Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bionet!bionet-20.bio.net!Kristofferson From: Kristofferson@BIONET-20.BIO.NET (David Kristofferson) Newsgroups: bionet.general Subject: Re: The Art of Starting Discussions Message-ID: <12494969787.13.KRISTOFFERSON@BIONET-20.BIO.NET> Date: 18 May 89 12:39:00 GMT References: <8905172204.AA06242@net.bio.net> Sender: daemon@NET.BIO.NET Lines: 74 >> Getting a discussion going on a scientific newsgroup in >> biology still seems to be something of a novel art form and I think >> that people are still groping here. Nonetheless I am very encouraged . . . > I'm only a lowly undergraduate, so I'm sure that my head is still > cluttered with silly, idealistic visions of scientific researchers cooper- > ating as much as possible in order to make a better world 8^). The problem > with discussing research is not isolated to the biology newsgroups. There > is secrecy to be found wherever there is credit to be taken. (Ah ha! A challenge!) Quite True! I could tell enough stories about the absolutely seamy side of science that would make your head spin. Nonetheless my statements were not made in ignorance of these facts. My main point was that people DO TALK AT MEETINGS and that these discussions are not all conducted in one-on-one secrecy. A large amount of discussion about the cold fusion research went on on sci.chem and I am sure that the monetary stakes involved there made the issue more prone to secrecy than most. As you noted, there is an art to saying enough without saying too much. One also can ask questions about *published* research, e.g., clarification of methods used, without spilling any beans. I guess that I am a glutton for punishment, being through some scarring fights already, but I still do believe that scientists can "cooperate" together to make a better world if one uses a slightly different definition of "cooperate." To a large extent Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is at work in the progress of science. However, research done in total isolation does not stand a high chance of success. Scientists need to disseminate research results and get cross-fertilization of ideas from their colleagues in order to stimulate their own work. In this sense they do "cooperate." . . . > The use > of newsgroups and FAX transmissions has actually been criticized for failing > to provide enough information to accurately reproduce the experiment in the > way that a journal article would allow. > Hopefully, the presence of near-instantaneous communication facilities > will not tempt us to jump the gun with our conclusions or omit details. Of > course, newsgroups are a perfect forum for speculation. There's no sense in > even starting a series of experiments that you could not justify to your scien- > tific peers. The trick is to tell your colleagues enough about what you're > doing to get their input, without giving away all your secrets... Right! And the very fact that newsgroups are not peer-reviewed now (but they can be ... access to moderated groups need not be completely open) reassures me on these points. Very few people as you noted above are going to spill their hard earned results in a forum which they can't put on their CV's. In summary, the psychological forces are in place to make the discussion mechanism useful yet self-limiting where needed. I still view the main problem in biological newsgroups as being the fact that many of the "big names" in biology don't use and, quite often, highly dislike computers. This too shall pass ... Eventually the current grad students and postdocs who are using the computers will become the establishment (assuming there are still jobs and money for research left). (Boy, would I like these statements to raise some professor's ire! 8-). Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson BIONET Resource Manager kristofferson@net.bio.net -------