Science-policy revolution

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Science-policy revolution is a collateral paradigm shift in both science and policy. It is based on systematic and open sharing of information that is

• scientifically criticizable and
• usable in policy-making.

Science-policy revolution builds on open assessment.<section end=glossary />

Motivation

I think I know how scientific information should be handled. It is a much more efficient way than what we are doing now. It releases the information for useful purposes earlier. It builds on existing information in a more clever way than today. And it is quick and merciless in destroying pseudo-scientific false beliefs.

I think that if scientists start to apply the new ideas of handling scientific information, this will also result in a revolution in policy-making. Why? Because then scientists (an all other people) would have much more policy-relevant information in their hands. They could start evaluating policies with scientific rigour before policies are actually decided. Fairly quickly, it can be shown that policies that go against the scientific evaluation are failing. Citizens learn this and force politicians to drop those policies that have least support from science, given explicit objectives.

A part of this revolution is that citizens will get tools to show their own objectives and valuations. And I don't mean web polls about random details such as who is the most talented competitor in a TV show. I mean the most important things in people's lives. Policies have crucial impact on whether people are able to achieve them or not. This impact can and should be scientifically studied. With new methods, these studies can be done quickly and systematically. It would show that a massive bulk of current policies bring people further away from their objectives.

All this sounds too good to be true. Indeed, I am afraid that the science-policy revolution will not happen. But I don't doubt that we can use scientific information much better. I don't doubt that when given a power to choose, people will, in general, choose wisely. I am afraid that, afterwards, we will have to confess:

"We found out how to save the world, but we were too busy to do it."

Making a revolution is a time-consuming business. All the current rewarding systems have been developed for current science practices. Starting to do things in another way does not bring credit, but it takes time. The revolution is not what scientists have promised to do and what is expected from them. They should go against expectations. This is a major problem if you have a lot to lose but little to gain personally. Revolutions usually start among people who have nothing to lose but a hope of a gain. (Maybe this is why Ph.D. students typically listen to me more carefully than professors.)

Science-policy revolution in a nutshell

I will briefly describe the main ideas behind the scientific revolution. More thorough descriptions are described on the dedicated pages.

Scientific information should be published immediately.

It often takes one to two years to get scientific data from the original data files into a peer-reviewed scientific article. Even then, the article does not typically contain the original data, only the analyses and conclusions of the original researcher. This is very inefficient. Just think of the alternative: You would get merit for just creating study designs, without actually doing them. Other people could have time and resources to do it quicker than you. When you do a study, you publish the results immediately. Other people are likely to do the statistical analyses better than you, especially if the original data from all other studies on the topic are available as well. And finally, you can participate in or read the one discussion of the topic together with all researchers, instead of having to write a separate discussion about your study alone, and having to read all other discussions about separate studies.

Why is this not done in a better way? Because in the current system, a scientist that releases any other material than manuscripts to scientific peer-reviewed journals is a fool. This is obvious when you think about it. The only thing that brings scientific merit is a scientific article. The whole system is flawed. We simply should make a revolution and change it. Researchers should get merit when they release information to others, otherwise they will keep it in their own drawers waiting for further analyses - which often do not occur.

Peer review should be open, continuous, and occur only after publication of the information.

Peer review is currently thought as the cornerstone of the quality of scientific information. Let's look at this opinion critically. Peer review simply means that two or three researchers from the same or related area have read the manuscript and thought that it is of good enough scientific quality to deserve publication. This tradition developed in the early 20th century, when the scientific community grew so large and rich that most readers were no longer capable of evaluating the quality themselves.

Despite one century of success, peer review is problematic. One thing is that it is a very laborious system. Also, its criteria are actually very fuzzy. After all, what does "scientific quality" or "good enough" mean? Good enough for what purpose? When publishing was expensive, it was useful to remove rubbish from the publishing pipeline. But during the Internet era, publishing is practically costless. Huge amounts of rubbish is published all the time, but researchers prevent each other from publishing mediocre results. Thus, peer review actually decreases the quality of information available to people.

Again, let's think of an alternative. Any research study can be published immediately in a study repository. People interested in the quality of the study could ask for an evaluation. If nobody is interested, there is no point in evaluating the study. Also, if the result conforms with the current understanding of the topic, the benefit of evaluation is low. But if the study is actually changing our thinking, it is worth much more rigorous an evaluation than by two anonymous researchers. It should have a discussion section where any researcher can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the study. If original data is available as suggested above, much more intensive evaluation is possible than with the current peer review.