6 ms·

Not going to happen. You don't understand the forces at play when biomedical researchers (I'm one too) do the work. A major reason more specific to this type of

Not going to happen. You don't understand the forces at play when biomedical researchers (I'm one too) do the work. A major reason more specific to this type of researcher that he/she wants to hold back the data is in the event it can be re-purposed for later goals. It's capital. The time and money spent acquiring the types of negative data the article talks about (mouse experiments) take big dollars. I'm not going to throw it away in an archive. It's like donating to a Goodwill bin some really expensive clothes you saved your money to buy only to realize after you bought it that it's the wrong size. You're totally going to try to make it work often for years before you give up on it. If you take issue with my comment and have ever worked for a startup that didn't pan out (should be many of us here on HN), think of the scenario if someone told you, "hey, why don't you just be a good person and open source your app and give all your customers to XYZ?" (Setting aside the armchair quarterback guilt imposed on you) There are a few who do that, but if you've spent any length of time on your business, you're going to think of ways to re-purpose the investment you made it in other ways before you just go dumping it in an archive like Github or whatever.

alexryan 10y ago
There seems to be a lot of sharing amongst artificial intelligence researchers nowadays and it seems to be accelerating innovation. Sharing of medical research could potential accelerate innovation that could save a lot of lives (including those of the researchers themselves and their loved ones). It's curious that these industries are so different in this respect. What would have to happen in order to increase the amount of sharing of medical research?
- jandrewrogers 10y ago
  I would say this is more illusory than real. It is common in areas that have intense private R&D competition, such as AI, databases, et al to regularly publish research that makes you appear relevant without publishing any internal research that actually matters. The incentives are aligned to encourage this. It is unfortunate but I have seen it first-hand in a few interesting computer science research areas, and academia simply doesn't have the resources to keep pace with the output that happens under NDA at many private research labs.
uptime 10y ago
I think the notion that negative outcomes are capital is a good one. And if the research has public money involved then we have a right to see them so we are not spending dwindling public money on unnecessary redundancy (as opposed to productive or confirmatory kinds.) The second point about open sourcing tech that do not achieve its goal is also a good point. People who do that with great docs etc get a lot of respect. People who dump badly done work do not. Businesses that fail but care about their customers often "donate" them to a competitor. I think these ideas are quite valid and can and should be realized more often.
- mattkrause 10y ago
  > People who do that with great docs etc get a lot of respect. That's the issue. Publishing run-of-the-mill negative results right now doesn't get you much of anything. I would love to live in a world where hiring committees and funding agencies say "Well, 3/5 of his experiments flopped, but we looked at the papers and they were all carefully thought out and well-run. Hire him/give him some cash!" Alas, I don't. The article even says, "We trust that reviewers and tenure committees will find appropriate ways to credit papers that include confirmation." The issue is that needs to come first for anything to happen.

alexryan 10y ago

There seems to be a lot of sharing amongst artificial intelligence researchers nowadays and it seems to be accelerating innovation. Sharing of medical research could potential accelerate innovation that could save a lot of lives (including those of the researchers themselves and their loved ones). It's curious that these industries are so different in this respect. What would have to happen in order to increase the amount of sharing of medical research?

jandrewrogers 10y ago
I would say this is more illusory than real. It is common in areas that have intense private R&D competition, such as AI, databases, et al to regularly publish research that makes you appear relevant without publishing any internal research that actually matters. The incentives are aligned to encourage this. It is unfortunate but I have seen it first-hand in a few interesting computer science research areas, and academia simply doesn't have the resources to keep pace with the output that happens under NDA at many private research labs.

uptime 10y ago

I think the notion that negative outcomes are capital is a good one. And if the research has public money involved then we have a right to see them so we are not spending dwindling public money on unnecessary redundancy (as opposed to productive or confirmatory kinds.) The second point about open sourcing tech that do not achieve its goal is also a good point. People who do that with great docs etc get a lot of respect. People who dump badly done work do not. Businesses that fail but care about their customers often "donate" them to a competitor. I think these ideas are quite valid and can and should be realized more often.

mattkrause 10y ago
> People who do that with great docs etc get a lot of respect. That's the issue. Publishing run-of-the-mill negative results right now doesn't get you much of anything. I would love to live in a world where hiring committees and funding agencies say "Well, 3/5 of his experiments flopped, but we looked at the papers and they were all carefully thought out and well-run. Hire him/give him some cash!" Alas, I don't. The article even says, "We trust that reviewers and tenure committees will find appropriate ways to credit papers that include confirmation." The issue is that needs to come first for anything to happen.