Discussion about the future of science, where we're heading and how do we get there - Shirley Wu

Two drivers that will continue to advance: Internet improving communication, technology improving science experimentation. - Shirley Wu

Projects that 4 things will change: how science is funded, who plans experiments, what carries them out, what publication/review process ensues - Shirley Wu

changes in science: how science is funded, who plans the experiments, what acarries them out; the publication/review process - Pedro Beltrao

"people in brazil funds thinker in India that directs robots in Germany. information published immediately to be reviews by the community" - Pedro Beltrao

Radical vision for the future: _soon_, people in brazil send $ to thinker in india who directs robots in germany to do experiments so she can write paper that is published immediately so it can be reviewed by whole research community - Shirley Wu

(Under)current - a lot of reform is needed in the way science is funded, carried out, and reviewed - Shirley Wu

Chris Patil comments: must be careful not to conflate governmental policies for funding etc with agovernmental policies for scientific review and publication - Shirley Wu

Essentially, Internet is a platform for distribution of information, information is fluidly defined. Alex Griekspoor (Papers) mentions that ultimately all the money comes from the public, they should have some say in how it is used. Jeremy says yes, but it shouldn't be funneled through only a very few channels. - Shirley Wu

Michael Nielsen asks: so how much money in the US should be used towards creationist research? (reflecting the fact that there is vocal support from "the public" for it) - Shirley Wu

Hilary Spencer (Nature) comments that it's because of publicly funded (through government taxes) science that we are able to argue effectively for open access and mandate it. If you take it away this public funding aspect you may undermine openness. - Shirley Wu

Chris Patil objects to calling Germans "robots" ;) - Shirley Wu

Argument for how these changes SHOULD occur: science relies on trust, trust only remains intact when change occurs through consensus, change through consensus is inherently gradual. - Shirley Wu

point about trust is key - I'm not sure I agree with a lot of the other things said but that is really at core - and that consensus is important - Cameron Neylon

Conclusion: the first step is to create incentives for individual scientists to voluntarily start doing the same everyday things on the same web platform. - Shirley Wu

Problem: there is no central place on the web where scientists do these things. Little benefit to be the only one or the few in any one place. Hard to motivate people to join these places if little benefit. - Shirley Wu

finding key issues that will give incentives to use of web tools ... I also don't agree with a few things they said. - Pedro Beltrao

Potential solution: create something that will benefit the individual (for now), or individual labs. -- gradual, incremental. Does not require a large user base, only needs you to benefit you. - Shirley Wu

Audience comment: may need to incentivize even more - what will get people to try a new tool? Answer: empirical approach. Identify what it is people want or need, develop something to solve that, analyze what aspects they find most useful, improve. Vivek follows up: identify the burning need. - Shirley Wu

Cameron says: it's all about $$$$. Money is a huge incentive. - Shirley Wu

Hilary asks: if you have distribution of funding how do you determine data/research ownership? Jeremy comments: it's more about openness, choice, transparency, at least you will know who's funding it and what strings are attached if any. - Shirley Wu

Chris Patil asks: what makes us believe that direct democracy (the people who vote American Idol as the best show on television) is a better way to do resource allocation than the current system? - Shirley Wu

Vivek comments: opening up the way funding is allocated is tricky. Marketing can aggregate funds towards pretty much anything (friendship rings for De Beers) if you have enough money to campaign. - Shirley Wu

Nikesh comments: for individual scientists, it's not usually about money. - Shirley Wu

Michael Nielsen comments: people should have a lot of incentive to save for their own retirement, but they usually don't and the government usually steps in for them. Interesting precedent to think about if you start talking about people investing money in other things that may or may not have direct benefit to them in their lifetime - Shirley Wu

we could have discussed the issues that scientists need to solve, those would be the ones that these tools should focus on - Pedro Beltrao

Pedro ... agreed. and I don't think change has to occur through consensus. You almost always follow the Crossing the Chasm adoption curve ... - Deepak Singh