Changing the World

Sharing is going to change the world, or at the very least, transform it. That seems to be the central point to all of the arguments I have read this week and I’d have to say that whether you’d like to admit it or not, they do make a very convincing argument.

The scientific field, as with virtually any other industry, has been completely uprooted by the development of new media and the new ecologies which have emerged as a result. In particular, the flow of information, both within the scientific field and in the wider environment is evolving. At the heart of this shift is the opening up of access to data. Instead of working against each other in a race to make the discovery that will change the world and thus ensure their infamy, scientist are increasingly pooling their collective data in the interests of furthering the scientific field, albeit at the expense of their individual recognition in many cases.

I can’t say that I really know all that much about science beyond the High School basics, but nevertheless, to me at least the field of genetics in particular seems to be tentatively embracing this more open and collaborative approach to scientific work. Just look at the Human Genome Project. The difference between independent competition and open collaboration seems clear in this instance. By opening the venture up to an international network of collaborating scientists, all of whom made their data instantly available, the progression of the project and the scientific process was streamlined. Moreover, the freely available data collected from the project has in turn fostered invaluable developments in the medical field.

“In the early 1980s, geneticists worked away in their different labs, racing to sequence genes and patent them before the neighbouring lab could. The result: duplication, very slow progress and a huge bill… So in 1986 they knocked some heads together, and decided they'd only fund geneticists who were willing to make their data available immediately. Nowadays, gene sequences get posted on the web daily and scientists build on one another's work. The pace of discovery has increased exponentially and, as a result, so have diagnostics and cures” writes Elizabeth Pisani. (1)

You cannot deny that by opening up scientific research data, the progress of discovery and innovation is streamlined, so you would think that what is undeniably a more efficient and productive approach to research would be welcomed. But of course this ‘sharing’ goes against the very premise on which the scientific field has been built. A strict hierarchical structure of recognition and acknowledgement, of discovery and reward has dictated the progression of scientific discovery; that is up until now. With the possibilities enabled by new media comes a new approach to the scientific field which seems to remove many of the rewards or incentives inbuilt into the preexisting system and those with a vested interest in the existing structure of the field are of course hesitant to embrace these new approaches.

For instance, while the Human Genome itself cannot be patented (2), removing much of the financial incentives for privatizing scientific work and enabling the apparent acceptance of this collaborative, networked approach to research in the field, resistance to these shifts are still very much apparent. It was Craig Venter who led the privatized effort to sequence the Human Genome (3) before it was declared that patents could not be applied, and now, rather than embracing this culture of ‘sharing’, Venter seems to be firmly invested in the preexisting structure of the scientific field. Last year he developed the first synthetic genome (4), seemingly bypassing the political imperatives to share his research. While sequencing the Human Genome may have lost its financial incentives, there is nothing to say that you can’t patent an artificial one (5) and I think it’s fair to assume that Venter patented his work.

The prospect of sharing may be a promising one, but we shouldn’t get too carried away. Clearly everyone isn’t embracing this collaborative approach with open arms and it would be naive to expect them to change their position without offering some sort of incentive to replace what they are losing.

References:

1.   Pisani, Elizabeth (2011) ‘Medical science will benefit from the research of crowds’, The Guardian, January 11, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/11/medical-research-data-sharing>
2. Wikipedia 2011, The Human Genome Project, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Project> 
3. Ibid 
4. Sample, Ian (2010) ‘Craig Venter Creates Synthetic Life Form’, The Guardian May 2, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form> 
5.  Wikipedia 2011, Gene Patent, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_patent>