The article is really smart, it not only gives you an insight into the future, but also walks you through the past as what it was like long time back.
Mankind has come through a time when even inventing a modified paper clip design would be kept under drawers for generations. The focus was much more exclusiveness than on possible expansion and development of the idea. Despite the fact that people had medicines for so many plagues and epidemics, they never came into mass use because people never collaborated.
When we look at the present world we can already see symbols of world wide collaboration in science and technology around the globe. In Technion, i can see it myself. My Indian friend is working in Chemistry faculty on a european union project. The aim: to make one of the world's most efficient Organic LED's. He is doing the chemical part of the project, while a bunch of scientists sitting in europe are working on the electrical aspect. While technion is providing him the lab and facilities to do this project- That's science 2.0
Its very true that science has indeed gone global and US and Europe will indeed become minorities soon in invention and innovation department. China has already ousted the entire world in Supercomputing, by constructing the world's fastest super computer. It was an Indian satellite and Moon lander that finally found and confirmed water particles on the surface of moon.
Though what i doubt, but i pray that it should happen is full collaboration between the pharmaceutical companies. Author believes it will indeed happen, am a bit skeptic. Till now we have seen a sharp edged battle between the major pharmaceutical companies fighting for secret formula's and exclusive medicines. Though the fight will definitely lull down due to world wide scientific collaboration, but sharing of information regarding some of the most expensive and exclusive formulas and treatments might still take a lot of time to happen. A bilateral or trilateral agreement or research collaboration might happen between two major companies, but making it open source like galaxyzoo, might appear too rational for the business minded heads of the pill firms.
But i pray and hope it do happen soon....
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I agree with your insights - Science 2.0 indeed has countless benefits and it is truly the future of the scientific world. I believe we must mainly thank the evolving social networks, the improvements in internet connection bandwidths worldwide and the computer mobility revolution for that. All of which provided the appropriate infrastructure for the upcoming changes in the scientific society.
Although I truly believe in science 2.0, I still believe we are still far from a 'utopic' society in which sharing and collaborating are the central values. Sadly, many other considerations are preventing us from seeing a fully collaborative scientific world - with the main disruptive considerations being money, reputation and competitiveness.
Sadly, in the capitalist society we live in - I don't see how we can completely overcome these issues in the near future, but every step in the right way is a great achievement.
instead of making a new blog i am just gonna stick this in right here...
how in the world do you make medical research open source?!?!?!
it is one thing training people to recognise shapes in galaxies, but how do you train people to engineer medication? give them drugs for free and tell people to blog the side effects or do you give them a batch and see if they can diagnose their friends?
i think that Linux, wiki'everything' and open source is great, but there is only so far it can go. Let it spread, let people get involved, and yes there should be collaboration between the EXPERTS in their fields to develop their fields. but the emphasis is on EXPERTS and in their RESPECTIVE FIELDS!
who am i, a who knows what that knows next to nothing in the field,to come along and demand answers from a some of the best meteorologist around, about whether the world is getting hotter, colder, or look warm? The answer is infinitely more complex than anything i could understand.
any fool can take some information and make up a thesis and get some more fools to believe them. But the people who dedicate great portions of their lives to genuineness researching their respective fields deserve more respect and reward.
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