The end of scientific articles as we know them?

Conformity in Modern Science: An Engine of Societal Transformation?

“…As a consequence of such rigid enframing, many papers in natural sciences are virtually indistinguishable from one another, varying only in terms of the numerical information so presented. This fact even led some researchers to make a bold prediction: we may soon witness the end of scientific articles, which will be substituted by "ontologies" (IMRAD carried to an extreme) (West, 2016): such an outcome would mark a kind of technological singularity moment at which the They is seen to triumph over the authentic self of individual researchers. Researchers will no longer be required to create texts; it will be sufficient to simply upload properly formatted information into pre-assigned spaces.…”

“…As was previously mentioned, the They mostly acts through such existential characteristics as distantiality, averaging and levelling down, imposing conformity as a mode of existence to everybody who gives up responsibility for his own Dasein and instead plays by the rules of the scientised world-view. Namely, these characteristics manifest themselves in science in terms of alienation (distantiality) of a researcher's personality from the results of his work; disregard (averaging) of any personal impact and achievements in order to bring to the fore the part of bureaucratic structures and self-producing machines (West, 2016); standardisation (levelling down), which appears in a reduction to a common denominator of everything beyond established standards. Therefore, it can be concluded that, with conformity being a mode of existence, science has become a highly-bureaucratised activity, whose performance is entirely dependent on how effectively such technological instruments, e.g.…”

Promoting transparency of research and data needs much more attention

“…In a Variance and Dissent series initiated by Robert West and introduced by Kotz et al, consisting of a number of compact contributions (West, Bouter, Ioannidis, Shamseer and Roberts, Goldacre and Brown, Attwood and Munaf o, Koers, Knottnerus, West), the importance of promoting transparency and accountability of research and of data disclosure, and related challenges and conditions, are discussed. Also, other pertinent issues are addressed, such as the need for concerted action of the responsible actors involved, the importance of investing in the education and training in good scientific practice of young researchers, and considering 'the end of scientific articles as we know them' [2]. The urgency of addressing the issues discussed in this series is illustrated by Hopkins et al who evaluated current data sharing activities of the UK publicly funded Clinical Trial Units (CTUs).…”