Poll: Should scientific research be competitive or collaborative?
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collaborative. the real technology jump happens when communication technology improves. right now pretty much every scientist is able to speak with the rest of scientists and share their knowledge. competition leads to sabotage, information hiding, stagnation.....
the reason technology improves during wartime is due to increased resources, not competition.
the reason technology improves during wartime is due to increased resources, not competition.
DING DING DING! You win the glass cigar!Dethenger said:
Historically speaking, when scientists themselves are truly competitive, it does nothing more than delay important discoveries, and skew results. Sharing information and theories accelerates progress and improves accuracy, this is why peer review is such an essential part of the scientific process.
For all the people citing wartime as instances of great technological advancement, this is mostly because of funding. The scientists themselves very rarely have a truly competitive attitude towards the other countries, as McMullen said earlier in this thread:
The reason that so much more gets done during wartime and other competitive eras (such as the space race), is because generally funding is much easier to come by when the people with all the money (governments/corporations mostly) are trying to screw over someone else. But believe me, scientists are at all times, including peacetime, passionate about their work. You don't end up in a field like that that requires so much study unless you genuinely care about it.McMullen said:
Do you think John Enders, Thomas H. Weller, and Frederick C. Robbins worked to develop a vaccine for polio because they wanted the Nobel Prize in Medicine? Do you think that was their motivation? Yes, mayhap some scientists make winning a Nobel a goal of theirs, but for the vast majority, they so what they do either to solve a problem they perceive, or because they are passionate about their field, often both. The Nobel Prize is an excellent way to recognize great achievements, but it is not an inherent cause of said achievements.BiscuitTrouser said:
EDIT: Does anyone else find it funny that the response ratio of collaborative/competitive in the poll compared to the actual posts is basically flipped? There's probably something in that to be said about how people who favor competition are more likely to speak out xD
People have already said this more eloquently, but for me, it's collaboration all the way. Yes, some advances may have been fueled in part by competition between two groups. The sequencing of human DNA may be one of them, for example, but on closer inspection, you can see that the sequencing would've been done a lot faster if Celera hadn't been so stubborn about not putting their findings in a public database.
A few other things which come from the spirit of competition and I genuinely despise are gene patents. They only stifle scientific research which may otherwise save lives.
A few other things which come from the spirit of competition and I genuinely despise are gene patents. They only stifle scientific research which may otherwise save lives.
As of this writing over 30% of people voted for competition over collaboration. Seriously people, what the fuck?
Science without collaboration simply cannot exist. Everybody - even a brilliant person working alone - builds on the knowledge that others have uncovered before them.
Competition can work as a motivator, although I would prefer if scientists were motivated by a passion and curiosity for their subject of choice. Doing research because you want to "win" instead of because you want to uncover the truth about something, may also lead to more cheating (i.e. making up data/results to trick people into thinking you made a huge discovery). And of course, cheating is also less likely if you're collaborating, because you'd need to get more people on board.
People have argued that in war there are generally a lot of scientific advances (although that's only true for certain fields). But war (like most competitive settings in this regard) is a competition between collaborating teams. Furthermore, I very much doubt that in war scientists all of a sudden get their act together and start working "for real". It seems far more logical that these advances are provoked by massively increased (government) resources and a shift in focus from long-term fundamental research to what can practically be achieved in the short term.
Science without collaboration simply cannot exist. Everybody - even a brilliant person working alone - builds on the knowledge that others have uncovered before them.
Competition can work as a motivator, although I would prefer if scientists were motivated by a passion and curiosity for their subject of choice. Doing research because you want to "win" instead of because you want to uncover the truth about something, may also lead to more cheating (i.e. making up data/results to trick people into thinking you made a huge discovery). And of course, cheating is also less likely if you're collaborating, because you'd need to get more people on board.
People have argued that in war there are generally a lot of scientific advances (although that's only true for certain fields). But war (like most competitive settings in this regard) is a competition between collaborating teams. Furthermore, I very much doubt that in war scientists all of a sudden get their act together and start working "for real". It seems far more logical that these advances are provoked by massively increased (government) resources and a shift in focus from long-term fundamental research to what can practically be achieved in the short term.
competition is usful in hte formation of the techniques or machines used in research, but one it proves itself it should be considered co operative and open to all reasearch groups/labs etc.
Of course not, no where in my post did i say that ALL advances are made like this. So im not sure why you are implying that... oh well.Hexenwolf said:
Ill expand a bit more and say imagine they are working the lab for a 15 hour period and they have reached a dead end, i imagine at some point one of these people probably said to the other "If we do this we change the world forever. We go down in the annuls of history. We get the nobal prize and are immortalised for making the world a better place forever. Its a goal worth reaching" or words to that effect. Having something to strive for doesnt need to be a primary motivator but its a good motivator all the same.
We need collaboration - there's so much science to be done and we're more efficient working together. As Dethenger mentioned above, we need a group with motivation. Competition is working against science, since we should want to have as much knowledge as possible. Be right, rather than winning. A global database would really speed things along too, hopefully.
Now, what could be a stronger motivation than competition?
Now, what could be a stronger motivation than competition?
Collaborative. Whilst Competitiveness has produced results those results were only produced during times such as war, when suddenly having the most advanced tech mattered to everyone and so huge amounts of cash was thrown at improving tech. Although this only improved war tech as thats all they wanted advancing and anything else was a result of it helping fight the war. Scientists dont suddenly get better at what they do when they're killing people or competing as they are already at their best, they achieve more because they have more resources. If every scientist who had the expertise to add something turned around one day and all collaborated on curing cancer or AIDS, then we would certainly achieve a cure (if it is curable) much faster and the same goes for competition, when everyone is working to the same goal collaboratively or competitively then that goal is achieved faster somewhere on the planet, either through everyone working together and having more at their disposal or everybody searching for the same thing. Collaborative is better as it means people share what they find rather than keep it away to give themselves an edge. We might have reached the moon faster if the US and USSR worked together rather than try to beat each other. Hell. maybe we would be further today with a lot of things if it wasnt for competition stopping collaboration.
Sharing ideas and theories so other people can work on them and find out new things is a foundation of science. I'm honestly quite confused that so many people are saying competitive.
Now what scientific research are we talking about here? Im a Psych major myself and we have both of those in our field. Its competitive for grants and positions, but if you ever read a good journal article, youll see we rely on each other heavily for past research and notes. We even develop our hypothesis around past research.
Wait, what? Collaborative of course.
The whole point of Scientific 'research' is to come to a consensus on things. If everything was competitive then scientists would hide all of their findings so nobody else could see it.
If you want to talk about motivation. Well, to be a scientist in the first place takes a ton of motivation.
The whole point of Scientific 'research' is to come to a consensus on things. If everything was competitive then scientists would hide all of their findings so nobody else could see it.
If you want to talk about motivation. Well, to be a scientist in the first place takes a ton of motivation.
Collaborative. It's just basic logic to put the best minds together and see what they come up with.
Obviously during war time it's going to be competitive but scientific progress shouldn't be a competition among allies.
Obviously during war time it's going to be competitive but scientific progress shouldn't be a competition among allies.
The funny thing about implications is that they're easy to misinterpret. I wasn't trying to say that you said that.BiscuitTrouser said:
That said, I did pick an intentionally hyperbolic example because I was trying to say that the Nobel wasn't really that great an inspiration, it was more recognition after the fact. But you know what? After pondering what you said, I'm going to recant that position. It probably does serve as pretty solid inspiration, just the idea of receiving one.*
That also said, I still don't believe that it inspires competition. It may be that someone would say to themselves "We get the Nobel Prize and are immortalised for making the world a better place forever," but they wouldn't say "We should work hard so we get the Nobel instead of Dr. Smith." In fact, since more than a single person can get the prize in the same category in the same year, I think it actually encourages collaboration more.
*Kudos, you managed to change someone's opinion over the internet. That's worthy of an award in and of itself.
The answer to the question is...yes. Competition brings out the best in folks, but when findings are not being shared out of some sense of professional jealousy or one upmanship crap gets lost in the shuffle.
Sometimes even the peer review process is tainted by jealousy. As noted on page one war bypasses that usual peacetime process altogether but missing from that equation is how the desperation to innovate during that period gets test subjects killed.
So yes, a combination of collaboration and competition is best. Fresh ideas coming in from other sources combined with a healthy desire to get the best rewards.
Sometimes even the peer review process is tainted by jealousy. As noted on page one war bypasses that usual peacetime process altogether but missing from that equation is how the desperation to innovate during that period gets test subjects killed.
So yes, a combination of collaboration and competition is best. Fresh ideas coming in from other sources combined with a healthy desire to get the best rewards.
Depends on the purpose of the scientific research. For research related to commercial products then it should be competitive in the nature that companies compete to have better products than their competitors. For research that serves a humanitarian purpose or to discover new scientific principles and knowledge there should be as much collaboration as possible.