The Darkest Hour: Private Information Control and the End of Democratic Science

Roberto Caso

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3189519

Abstract

The evaluation of scientific research is based on data protected by secrecy and intellectual property (e.g., Elsevier Scopus or Clarivate Web of Science). The peer review process is essentially anonymous. While science has progressed thanks to public dialogue, the current evaluation system is centered on private control of information. This represents a fundamental shift from democratic to authoritarian science. Open Science may confront this change only if it is accepted as the heir, in the digital age, of the values and principles that public and democratic science has traditionally fostered in the age of printing, thus becoming the guardian of a democratic society.

Highlights

1. Democratic science, public dialogue and intellectual property
Mario Biagioli underlines the differences between scientific authorship according to informal norms of science and intellectual property as formally regulated by the law[25]
His theory, following the analysis offered by Merton, is that scientific authorship, according to the informal norms of science, does not concern rights but rewards, namely scientific acknowledgments

Summary

Introduction

1. Democratic science, public dialogue and intellectual property Control on information (paternity over the theory) is the result of an inevitable interaction of technology (the printing press), informal norms of the scientific community and formal rules of the laws on intellectual property (copyright and patents).

Results

Conclusion