When the data isn't there. Disclosure: the scientific community (and society) at a crossroads

Abstract

The problem of accessing data is as old as science itself. Complete popularisation of scientific data (of a theoretical model), and even more so of the methods and materials used during an experimental process and of the empirical data amassed, has always been considered an essential part of the process of authentication, duplication and filing of scientific knowledge. It is also true, however, that this theory has always been a complex riddle with no simple solution. Strangely enough, in today's era of instant communication, the challenge of information access seems to be facing new, daunting obstacles, some of which have the same name and characteristics they had 100 or 300 years ago, but which have been intensified by new dimensions and unexpected corollaries. Others have a new core, an example being, the problem related to disclosure, which implies the (more or less) complete popularisation of the data, procedures, and tools used during research. This is a subject which, although ancient in form, has recently taken on new, far-reaching implications. The scientific community now has to face a problem which originated, first, with the sequencing of the human genome and, later, with that of certain types of rice; a problem which could redefine certain aspects of the epistemological practice and nature of science.

“What Dr Venter did on his holidays”: exploration, hacking, entrepreneurship in the narratives of theSorcerer IIexpedition

“…5 Captain Hook is giving the treasure However, hackers also have a business model and a reference market, and Craig Venter is well known for having adopted secrecy and privatization policies for 422 A. Delfanti et al genetic data. With his Celera Genomics he had challenged the rules of academic science, forcing Science to change its publication standards, allowing him to publish the articles on the human genome without making all the genetic data public (Castelfranchi 2004). But industrial secrets, intellectual property rights and service providing based on open access data are three major modes of making money from biological information.…”