Covid-19: What are the consequences of the unprecedented rush for knowledge?
COVID-19 research papers evidenced the peer review process and is changing the way we assess the quality of scientific literature. Read more [...]
Tag Archives: Knowledge
Technoculture Podcast – Episode #9: Sabina Leonelli
Sabina Leonelli is an expert in Open Science and she gives a very well informed account of where we are today and where the Open Science movements wants us to go, in Europe and across the world. Read more [...]
Assumption, Perception, and Opinion: The Art of Discernment
Do you really know what causes you to formulate the beliefs you hold dear? Would it surprise you to learn that you’re not in full control? As human beings, we are wired to construct our opinions in highly specific ways—and more often than not, evolution wins out over conscious decision-making. Read on to examine exactly how this occurs, and find out what you can do to regain sovereignty over your own perceptions, assumptions, and life choices. Think you’re the only one in charge? Not so fast…for all of us, there are forces at play that merit a deeper look. Read more [...]
Publish or perish: an incitement to fraudulence
More than 120 papers have been withdrawn from subscription databases of two high-profile publishers, IEEE and Springer, because they were computer generated thanks to the SCIgen software designed to generate random computer science research papers. The trouble is that they had no meaning at all. All of them were labelled as peer reviewed and all of them were published in proceedings of actual conferences. Read more [...]
Have we reached the twilight of the fundamental science era?
History reveals a succession of many dawns and twilights, in different facets of human activity. Looking at the past, we can date and understand the reasons for the birth of science, specifically fundamental science. However, we do not know precisely when its twilight will take place. Nevertheless, clues of the advent of such twilight are already in the air. This article presents the underlying rationale suggesting that we are now past the golden age of pure science, and how we need to accommodate our research to this new era. Read more [...]
In praise of incompetence
Incompetence is probably the first of our competencies! Our globalised and technological society generates ‘systemic incompetence.’ These days, we interact with the outside world through a wide set of technological interfaces and tools which we cannot escape and whose detailed modus operandi is largely unknown to us, such as, for example, the search engine Google and the social network Facebook. Read more [...]
EuroScientist journal 