, Cool, best of luck:) If you ever want to work on something outside of academic work, let me know. I'm always looking for people to work on Stirplate with me. Also,I'm always happy to help people getting started, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions keith @ stirplate.io
However, to "make it mandatory for publicly-funded ..." is the difficult part. I'm with you 100% (I'm a neuroscience PhD) and this needs to happen,but it needs to come from the financial groups such as NIH/NSF who really just aren't good at dealing with this kind of stuff. They do make it mandatory, but they don't provide real resources for scientists to access these tools. Either that, or they are insanely difficult to use, so people don't do it. I'm shooting for getting raw data from scientists, populating a huge f'in database that is linked and categorized, and if/when the group makes the data open, allow scientists to work off of that huge database of raw, unedited data. (this is specific to life sciences)
I've learned the following when talking about my company: 1. Investors don't want to hear about open science because they immediately get stuck on "what if they don't share". That tends to end the conversation. 2. Scientists themselves complain about the system, but are unwilling to change behaviors. So we have to address their fears in order to start making change (that is what I'm working on now) 3. Schools and funding agencies are using technology from 1996 and thinking that is sufficient. People need to be educated, and this is hard to do.
This isn't impossible and it's happening slowly...the mindset of academics just needs to change. (IMHO)
Peer review should be open, scientists shouldn't be allowed to choose who reviews/doesn't review their papers, and the process by which selection is done needs to be more rigorous.
My suggestion, open it up to everyone in the field and make sure that the reviewers are identified. Anonymous peer review has the same effect that anonymous posting on internet forums has, people become e-thugs or just say things that they shouldn't ever say because they know the reader doesn't know who they are.
This sounds like it doesn't happen, but you would be surprised that the stuff that happens behind closed doors. Scientists are people, people are flawed (which is fine), but that shouldn't hold back scientific discoveries.
Peer review is completely flawed. Until it's made more transparent, like at F1000, it's going to continue that way.
Not being a negative Nancy here, but I've been on both sides of the fence (reviewed and had grants/papers reviewed) and it isn't an efficient system. Much like many other things in science, it's an antiquated process that needs to be overhauled to get back to it's "roots".
The ultimate goal here is to centralize, organize and automate scientific data. There is such a big gap between basic research and technology that I had to do something:) This is my answer to the many servers/NAS/USB keys I've set up throughout my graduate career. Looking forward to any feedback you may have, Keith
My company, Stirplate.io, is an app for scientists to store, share and analyze their data in the cloud.
Science needs help managing it's data, so my company helps with that process. We also automate data analysis for scientists, making hours of excel work take about 15seconds.
Science, at least in biology, is just like any business. Both are motivated by $.
The good news is that open science and the impact that the internets is having on science can help this problem. In my opinion, transparency in science will fix many of these issues.
I love the internets, technology and how we've progressed at an amazing rate. I also like how everyone has a voice, but at the same time...that part isn't always as shiny. I agree with your post 100%!
Poor people don't use banks because you don't need a bank when you live check-to-check. One doesn't need to make a deposit when the check they just got doesn't cover their expenses from last month. So her concluding statement of "the banking industry needs to develop different fee and service structures designed to accommodate lower income depositors "makes no sense.
It's not a choice, it's not like people are like "Hmm, well I could deposit my money and make 0.5% back next month", it's more like "shit, I'm behind on my gas bill and can't have my family freezing again this winter."
The fact that the teller at the check cashing place is like "family" and they speak spanish isn't really a reason why the poors go there, it's because they don't have a choice.
As an former academic who made it out of the poverty system with some serious work and lots of scars to prove it, this article really pisses me off. Not only due to it's lack of perspective, but due to it's lack of due diligence to actually answer the question they claim to answer in the title.
Either way, I agree with everyone else in this thread as well. The system of publish or perish is 1. dumb 2. old 3. not moving science forward. It's become more of a "I need xyz papers published this year" instead of "I'm curious about xyz and how it solves abc". That isn't science, it's a career/ego metric.
Good news is that there are groups (like myself, science exchange, figshare etc) who are working to fix that. It's a matter of time, but a social change to science is starting.
“In theory I agree, but I very rarely run into people who actually do so on their own” This board is full of people who actually learn on their own:) People learned to code, people learned how to run businesses and people have learned how to build purely based on their passion to learn/build and contribute to the world. The reason why this is less so in science is that the resources are behind a paywall. I recently left my academic life to start a business and as such, I don’t have access to scientific papers anymore….this limits my ability. This is also the major motivation for my startup which will bring raw academic scientific data to the public…but I digress. The fact is that you are surrounded by those people, but they aren’t bringing their ideas to science because the process by which science is done doesn’t allow for it…and that is a problem.
Re: peer-review papers/quality: ahha, I’m not sure I agree. Peer review in theory is great, in practice it’s BS/politics/$$$$. Also, in my experience (YMMV), a lot of references in intros/discussions are “oh shit, you have to reference Joe Schmoe’s 2008 paper here because he is on the editorial board.” Not to discredit your point, I agree that peer review papers, citations and the like are important, but they are being abused now (at least in bio).
This is long winded, but my point is that we don’t see a lot of people contributing to science because they don’t have the resources to do so. I think that needs to change soon and I’m working to make that happen.