For Yet Better Science

Lisa Loseto is a research scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a federal government department whose regional offices include one in Winnipeg, where she is based. Some of Northern Canada’s Indigenous people have shaped her research into how beluga whales ( Delphinapterus leucas ) interact with their environments, and have taught her to rethink her own part in the scientific method. As co-editor-in-chief of the journal  Arctic Science  since 2017, she is looking at ways to increase Indigenous representation in scientific publishing, including the editorial and peer-review processes.  

A philanthropic organization started by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Wendy Schmidt is to provide $40 million over five years to build a Virtual Institute for Scientific Software,  Science   reports . The aim of the institute is to provide university researchers with the expertise of professional software engineers, who often do not work in academia as they can command a larger paycheck in the private sector, it adds. Currently,   Science   notes, a lot of scientific research relies on programs written by grad students and postdocs, who might not have the know-how to scale it up.  

"She who trolls a troll has a thousand years of forgiveness" - old Ukrainian German saying 

Field research can be challenging.  There are several moving parts and many hurdles to clear before the data-gathering process begins. Questions relating to members of the researched community—regarding the level of their involvement in planning and carrying out the research, and about sharing the results—can be seen as a dreaded inconvenience, and, sometimes, as an obstacle to good science. Community engagement and good science need not be in tension, however. Leaning on my research on Roma/non-Roma relations, and the process through which I came to understand the importance of engaging the researched community in research, I describe a few ways in which such engagement can prove invaluable.   

The impact of data science on science and knowledge production is an important and timely topic. Data Science and AI are changing the way we do science. AI is increasingly used in scientific practices, from data discovery to data analysis, for extracting new knowledge out of research artifacts, generating novel and experimentally testable scientific hypotheses, writing, publication, outreach, and research assessment but its biggest promise is to generate new scientific knowledge and understanding. Data Science, on the other hand, gives value to data for advancing scientific goals. For instance, in studying the human genome (connecting genetic data to people’s behaviors and diseases).  

I’ve been aware of Leonid Schneider’s expose blog ever since the piece on the supposed  fraud of Nobel prize-winner Gregg Semenza  appeared on my Twitter feed. Schneider portrays himself as an  under-dog ; the self-styled “ failed scientist ” has taken a liking to pillaring the hypocrisies of the scientific establishment. To be honest, although criticisms of the undertakings of science are always needed, especially when it concerns matters of data integrity, publishing practices, and perverse incentives in academia, I am a bit weary of uncritically listening to someone who appears to have no established career in either science or science journalism (the only pieces published under his own name appear only on the blog he runs). And his pieces do come off with a bit of crankiness.

In fast-paced crises like COVID-19, making use of scientific discovery in policymaking is challenging. We should learn the lessons of the current pandemic to make science a better partner to decision-makers in future crises, Sandro Galea writes.