An example I gave in the essay was the drug Tamiflu on which the UK and US governments have spent a fortune to build a stockpile in case of a deadly flu epedemic. We now learn that according to some the research was flawed and the data was hidden. Should we allow them to keep it hidden to preserve their trade secrets? I think not.

Much of the important research that is important here is not driven by corporate interests, yet the same problem arises. Remember the big climategate scandal where the data used to produce the hockey stick graph was hidden and later revelations called it into question. Not only does it mean that the research could not be checked but also the aftermath destroyed confidence in climate research altogther making it more difficult to know what the true situation is.

I am not saying that internal company R and D should be open. It is only when they are legally required to do public research to show that their products are safe and effective that it needs to be open.

Coalitions already coordinate to further their own interests. Not to participate in competition more effectively, to monopolize through agreement; price fixing.

Look at the gas prices nation-wide. The cost does not change more than 30 cents a gallon except in states charging considerably more taxes. That is about an 8% variance in a product of many oil companies nation-wide. The variance is actually less because of individual store owner influences.

This is illegal, but it is broadly being observed.

To do what you propose requires eliminating corruption first.

Corruption is defined as "unethical allocation of resources and/or opportunities"

Top/Down efforts

Google Search: eliminate all corruption

Bottom/Up efforts

ua-kits.com

Hi Phillip,

You practiced what you preached. That is enough for me to rate your essay a ten (10).

Best wishes,

Leo KoGuan

Dear Philip Gibbs

A very practical solution and updates for future .

Science in general and physics in particular has been and will pay the price for bureaucratic work that way, of course, with the magazine functioning as " the Literature on Physics style " as well so too .

But the Truth has always existed, so mankind will surely fed up and turned his back on the scientific work was "composed and produced" as style of literature which - now begining to appear increasingly many manifestations .

" Going against the wind as quickly then will as soon met the storm "

Best regards - Hải.CaoHoàng

P.S., I will use the following rating scale to rate the essays of authors who tell me that they have rated my essay:

10 - the essay is perfection and I learned a tremendous amount

9 - the essay was extremely good, and I learned a lot

8 - the essay was very good, and I learned something

7 - the essay was good, and it had some helpful suggestions

6 - slightly favorable indifference

5 - unfavorable indifference

4 - the essay was pretty shoddy and boring

3 - the essay was of poor quality and boring

2 - the essay was of very poor quality and boring

1 - the essay was of shockingly poor quality and extremely flawed

After all, that is essentially what the numbers mean.

The following is a general observation:

Is it not ironic that so many authors who have written about how we should improve our future as a species, to a certain extent, appear to be motivated by self-interest in their rating practices? (As evidence, I offer the observation that no article under 3 deserves such a rating, and nearly every article above 4 deserves a higher rating.)

Dear Phil

It is fine, that you wrote this essay and gave some useful examples like meteoroid, tamiflu, etc. There it is an analysis of our publication system and a lot of arguments for your claims.

You gave also good comments, for instance: ''It is much easier to keep a check on articles that have to be summaries from reliable sources rather than articles that develop their own new ideas. This is why open peer-review is harder, even of some of the same principles will apply.'' As a bad consequence, professional researcher reject these amateur ideas instead to find some sophisticated model for analysis of them.

Your point eight, Normalcy bias, is very similar to my claim for non-zero probability for Amateurs that they will develop a new good theory in basic physics. This is by statistical laws, because Gaussian curve is everywhere different than zero. It is strange to me that leading physicists do not know this, because their understanding of statistics is good.

It is also written in my fictious essay:

The next presenter is Phil Gibbs. Many years ago he established his electronic preprint archive viXra [7]. '' I was attacked many times that no one paper appears on my portal which can be useful for science.'' he begins. ''They claim that useful ideas can be given only by professionals, which can publish in arXiv [8], but not by amateurs, which are doing research in free time and they can publish only in viXra. Therefore I counted those useful papers and I made statistics. Yes, such papers exist which brought benefit to science. Still more, it is possible to calculate probability that a professional or amateur paper will be beneficial for science in dependence of time, money, intelligence of a researcher, help at research, and largeness of research group. It is even possible to estimate impact of gender part in the group [9]. Admittedly, amateurs are less intelligent in average than professionals, because professionals go through a larger number of selections. Amateurs have less time and no money for research, except their own money. But probability for correctness of their theories is not zero. On the other side, amateur's theories come across too little arguments for their rejections than professional's ones. Thus their (un)correctness is much less checked. We should know that influential statistical parameters are mainly distributed by Gaussian curves, or at least, probability never falls toward zero.''

My pdf essay

My essay entrance

You provided for the first urgent necessity for amateur researchers, you founded viXra. I hope that you will also read my essay and gave comments about it.

I hope also that all we will develop some good system of evaluation of the FQXi essays and also viXra papers.

What you propose will destroy all physics support and development; unless there is a means to eliminate all corruption.

The FDA and a variety of other groups already watch developments like Tamiflu, but biased research (similar to particle physics research) provides a means of circumventing the intents of ethical oversight.

A startup company at present does not have the funds to fight IP infringement. What you propose will make it impossible for a small startup company to prevent large companies from blatantly stealing their IP. This is already being done, but where their are trade secrets this provides the only protections.

However, there is a means to provide public representation and at the same time provide both trade secrets relative to business protections while also providing public monitoring of all research.

http://eliminate-all-corruption.pbworks.com

Limiting action to talking about part of the total solution is an illusion, it does NOT provide a broad solution and implementation provides opportunities for stealing IP. What you propose can be useful ONLY if broad ethical ACTION contributes to a broad solution. The concept you propose is destructive towards physics developments in the context of business. However, if action is made to eliminate all corruption ONLY then is your proposal viable.

If you have a large number of doctors of science and philosophy that represent their State Constitution who both help develop the monitoring technologies and ensure the equitable processing and utilization of the information collected, this provides a means to implement your proposal.

Patents are useful for large companies, but large companies circumvent patents on a routine basis. Trade Secrets are only circumvented by reverse engineering; a much more costly endeavor.

Without eliminating all corruption, your proposal alone will destroy sustainability of physics related enterprise.

ONLY if corruption can be eliminated is your proposal viable !!!

    As I have already tried to explain to you, my proposal is not about revealing trade secrets and has nothing to do with the issues you raise. My proposal is that where research is currently published or funding through peer-review, that this should be done by a more open process.

    This is mostly about publicly funded research and only applies to commercial research that is already published, e.g. where a company wishes or needs to show that their product is safe and effective. In this case it is not unreasonable to ask them to be open with the data that they claim proves their case and to allow scrutiny by any interested parties.

    As I said before I am not suggesting that every company needs to give away their trade secrets and I have no idea where you got that from. It is a completely unrelated issue. Please quote something from my essay that makes you think this if you wish to continue this discussion.

    Author's Quote:

    "An example I gave in the essay was the drug Tamiflu on which the UK and US governments have spent a fortune to build a stockpile in case of a deadly flu epedemic. We now learn that according to some the research was flawed and the data was hidden. Should we allow them to keep it hidden to preserve their trade secrets? I think not."

    Third-Party Research is not made public unless the organization paying for related research authorizes disclosure.

    An individual researcher selectively chooses the studies to be considered relevant for publication. So how does "hidden" research become available for review if the researcher chooses before-hand to avoid certain investigations that would otherwise reveal weaknesses to proposals or undesirable consequences?

    Publicly accessible research that would require-by-law openly accessible support reveals trade secrets; unless a trusted organization that protects such trade secrets reviews supporting evidence (FDA).

    What you seem to be inferring is that the FDA is not a trusted organization and is internally biased, or worse, corrupt.

    Without an agency that has the facilities and authority to monitor everything (National Security Agency) the selective access provided by any other means may be biased by the funding entity.

    Open access to the fundamental supporting information can be part of the trade secrets protected by business protocols.

    The focus instead needs to be on better developing the trusted monitoring agencies to be sure they are performing without negligence.

      • [deleted]

      • Post #64

      I took the time to create a real-world application where you can implement your concept, so I am in support of your concepts, but ONLY if real-world respected oversight (FDA, NSA ...) provides protections of trade secrets.

      Login to Google at http://www.google.com

      https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/open-peer-review

      I think your essay is good but idealistic, because it is missing a key feature that makes it economically dangerous; but if the key feature is included it makes your essay content broadly implementable.

      People generally do not like to discuss corruption as part of their solutions; because they do not understand the mechanisms of corruption. But in the real world corruption must be a consideration in everything we propose.

      Your Open Peer Review process is presented as an effort to fight existing corruption (i.e. unethical allocation of resources and/or opportunities). I am only trying to shore up a weak point that would make your essay content realistically implementable. I am not in opposition to your essay, I am trying to realistically support it.

      When people leave comments that broadly support your essay in its present configuration I see the potential danger of adoption into a paid effort that results in dismal outcomes.

      What I see is missing in our existing FDA review is a listing of all efforts in review by the FDA, and related materials the companies "CAN" make available to the public for review without exposing trade secrets or business strategies. There should be a "Professionals" questions and answers forum for each FDA effort that allows licensed/certified Public Experts (diverse specialties) to ask questions related to proof of supporting information. Persons engaging in espionage would be assumed to always be present. The FDA would provide non-specific support with margins of error to forum questions. In this way the FDA can obtain reasonable focused feedback from the public about broad business related concerns.

      In almost all open peer review an author's name is cited, and very often related contact information. Supporting data can be requested of the Author, this is nothing new, but who is going to pay for their labor to provide the related information? For an author to provide related information while being paid to produce other efforts is unethical. Who is going to pay for online access for all eternity? Who is going to deal with data obsolescence? Who is going to be liable for misuse of the information disclosed? I used to deal with UXO and much of the related information is confidential. Raw data is interpreted within margins of error. Open Peer Review and requiring detailed supporting data is very complex unless corruption can be eliminated for all related efforts. Providing details costs.

      In a Federal Program of research, over 70% of the cost of development is often related to documentation. Yet the details are limited to help keep the costs down.

      Idealistically, the NSA would ensure everyone remains honest globally. Then the most sensitive of data can be posted openly for public review.

      Presently Open Peer Review cannot be idealistically open; the review process requires intervening trusted authority oversight to protect economic security and provide for public safety.

      In the case of any drug like Tamilfu we are talking about big pharmaceuticals so it is not a good example for small companies. Any small business that wants to release a new product for human consumption that includes new drugs is going to have to spend a lot of money to show it is safe. Open peer-review is just a way to ensure that there is no cheating. IP is protected by patents and that is another issue. Of course a small company faces many problems if they want to release something like a health product and in most cases would have to work with a larger company to finance the approval checks. That is a whole set of problems but I don't think that open-peer review makes it worse. In cases of alternative medicines where companies use pee-review to support their claims of effectiveness open peer-review is a good way to separate the products that really work and are safe from the pseudoscience where they try to use low quality or corrupt peer-review to sell their product.

      I think there are very few trade secrets these days. Regulations mean that almost everything that goes into a drug or food product needs to be revealed. Only the way they are prepared and partly the quantities can be hidden, but these are not hard to replicate. Patents help protect but it is common to see new products copied where patents dont apply. This is a problem for small companies but it is not changed by open peer-review.

      You ask who is going to pay. Peer-review is done for free by scientists on the basis of mutual benefit and career advancement. There is no reason why open peer-review should be any different. When peer-review is directly paid for it becomes suspect.

      You also mention anonymity. open peer-review can be anonymous either for author or reviewer so that is a separate issue. It is an interesting one, but not what this essay is about.

      As for who will pay for indefinite online access, it is not very expensive. I run viXra out of my own pocket and I am far from rich. arXiv is much more expensive to run but it is less than one academics library budget to Elsevier for their journal subscriptions. Web based archives can be run by research centres using off-the-shelf software and their existing servers. It is not a big expense.

      I hope this answers some of your questions

      Dear Philip,

      Many thanks for the actual essay, the deep analysis of the Science at the beginning of the Information age, relevant ideas, best offers and Open VixRa. Open Society and Open Science - a reliable way to the future of Humanity.

      Let's keep The Peace, save The World and The Earth together! New Generation says all inhabitants spacecraft named "Earth": Time to start the path.

      Thank FQXi that brings together people for "brainstorming" on very important topics of modern Humanity and modern Science!

      I invite you to comment on and appreciate my ideas.

      High regard,

      Vladimir

      Philip,

      This was a good and needed essay. Clearly it tapped into much and well-warranted frustration in our community, lifting it to the top of the ratings. I agree with your well-structured, basic critique of the existing system. For example, the bias against independent researchers impedes their expression and careers and prevents others from benefiting from their work (even if some smaller portion of it would be valuable, compared to that of traditional academics. If ...) ViXra has commendably helped fill a gap in access.

      However, I don't think that traditional peer review needs to be so radically overhauled. There is a place for it. I think one good way to at least reduce the power of bias is to promote and enlarge blind peer review, where the name and the affiliation of the author is hidden from the reviewers. (Well, maybe "peer" isn't the best word since the contributor may not really be a "peer", but this is the context we normally refer to.) Sure, reviewers have some clues to guess with, but at least they will not be sure and can more easily direct to the merits of the piece (writers will of course need subtle ways to avoid implying identity and background.) Yes, reviewers will still perhaps have some bias against the very act of having submitted as BPR. Yes, the Editor/s will still know, and so on. Yet I think this is helpful. Some journals already offer BPR, and I'd like to see more of it. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks again for a great essay, with an impact enhanced by your own unfortunate experiences tilting against academic windmills. If enough of us ride together with purpose and direction, the result will not be quixotic.

        Dear Phillip

        Your clear and distinctive proposition addressed one of the key problems and pointed to the simple solution of the self-similar matrix of the age of problems... But as you may witness, in order to justify and preserve themselves, non-living systems - institutions - are not about solving but rather maintaining and creating problems... Small patches are sometime accepted, especially when those patches make things even more complicated or more expensive, but simplicity, logic and mathematical rigour become a part of some romantic past. As written by the Nobel Prize winner, Leon Lederman, the age of reaching for the truth purely by thinking of the phenomenon, drawing geometry on sand, the time of Tales, Pythagoras or Archimedes is an issue of some distant and in scientific terms more primitive past... Nowadays, says Lederman the truth is revealed by machines... In other words, exclude the creative thinking and switch on the accelerator... and if you cannot afford it, tuff luck, you are too primitive to be a scientist...

        You may have been noticed that non-living systems - institutions (states, religions, corporations, institutionalised science...) - favour all which is unnecessary, artificial, unhealthy, uniformed, obedient, destructive, lethal, non-reproductive, and non-alive. On the other hand, living necessities like reasoning, individual intelligence, sexuality, reproductive organs, natural food, healing plants, freedom, life as such... are "legitimately" stigmatized, neglected, rejected, forbidden, tortured or executed... On the universal scale this self-similar matrix can be recognized as Tanatos versus Eros... On a scale of a body, it is virus versus cell.

        I am sure you remember the OPERA neutrino experiment anomaly. Using very precise methods, during the time between 2009 and 2011, the OPERA team performed successive measurements in which the result remained unchanged. As specifically noted in the conclusion of their article published on http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897 they felt obliged to inform the scientific community of their unexplainable results. Shortly after the publication, CERN sends the division, significantly named ICARUS, which announces the discovery of insufficiently pressed cable :)... Entirely uncritically, the "argument" was immediately accepted by "scientific community", the anomaly was dead, the Standard model survived and CERN kept its throne... Consequently, the "rebellious" heads of the leaders of the OPERA team have silently fallen...

        Then I read that the similar, though less significant results were measured and overlooked by some other, earlier experiments, performed by less powerful accelerators...

        By putting my trust in the equality symbol of mathematics and the universal validity of its principles, I took a coffee break, a piece of paper and the pen, and calculate the implicit result obtained by OPERA team. Therefore, I consider the self-proclaimed "Temple of the science" not only irrelevant but intentionally false. At full conscience and responsibility I declare the OPERA experiment anomaly denial as being one of the biggest scientific frauds of our modern history. The only accepted argument which can refute the stated is proving that the speed of light is not equal to EM wavelength over its wave-time or that mathematic and geometry, being considered as primitive, aren't tools for the truth.

        And of course, it is published on your "insignificant" viXra. Take its marginalisation, neglecting, ignoring and rejection as a compliment :)

        I invite you to open review my nonaligned essay The Arrow of Time.

        Regards,

        andrej

        Dear Gibbs,

        I found your essay much absorbing. It held my interest through out.

        I have attempted to rate you accordingly to keep the pace of your leadership but the system has not justified that. I am contacting the FQXI to resolve.

        I want you to read my article STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM on this link http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

        I have a model that is similar with your ideology. I expect your comment and rating at the end.

        Wishing you the very best in this competition.

        Regards

        Gbenga

        Philip,

        Open Peer Review with Business Incubator

        I support your essay strongly, with the additional requirement of "qualified" peer reviewers in diverse fields of expertise.

        I have written to an NSF program called Synergy and provided a whitepaper to test their interest in funding a cloud based tool. The social networking tool would be available to everyone to create broad enterprise based upon individual concepts being developed in a public forum.

        "If you are going to listen, do something." ~Thomas Dunn

        Hi Philip,

        At first I though, is this really that important for steering the future.

        On second thought ... Yes it is very important. Open peer review can help with the problem of being locked into what we know for certain (peer reviewed) that just isn't so.

        I am reminded of the recent Nobel Prize speech in physics where the recipient encouraged that physicists should publicly agree on string theory when in private they are not sure about string theory. This strikes me as an unethical way to enhance the public image of physics and physicists and enhances the propagation of what isn't so.

        Thanks for your essay.

        Don Limuti

        Hi Philip,

        Your position is clearly stated, and you argue for it in detail. One concern, however, is

        whether implementation of knowledge isn't a bigger problem than defects in the process of acquisition of new knowledge. At the end of the third paragraph, you state, "We have the intellectual capacity to figure these things out and steer the right course, yet we fail." Very true. But isn't the greater problem at the stage of steering rather than at the stage of figuring things out? Georgina Parry suggests this in the exchange with you on May 1. I think Sabine Hossenfelder in her essay especially emphasizes that deficiencies in implementation are at the present time more serious than problems with the acquisition of knowledge. Surely you have identified an important problem, but there might be even more serious problems at other places in the many processes of acquiring, distributing, and utilizing knowledge.

        Laurence Hitterdale

          Eckart wrote: "Does global warming really deserve much more attention than poisoning the environment with radioactive and other waste?"

          As I have written elsewhere, Global Warming is the least of our problems. See also The Politics and Ethics of the Hall Weather Machine . I'll go even farther here and claim that nanotechnology, in the form of advanced medical nanobots, will make radiation and chemical poisoning equally irrelevant in the lifetime of some readers.

          That is generally a good thing, but if humanity has the power to easily solve global warming (while significantly increasing the standard of living for everyone on this planet), that kind of power can also cause some major damage.

          Because of that possible abuse of power, we must become a multi-world species (one of the imperatives that I covered briefly in my essay Three Crucial Technologies ).

          Eckart also wrote: "Agreeing with outsiders like Nobel and Shannon rather than Einstein and Bourbaki".

          That perception is new to me. Google results are:

          "Outsiders"

          Alfred Nobel: 4,830,000 hits

          Claude Shannon 1,720,000 hits

          "Insiders"

          Albert Einstein 119,000,000 hits (Ok, he's an insider :-) )

          Nicolas Bourbaki 802,000 hits (as far as the internet is concerned, that collective is noise)

          And for some humbling perspective on how important science and math are in the eyes of the world:

          Beatles 356,000,000 hits

          Lady Gaga 230,000,000 hits