Open Norms Research Articles

Secrets and Open Societies

Secrets and Open Societies Gregory E. Kaebnick I grew up in a small East Tennessee town where many people spoke with a Northern accent and held jobs that they would not describe in detail. Oak Ridge was a plant town that had been built by the government during World War II to help build the bomb. By the 1970s, many people were still involved in various ways in weapons development, and there was an entrenched culture of secrecy about the place. We knew who worked at which plant—there were three of them: X-10, K-25, and Y-12—but not what they did there, and it wasn't something you asked about. During the war, most people did not fully know what they were doing themselves. Only a few people understood the overall project. The scientific culture in Oak Ridge was quite different from the one Michael Selgelid addresses in his article in this issue. Selgelid considers the possibility that on some occasions, openly published biological research both "alerts terrorists and 'rogue' nations to possible ways of making biological weapons and provides them with explicit instructions for doing so." Selgelid describes two recent studies that show this possibility to be more than theoretical and argues that, even if these two studies warranted publication, studies can be imagined that would not. At least some biologists agree. A 2003 report from the National Research Council, which Selgelid criticizes, recommended a system of regulation combining federally organized review with self-censorship by scientists and publishers. But biologists put a very high premium on openness. "The norm of open communication is one of the most powerful in science," says the NRC report. "To limit the information available in the methods section of journal articles would violate the norm that all experimental results should be open to challenge by others." This norm is not just a quirk of this scientific community. By making contest and confirmation possible, open communication within science promotes scientific progress, and because contest and confirmation is supposed to be the method of the "marketplace of ideas," open communication within science can be seen as just a special form of a more general openness favored in a democratic society. Still, these linkages are not airtight. Medical progress would not grind to a halt if some studies never saw the light of day, and even open societies can proscribe some forms of communication, particularly forms that might lead to violence. Thus the scientific norm of openness can probably not be explained entirely in terms of more general considerations. Though not just a local quirk, it seems to be of very special interest to the locals. The contrast between biology and nuclear physics, as Selgelid notes, brings this out. Selgelid's beef with the NRC recommendations is the reliance on self-censorship. Scientists are not trained to be national security analysts, he observes, and their own interests will bias them against censorship. Besides these straightforward points about scientists' training, however, Selgelid's discussion underscores that the decision about whether to publish a piece of scientific information is itself a matter of values, and that scientists may bring a special set of values to that decision. The norms accepted within a field, however, are not necessarily those that should govern it, nor are the people within a field necessarily the best placed to select and apply the norms that should. [End Page 2] Copyright © 2007 The Hastings Center

Science, Social Networks and Spillovers

Although prior empirical research has established an association between science and the widespread diffusion of knowledge, the exact mechanism(s) through which science catalyzes information flow remains somewhat ambiguous. This paper investigates whether the knowledge diffusion associated with science-based innovation stems from the norm of openness and incentives for publication, or whether scientists maintain more extensive and dispersed social networks that facilitate the dissemination of tacit knowledge. Our analysis supports the first mechanism: We track the movement of knowledge with patent citations, and find that science-based innovations diffuse more rapidly and widely, even after controlling for the underlying social networks of researchers as measured using information on prior collaborations. We also find that publication and social networks act as substitutes in the diffusion of knowledge.

The science commons in health research: structure, function, and value.

The “science commons,” knowledge that is widely accessible at low or no cost, is a uniquely important input to scientific advance and cumulative technological innovation. It is primarily, although not exclusively, funded by government and nonprofit sources. Much of it is produced at academic research centers, although some academic science is proprietary and some privately funded R&D enters the science commons. Science in general aspires to Mertonian norms of openness, universality, objectivity, and critical inquiry. The science commons diverges from proprietary science primarily in being open and being very broadly available. These features make the science commons particularly valuable for advancing knowledge, for training innovators who will ultimately work in both public and private sectors, and in providing a common stock of knowledge upon which all players—both public and private—can draw readily. Open science plays two important roles that proprietary R&D cannot: it enables practical benefits even in the absence of profitable markets for goods and services, and its lays a shared foundation for subsequent private R&D. The history of genomics in the period 1992–2004, covering two periods when genomic startup firms attracted significant private R&D investment, illustrates these features of how a science commons contributes value. Commercial interest in genomics was intense during this period. Fierce competition between private sector and public sector genomics programs was highly visible. Seemingly anomalous behavior, such as private firms funding “open science,” can be explained by unusual business dynamics between established firms wanting to preserve a robust science commons to prevent startup firms from limiting established firms’ freedom to operate. Deliberate policies to create and protect a large science commons were pursued by nonprofit and government funders of genomics research, such as the Wellcome Trust and National Institutes of Health. These policies were crucial to keeping genomic data and research tools widely available at low cost.

Innovation in the knowing organization: a case study of an e‐commerce initiative

This paper explores the dynamics of information‐ and knowledge‐based activities in one of the world’s leading foreign exchange banks and its development of an innovative online trading system. These activities are analyzed using the framework of “the knowing organization,” which postulates that learning and innovation in organizations result from managing holistically the activities of sensemaking, knowledge creation, and decision‐making (Choo, 1998, 2002). In sensemaking, project members at the bank were driven by their shared beliefs about the competition, customers and technology to enact the challenge of building an online dealing system. Knowledge creation focused on filling perceived gaps, and involved both expanding non‐traditional capabilities within the group and acquiring expertise from outside the group. Decision making at the enterprise level to approve the project was formal and procedural, while decision making at the operational level was open and entrepreneurial. As predicted by the model, the interactions between these activities were vital. The outcome of sensemaking provided the context for knowledge creation and decision making, while the results of knowledge creation provided expanded resources for decision making. The three sets of activities were integrated through strong leadership, group norms of trust and openness, and a set of shared vision and values.

Publication visibility of sensitive public health data: When scientists bury their results

What happens when the scientific tradition of openness clashes with potential societal risks? The work of American toxic-exposure epidemiologists can attract media coverage and lead the public to change health practices, initiate lawsuits, or take other steps a study's authors might consider unwarranted. This paper, reporting data from 61 semi-structured interviews with U.S. toxic-exposure epidemiologists, examines whether such possibilities shaped epidemiologists' selection of journals for potentially sensitive papers. Respondents manifested strong support for the norm of scientific openness, but a significant minority had or would/might, given the right circumstances, publish sensitive data in less visible journals, so as to prevent unwanted media or public attention. Often, even those advocating such limited "burial" upheld openness, claiming that less visible publication allowed them to avoid totally withholding the data from publication. However, 15% of the sample had or would, for the most sensitive types of data, withhold publication altogether. Rather than respondents explaining their actions in terms of an expected split between "pure science" and "social advocacy" models, even those publishing in the more visible journals often described their actions in terms of their "responsibility". Several practical limitations (particularly involving broader access to scientific literature via the Internet) of the strategy of burial are discussed, and some recommendations are offered for scientists, the media, and the public.

Open Content Communities

Open Content Communities

PERKEMBANGAN PRINSIP TANGGUNG GUGAT PRODUK DI BELANDA

Recently, product tanggung gugat is often spurng on surface because of the development or new technology and consumptive behaviour on the community. Therefore, it necessarily needs understanding on some principles of product tanggung gugat. These principles cover: Open Norm principle, relationship of tanggung renteng principle, risk tanggung gugat principle, and own mistakes principle.

Niklaso Luhmanno autopoezės teorijos pritaikymas teisės sistemai

Social systems theory and, more particularly, concepts like autopoesis, self-referentiality, autonomy, have been the subject of intensive discussion in the social sciences during the last decades of the 20th century. Niklas Luhmann was among the first who recognized the need to incorporate the theory of autopoesis into his evolutionary study of law. In this article, I re-examine Luhmann’s theoretical analysis of the concept of law in the light of a general theory of social systems. His theoretical development focuses on the legal system as an autopoietic and self-referential system. Luhmann argues that the legal system is normatively closed, because it produces its own elements as legally relevant units and, at the same time, it is a cognitively open as it remains oriented to its environment despite its “closedness”. The present study reviews and comments upon key concepts in Luhmann theory which include autopoietic system, normatively closed and cognitively open systems, environment, legal system, expectations, norms, and binary code. Although Rottleuthner and others have criticised Luhmann for his great passion to theoretical abstractions, the author of this article thinks that Luhmann deserves our attention as an important contemporary representative of systems science in sociology.

Varieties of Secrets and Secret Varieties: The Case of Biotechnology

This article examines several trends that have combined to veil the new field of biotechnology in secrecy: the transformation of biotechnology from an essentially academic field characterized by strong norms of openness to a field with extensive corporate connections that have reached even to research in leading universities; the establishment of intellectual property rights for life-forms initiated by the landmark Supreme Court decision, Diamond v. Chakrabarty; and the limiting of public access to information about the genetically altered organisms whose use in agriculture, industry, and medicine falls under government controls. The article also examines the effects of the U.S. biotechnology industry's demand for secrecy on the negotiations for a protocol to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, particularly the turn from requirements for transparency to protection of opacity with respect to biotechnology and other biological processes, equipment, and production.

Justifiable Doubts as to the Arbitrator's Impartiality or Independence

Traditionally, most arbitration acts provided that an arbitrator could be challenged on the same grounds as those on which judges could be challenged. Thus, arbitrators could be challenged on specific grounds, such as a family relationship with one of the parties or animosity towards one of the parties. The more modern approach is to provide for an open norm for the grounds on which challenges can be brought. This approach finds its origin in the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules adopted in 1976. It provides that: “[a]n arbitrator may be challenged only if circumstances exist that give rise to the justifiable doubts as to his impartiality or independence”. This standard was received in many other arbitration acts and rules. The standard nowadays being more or less uniform, its interpretation and application are far from easy.

Breaking Trade Dependency: A Global Simulation of Third World Proposals for Alternative Trade Regimes

Calls for a New International Economic Order included proposals for revision of the Liberal trade system in ways which would facilitate Third World development. To assess possible costs and consequences of these proposals a simulation model of the international trade system is employed here to explore changes in trade patterns which could result from alternative trade orders. Specifically, two proposed alternatives are compared to the existing order: one relatively moderate strategy which calls for concessionary tariffs to be granted to developing countries by advanced nations, and a second, more radical strategy which counsels economic disengagement of the South from the North in favor of Collective Self-reliance for the developing nations. The simulation exercise reveals potential difficulties associated with these strategies, including highly unequal distribution of benefits and costs, and the internal incompatibility of the multiple development objectives which these proposals contain. Should global trade relations be governed by the classic liberal norms of openness, non-discrimination and reciprocity, or should the world trade system be structured to facilitate progress in developing areas? For four decades now, trade relations between the industrialized North and the developing South have been deeply politicized because antagonisms go well beyond the individual commercial policies of particular countries and revolve around the trade regime itself. The industrialized countries were largely successful in establishing a liberal world trade order shortly after World War II. Developing nations questioned the underlying norms of this order from the outset and developed proposed regime alternatives over the ensuing years. As scholars, our understanding of the postwar liberal order and proposed alternatives-and thus our understanding of the North-South debate-has been limited by the fact that our observations are quite naturally restricted to outcomes produced by that existing Author's note: The research reported in this paper was conducted while the author was a research scientist in the Global Modeling Group of the International Institute of Comparative Social Research, Science Center Berlin. The extensive support of that institution is gratefully acknowledged. The author would also like to thank the editors of ISQ and three anonymous reviewers for several constructive criticisms and suggestions, and wishes it were possible to have been more responsive to these. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the 22nd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, March 1981.