I've always admired independent science organizations, the kinds of places doing high-quality research that aren't state-supported agencies or universities. I'm sure there are more than I know about (I only know stuff in North America), but what come to mind are Perimeter, Santa Fe, Salk, Woods Hole Oceanographic, Schmidt Ocean, Hakai, and the like (send me more!). While I've never worked at one (although Hakai especially would be up my alley!), I'd like to believe that they can move a little more nimbly than other research bodies and beholden to a bit less institutional inertia. While they may benefit from more freedom from teaching commitments (at universities) or state/federal priorities (at public agencies), they can also fall prey to private interest bias depending on their funding source (which tend to be big foundations or donors or some private consulting/contracting work or a mixture).
What exactly "high-quality" research is can be debated. Truth-seeking, unbiased, replicable, useful? I picked up A Vast Machine by Paul Edwards and am in the early chapters, but I'm excited by its premise and readability. Edwards was the lead author of the 6th IPCC Report, and the book is about the "knowledge infrastructures" that fuel the science behind the IPCC. He speaks directly to how no single data stream or product is "true"—but that the machinery of combining data, cleaning, interpreting, rattling results around a variety of verification and review mechanisms, and then disseminating everything is the "truth" of it, an articulation around the unreachable truth. It's the machinery, the process of truth-making, that makes for good science. And I believe this. But I also worry that, going forward, it is a bit of a "too big to fail"-style argument. While the IPCC seems to have stayed somewhat lean, the institutions that comprise the bulk of (para-)academia run the risk of ossification by arguing that it is their bureaucracy that supports truth-making.
I also just finished reading The Ministry for the Future after a few recommendations. I'll extend the recommendation to anyone who frets about climate change-driven destruction: while the author writes (I think) accurately about climate disasters, he avoids an apocalyptic tone, and I found myself crying a few times at the book's optimism, which can feel hard to grasp at a day-to-day level. One of the main premises (and a key narrative feature) of the book is an "everything all at once" approach to climate activism; that it isn't one single tactic or deus ex machina that will reverse dangerous climate change, but a vast distributed set of initiatives, each moving the needle in their own little realm. I realized that this philosophy of distributed activism is another reason I celebrate independent research organizations: because I think the ability for smaller, self-organized groups to do good science is actually going to be a critical component of environmental work in the 21st century.
In the scope of environmental science, then, I want not-quite-institution-scale groups or organizations to be able to do "good science." Really, maybe my question shakes out to this: is "independent science" a contradiction? If truth-building is about exchange and verifiability that requires some scale, how feasible is it for, say, a 5-person team with no network to do "good science?" I think it is possible, and that the details boil down to how the body of work can be verified by a social trust system (e.g. peer review, if you believe in it), and how it can be disseminated in a way that people will believe. This will likely require a social shift away from only seeing the big institutions of the world as the generators of truth (something that's happening anyway), and a re-building of confidence in the ability of groups with few affiliations to do good work (how to do this, I don't really know). Hopefully not under the intent of "doing your own research," but out of showing that we don't need the over-accreted 20th-century institutions to pull apart complex topics.
More Sci-hub, more preprint servers, more open peer review—these are all things I see happening, and they are to be celebrated. We also need more open data publication standards, more low-cost/DIY technology (e.g. sensors), and more support for long-standing monitoring programs that can serve as the backbones of smaller-scale projects. But more mechanisms to support science by "small fish" organizations, money in rapid grants, and trust-building for outsider scientists—that's what I'd like to see more of, because I think that's where the future is headed.
Under peer-review,
Lukas
P.S. OK, maybe there's no need for DIY nuclear reactors, but again I'm focusing on environmental science here. Also, fuck Elsevier.
What exactly "high-quality" research is can be debated. Truth-seeking, unbiased, replicable, useful? I picked up A Vast Machine by Paul Edwards and am in the early chapters, but I'm excited by its premise and readability. Edwards was the lead author of the 6th IPCC Report, and the book is about the "knowledge infrastructures" that fuel the science behind the IPCC. He speaks directly to how no single data stream or product is "true"—but that the machinery of combining data, cleaning, interpreting, rattling results around a variety of verification and review mechanisms, and then disseminating everything is the "truth" of it, an articulation around the unreachable truth. It's the machinery, the process of truth-making, that makes for good science. And I believe this. But I also worry that, going forward, it is a bit of a "too big to fail"-style argument. While the IPCC seems to have stayed somewhat lean, the institutions that comprise the bulk of (para-)academia run the risk of ossification by arguing that it is their bureaucracy that supports truth-making.
I also just finished reading The Ministry for the Future after a few recommendations. I'll extend the recommendation to anyone who frets about climate change-driven destruction: while the author writes (I think) accurately about climate disasters, he avoids an apocalyptic tone, and I found myself crying a few times at the book's optimism, which can feel hard to grasp at a day-to-day level. One of the main premises (and a key narrative feature) of the book is an "everything all at once" approach to climate activism; that it isn't one single tactic or deus ex machina that will reverse dangerous climate change, but a vast distributed set of initiatives, each moving the needle in their own little realm. I realized that this philosophy of distributed activism is another reason I celebrate independent research organizations: because I think the ability for smaller, self-organized groups to do good science is actually going to be a critical component of environmental work in the 21st century.
In the scope of environmental science, then, I want not-quite-institution-scale groups or organizations to be able to do "good science." Really, maybe my question shakes out to this: is "independent science" a contradiction? If truth-building is about exchange and verifiability that requires some scale, how feasible is it for, say, a 5-person team with no network to do "good science?" I think it is possible, and that the details boil down to how the body of work can be verified by a social trust system (e.g. peer review, if you believe in it), and how it can be disseminated in a way that people will believe. This will likely require a social shift away from only seeing the big institutions of the world as the generators of truth (something that's happening anyway), and a re-building of confidence in the ability of groups with few affiliations to do good work (how to do this, I don't really know). Hopefully not under the intent of "doing your own research," but out of showing that we don't need the over-accreted 20th-century institutions to pull apart complex topics.
More Sci-hub, more preprint servers, more open peer review—these are all things I see happening, and they are to be celebrated. We also need more open data publication standards, more low-cost/DIY technology (e.g. sensors), and more support for long-standing monitoring programs that can serve as the backbones of smaller-scale projects. But more mechanisms to support science by "small fish" organizations, money in rapid grants, and trust-building for outsider scientists—that's what I'd like to see more of, because I think that's where the future is headed.
Under peer-review,
Lukas
P.S. OK, maybe there's no need for DIY nuclear reactors, but again I'm focusing on environmental science here. Also, fuck Elsevier.