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I think the second big take away is that this was only made possible because the scientists willingly shared their "dark data"-- data and lab notes from failed
by mfoy_ 11y ago
I think the second big take away is that this was only made possible because the scientists willingly shared their "dark data"-- data and lab notes from failed experiments. I wonder how much data is hoarded privately and never opened up and analyzed like this.
- MollyR 11y agoA lot of data is hoarded because scientists often have to compete for limited research funding (at least from what I've seen in the US).
- andreasklinger 11y agonext up: "let's depend funding on how much data is shared and other people use it" after that: "researchers overshare data and use each others data for no reason but to bump numbers" it's interesting how every system tends to sooner or later be gamified by its players
- valarauca1 11y agoWhat metrics you decide to keep are ultimately what you will try to optimize too. We are what we measure.
- edoloughlin 11y agoI was looking for an SMBC strip that captures this (there's got to be one) but this is the closest I could get: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=1624 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=1624
- pmiller2 11y agoI'm, unfortunately, very familiar with the LPU (Least Publishable Unit) after having been to grad school. It's actually a thing, especially among pre-tenure people.
- guelo 11y agoExample from the programming world: github profiles are used as a hiring tool, programmers start dumping thousands of undocumented useless "projects" into github.
- oldmanjay 11y agooccasionally, I wonder how much more advanced our world would be if scientific and government data were simply available as a default choice. then I smile at my own optimistic viewpoint and come back to reality.
- cryoshon 11y agoFrequently a lot of this hoarded data is flawed or defective due to improper setup or execution of the experiment. That isn't to say the information in this "dark data" is useless, but it needs to be taken in context. The cleanest data with the best results are put forward into a paper; the chaff is not.
- chris_wot 11y agoShouldn't this be noted? Isn't providing the "best" data risking making data fit your hypothesis?
- technofiend 11y agoNot if your dark data is "I forgot to autoclave an instrument and contaminated my samples." In that case without an unexpected positive result it's just error and not worth reporting.
- catshirt 11y agobiology is not my forte but- i imagine "dark data" (with context) is always more valuable than no data.
- dmd 11y agoLast time your build failed because you made a typo, did you package it up and release that version anyway?
- wyager 11y agoBad analogy. There's a lot more to learn from a failed medical experiment than a failed build.
- cryoshon 11y agoDepends on whether the lessons have already been learned or not. For stuff like "we fucked up our culture, therefore our cells couldn't do whatever we wanted" is well understood. In clinical trials where some patients may respond to a treatment and others not, there's definitely a lot more to learn there, if you have a large enough data set and a plurality of controls.