[open-science] New participants, Open Science Kentucky

Thu Oct 27 22:20:49 UTC 2011

Hi, everyone,

My name is Andrew Ramsey. I'm writing on behalf of Open Science
Kentucky<http://opensciencekentucky.blogspot.com/>(OSK), a relatively
new organization dedicated to establishing greater
participation in open science among researchers and the public. Thanks for
having us here.

OSK started as collective disillusionment among medical students at the
University of Louisville School of Medicine who felt that the evidence-based
practices we were learning merely shifted our curriculum from one flawed
paradigm to another. Bad, opaque, interest-driven science continues to be
the predominant information medium, despite the shift to practice-by-numbers
medicine. Now, however, we physicians more complacently practice, weilding
bad science unquestioningly because we can remind ourselves we are under the
aegis of evidence. Unfortunately, in medicine, our careless application of
evidence-based principles kills people.

We have enjoyed reading web commentary from thought leaders in the open
science movement, many of whom are participants on this message board. We
defer to you for your remarkable insight! However, we noted that finding
resources related to open science was remarkably difficult when searching
directly for it. It is thus very unlikely the average scientist will realize
an open science epiphany while looking for other things.

To shift the paradigm to open science, open science will certainly need to
become a ubiquitous term, emerging within frank discussions within secondary
through doctorate level educational settings, overlying decisions about
where to submit every new manuscript, becoming the deciding factor in
selecting candidates for employment and projects for grant-funding. Open
science must become as appealing as classical science. To do so, it must be
visible. At OSK, we've dedicated ourselves to making the widespread
discussion of open science plausible.

We have a variety of projects we're working on, each of which will benefit
greatly from your sage counsel and assistance. I will share more information
on these projects later.

For now, thanks again for having us. Looking forward to learning from
everyone. Cheers!

Andrew Ramsey
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