Comments on: Who Owns Science?

By: Arhopala Bazaloides

Arhopala Bazaloides — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:44:26 +0000

Nice post, but it begs the question. What is this “science” whose ownership is up for grabs? Is it the same science that everyone wants to own? For example, would the public want to own what the journals have? Or would they rather own what industries have? Wouldn’t they rather just have the products?

By: bobdabalina

bobdabalina — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:02:31 +0000

God owns science!

By: masha

masha — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:03:20 +0000

what a great question! ownership issues can be irritating. why do we have borders and fences? there is the use of claiming ownership as a source of probable market profit. there is contribution to society. there is protecting ideas from other people making a profit. we have an economic structure, rules/laws which dictate ownership to protect profits. unfortunately, much of the added frou frou of money concerns prevents people from having access to a lot of what is invented. contribution becomes lost to the argument of the bottom line. and people lose their lives daily.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:23:50 +0000

Odd question maybe, but also a big question. Science is all about big questions, and it generated lots of interesting discussion (which is the main thing).

By: Keith Mansfield

Keith Mansfield — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:33:49 +0000

It’s an odd question. You might as well ask “Who owns sunshine, culture or truth?” For a useful discussion, rather than it be a talking shop for its own sake, you’ve got to ask something better.

Of course no one “owns” science – but everyone benefits from it in different ways.

By: Paul McCord

Paul McCord — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:33:14 +0000

Duncan,

I think you have misinterpreted seeker767′s comment about materialism. I think he/she was speaking to the nature of hard science being primarily relegated to the material world that can be more easily poked, prodded, and measured–even if that poking, prodding and measuring is in terms of the smallest particle or in billions of light years, it’s still the material world being examined.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:56:10 +0000

@maxine, hi maxine@nature glad you liked the post. As for copyright at Nature, there is no mention of the authors copyright as far as I can see. Take a paper in this weeks copy "Dissecting direct reprogramming through integrative genomic analysis" DOI:10.1038/nature07056, the full text version on the web says © 2008 Nature Publishing Group at the bottom, while the pdf version says "©2008 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved" on every page? Unless I'm missing something? @seeker767 "Science too materialistic"? Some science may be financially motivated, but certainly not all. When NASA put a man on the moon, they didn't do it for financial profit. Ditto many other areas of Science, human genome, large hadron collider, you name it.

By: seeker767

seeker767 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:29:59 +0000

Industrialization feeds science, and science feeds industrialization. Its a vicious circle.
This has caused the ‘descended/fractured’ view of things recently; AKA: dehumanized humanization.
But what do I know? I know that science is too materialistic to ‘account’ for things like consciousness.

By: maxine

maxine — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:10:30 +0000

Lovely post.

The publishers don’t own the science of course. But a small correction to your point about them:
you won’t see “copyright” signs on research in Nature. The copyright of the research published in Nature journals rests with the authors (Nature has a license to publish from the authors).