5 ms·
"Summaries of the state of knowledge in different fields": I've been thinking a lot about this one lately. There's so much confusion (and willful disinformation
by m12k 7y ago
"Summaries of the state of knowledge in different fields": I've been thinking a lot about this one lately. There's so much confusion (and willful disinformation) in the world when it comes to science, and so many journalists don't understand that a single article published in a journal does not mean that there is now a scientific consensus around this - that usually comes years later when a meta-study comes along. In most fields, as an outsider, you basically have to get lucky that one of these meta-studies has cropped up recently and you happen to talk to an expert that can point you at it. In medicine there is the Cochrane organization that does a pretty good job of communicating these findings in a clear way. But why isn't there something like this for all fields of science, constantly updated, so journalists, policy-makers and curious amateurs like myself have a single point of entry when we want to understand the state of the art in a given scientific field? A trustworthy source where I could check what's certain and what's still up in the air when it comes to CRISPR, which variants of string theory have we managed to disprove using colliders, which are still being considered, what do the currently best climate models look like and how certain are we of their accuracy?
It'd be a huge undertaking - continuously interviewing researchers, quantifying and communicating their answers in a way that non-experts can understand. But on the other hand, all the science we're already doing is a huge undertaking, and it's crazy that we let all the knowledge that these experts accumulate just languish in obscure journals targeted only at other experts, and letting the 'state of the art' just be this implicit thing in the heads of dozens of experts, instead of being stated explicitly somewhere accessible.
- madhadron 7y ago> A trustworthy source where I could check what's certain and what's still up in the air when it comes to CRISPR, which variants of string theory have we managed to disprove using colliders, which are still being considered, what do the currently best climate models look like and how certain are we of their accuracy? The Particle Data Group does this for high energy physics quite effectively. It's just not knowledge that laymen can absorb in a useful way.
- zirror 7y ago> "so many journalists don't understand that a single article published in a journal does not mean that there is now a scientific consensus around this" I respectfully disagree that journalists don't understand that. They do, they are just incentivized to fill their websites/shows with grabbing headlines to get more ad revenue. It's mainly an incentive problem, not an understanding problem.
- jimbokun 7y agoIn the long run, this could also help combat the "Fake News" phenomenon. Part of the Utopian mindset of the early Internet was the belief that making more content available to people would automatically lead to people being better educated and informed. But of course it also opened up people up to unprecedented amounts of disinformation, deliberate or otherwise. Slowly establishing authorities on given topics and building their reputation could help over time to filter the wheat from the chaff on various topics.
- hans1729 7y agoThis gap is filled by consultants; a centralized, interdisciplinary knowledge-hub would be more than "a huge undertaking", because the forces that are at work when people try to reach consensus are not the same forces that drive unbiased research; "science is great, but full of people". unless you find a way to form such an organisation without the detrimental impact of social and opportunistic dynamics, the result wouldn't match the desired outcome. (ignoring matters like funding etc.)
- ak217 7y agoThese summaries are known to academics as review articles. For some examples of great review articles, see the Nature Reviews journals.
- kamranahmed_se 7y agoI started https://roadmap.sh https://roadmap.sh with the hopes of doing something similar. It currently only has a few items that I have expertise in plus in the form of a visual representation, however I am going to change it and will soon be reaching out to other people for contributions. It is one of my goals this year to focus fully on it. If you or anyone else would like to contribute, feel free to reach out, the codebase is opensource at https://github.com/kamranahmedse/roadmap.sh https://github.com/kamranahmedse/roadmap.sh