The Open Science Movement

As I have talked about previously, science is a pretty closed system. Scientists do all the work pretty much in secrecy until they are ready to present a polished story. They then present their results to each other in a language only they can understand. Everyone else then has to count on the media to provide updates on what scientists have discovered.

Now don’t get me wrong, the system works very well. It isn’t perfect especially as results are based on more complex data but it is self correcting and important discoveries are made all the time. But would it be even better if we opened things up a bit?

A recent story about how gamers solved a scientific riddle that had eluded scientists for ten years suggests that more transparent science might be better science. And this is the goal of the Open Science movement.