Nanochick wrote:
] quoted (use cpunk@cpunk.com as email address for login) :
] ===
] Systems biologists envision a hulking database where all
] biological knowledge can be stored, freely accessed, and
] designed to interact. From it, researchers could easily
] extract data to construct virtual molecular pathway models
] working in their respective networks and in dynamic contexts
] of time, space, and various environmental cues. Hypotheses
] could be plucked like apples from the electronic tree of
] knowledge, and drug targets would fall like leaves. Some want
] to play out this tremendous vision, but they know it cannot be
] done at a single lab, by a single investigator. Members of
] Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS), call for a new
] scientific world order--a shift toward socialist science.
] ====
]
] I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it socialist science!
] However, this sort of information system sounds extremely
] powerful.
]
] [well, it would be social science in that with that system,
] all of the scientists who used that system would be
] "collaborating". It may help in progressing science at a fast
] rate...I don't know. But with "drug targets falling like
] leaves", I think it would make competition stiffer, which
] would lead to more secrecy of drug companies, make people file
] for patents earlier than ever before, etc, etc. Hmm.
] On a lighter note, you should check out this site just to see
] the image they have that I guess is supposed to symbolize
] socialist science. A big red hand in a fist holding a
] pipetman. I would *kill* to have that in poster size. - Nano]

This is *exactly* what I've been talking about for years in the intellectual property arena. Get rid of patents and copyright altogether. Build systems that allow various sciences and arts to interact and collaborate as freely as possible, and let creativity do the rest. It would ushur in a new age of discovery that we can't even imagine.

Many doctrines of science already have limited forms of this (astronomy and astrophysics come to mind), but it could be expanded even further. The ability to test results, particulary in this case in the pharma world, would drastically reduce costs and eliminate the need for patents. It would end up being who could produce the required quality and get it to market cheapest that would win. Which, in the end, is what it's all supposed to be about. Science would become a worldwide collective endeavor, 24/7/365, and humanity would benefit. Results would be as available as oranges and apples growing on trees.

RE: The Scientist :: The People's Biology, Feb. 24, 2003