5 ms·

Even if LK99 turns out to be a dud, it's proven that there's a great need and great opportunity for more direct communication from scientist on their experiment

by dtx1 3y ago

Even if LK99 turns out to be a dud, it's proven that there's a great need and great opportunity for more direct communication from scientist on their experiments via the internet. Live Stream of the Synthesis, Twitter Threads giving life updates of different teams, etc.

mrandish 3y ago
I fully agree that the traditional journal and academic publishing models are having significant negative impact on the conduct of science. I also really like that the Arxiv, open access publishing, open peer review, live science and similar new models represent a refreshing return to less gatekeeping, politics and institutional gamesmanship. Based on the early successes shown by applying social media platforms like Twitter, Twitch, Discord, etc, to accelerating science, I hope we can evolve better tools and platforms which are equally open but even more suited to the exchange of scientific ideas, results, review and feedback.
- wilg 3y ago
  I've always felt I love the idea of arXiv as a non-scientist who is interested in following science, but it's so esoteric and hard to follow (the density and format of scientific papers does not help). I would love something that was half arXiv and half-Twitter, and if papers were natively written for the web in an elegant and cross-linked way with rich explanations of related topics, interactive graphs with linked datasets, video, jargon explanations, etc.
- montecarl 3y ago
  Most science is way too boring and requires way to much work to reproduce to follow this kind of model. This open science type work we are seeing for LK-99 works fantastically when a huge number of scientists are interested in the problem and motivated to study it. Most papers aren't even cited more than a dozen times if that.
npunt 3y ago
Agree for sure, really love seeing the evidence and discussion in realtime as it shows us a better way to do worldwide science collaboration than traditional publishing. Really speaks to a need for a new medium specific to science's unique characteristics. One caveat tho is that hype can also distort and there's a limited resource of 'the public's excitement with science' that depletes if it never delivers, so I wouldn't necessarily couple science education/comms with science process so tightly. Most science is lots and lots of boring toil, and I'd hope the $$s flow to the best scientists rather than the ones who tell the most twitter-friendly stories.
cubefox 3y ago
The first three author paper was uploaded by someone who wasn't authorized by the others to do so, and since that one was so flawed, the others apparently were forced to quickly upload the six author version, which was better but still flawed. So it seems the whole thing was intended to happen in a much more orderly matter than it did.
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
I disagree, what you are asking would just be a way to siphon information, and encourage that kind of rush behavior Korea should protect its students and their work a little more if they want their own TSMC, Texas Instruments of Korea doesn't sound right
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
threeseed 3y ago
Strongly disagree. I don't want scientists to be turned into influencers or D-grade celebrities having to debase themselves on shows like Joe Rogan in order to get funding or justify their work. Or what happened this week on Twitter where the scientist was obsessed with trying to get above 15m views so he could get monetised. It is great to learn more about the scientific process in this ad-hoc manner but I would prefer to let scientists figure out themselves what works best for them rather than it being driven from the unwashed masses.
- haswell 3y ago
  There’s a part of me that deeply agrees with you, but I don’t think we need to assume binary extremes here. LK99 is reinvigorating broader interest in science, and this may be one of the most important things that could possibly happen at a moment in our global history that desperately needs broad support for research and progress. None of this matters if we don’t sort out some pretty major climate/energy problems, and soon. I agree that it would be problematic for science to become what you describe. What you describe is not some guaranteed outcome of a shift towards more public participation and awareness. And to be honest, if it does lead to some garbage behavior, that may be a small price to pay for getting the public interested and invested in the process of progress.
delfinom 3y ago
You just sound like you have a social media addiction, particularly to dopamine hits. Not everyone is addicted nor has the personality to start becoming livestreamers over some experiments.

by dtx1 3y ago

mrandish 3y ago

I fully agree that the traditional journal and academic publishing models are having significant negative impact on the conduct of science. I also really like that the Arxiv, open access publishing, open peer review, live science and similar new models represent a refreshing return to less gatekeeping, politics and institutional gamesmanship. Based on the early successes shown by applying social media platforms like Twitter, Twitch, Discord, etc, to accelerating science, I hope we can evolve better tools and platforms which are equally open but even more suited to the exchange of scientific ideas, results, review and feedback.

wilg 3y ago
I've always felt I love the idea of arXiv as a non-scientist who is interested in following science, but it's so esoteric and hard to follow (the density and format of scientific papers does not help). I would love something that was half arXiv and half-Twitter, and if papers were natively written for the web in an elegant and cross-linked way with rich explanations of related topics, interactive graphs with linked datasets, video, jargon explanations, etc.
montecarl 3y ago
Most science is way too boring and requires way to much work to reproduce to follow this kind of model. This open science type work we are seeing for LK-99 works fantastically when a huge number of scientists are interested in the problem and motivated to study it. Most papers aren't even cited more than a dozen times if that.

npunt 3y ago

Agree for sure, really love seeing the evidence and discussion in realtime as it shows us a better way to do worldwide science collaboration than traditional publishing. Really speaks to a need for a new medium specific to science's unique characteristics. One caveat tho is that hype can also distort and there's a limited resource of 'the public's excitement with science' that depletes if it never delivers, so I wouldn't necessarily couple science education/comms with science process so tightly. Most science is lots and lots of boring toil, and I'd hope the $$s flow to the best scientists rather than the ones who tell the most twitter-friendly stories.

cubefox 3y ago

The first three author paper was uploaded by someone who wasn't authorized by the others to do so, and since that one was so flawed, the others apparently were forced to quickly upload the six author version, which was better but still flawed. So it seems the whole thing was intended to happen in a much more orderly matter than it did.

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

I disagree, what you are asking would just be a way to siphon information, and encourage that kind of rush behavior Korea should protect its students and their work a little more if they want their own TSMC, Texas Instruments of Korea doesn't sound right

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

threeseed 3y ago

Strongly disagree. I don't want scientists to be turned into influencers or D-grade celebrities having to debase themselves on shows like Joe Rogan in order to get funding or justify their work. Or what happened this week on Twitter where the scientist was obsessed with trying to get above 15m views so he could get monetised. It is great to learn more about the scientific process in this ad-hoc manner but I would prefer to let scientists figure out themselves what works best for them rather than it being driven from the unwashed masses.

haswell 3y ago
There’s a part of me that deeply agrees with you, but I don’t think we need to assume binary extremes here. LK99 is reinvigorating broader interest in science, and this may be one of the most important things that could possibly happen at a moment in our global history that desperately needs broad support for research and progress. None of this matters if we don’t sort out some pretty major climate/energy problems, and soon. I agree that it would be problematic for science to become what you describe. What you describe is not some guaranteed outcome of a shift towards more public participation and awareness. And to be honest, if it does lead to some garbage behavior, that may be a small price to pay for getting the public interested and invested in the process of progress.

delfinom 3y ago

You just sound like you have a social media addiction, particularly to dopamine hits. Not everyone is addicted nor has the personality to start becoming livestreamers over some experiments.