Scifoo: Science in 2030

One session from Scifoo that I haven’t talked about yet was one entitled “Science in 2030″. The hope of the session leaders, Carole Goble and Michael Kurtz, was that instead of arguing about what’s wrong with science today, we should talk about science in a bit.

I won’t go into detail about the discussions, but the following jumped out as key points. Anyone with a better memory (or better notes) is welcome to add/subtract/correct.

1. Collaboration using the web came up often, e.g. MyExperiment was described as a Facebook for sharing workflows
2. Trust metrics will be very important. Geoffrey Bilder pointed out that anything online would be gamed. (My comment: Trust and relevance are two topics that should get a weeks worth of discussion of their own)
3. Adrian Johns wondered what the role and responsibility of readers would be? (My comment: This is an extension of the consumer vs. creator discussion).  The role of the library was discussed as well.  Carl Bergstrom pointed out that libraries would become increasingly virtual and librarians will be connectors.
4. Jean-Claude Bradley brought up the most interesting point, which got a number of people excited in some way or the other.  He said that by 2030 the paper will be less important. Rather machines would design experiments and humans would oversee those experiments.  Others pointed out that humans would still have to design the experiments.

The best question of the discussion was asked by Mike Halle.  He asked “what is a meaningful hypothesis?”.  I wish I remembered what the answers were.

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