About open science and autonomy of science

Abstract

This article invites us to a concise walk through the past, offering insights defined by the major challenges science encountered during the centuries. Some lessons for today and tomorrow are enumerated in the three sections of the article, and they go beyond the relatively few perspectives offered by today’s Data Science: Open Science (OS) is what has always happened and is nothing new, because science has always sought to be open. Esthetical values played a relevant role in the past. Former scientists recognized the intrinsic relation between the way they opened science and the way they followed the principles of beauty and the sense of esthetic. Their groundbreaking heritage still inspires us in being ready to open new ways in science. Whereas Latin was the original lingua franca of European science, and English is the recent lingua franca, the new lingua franca is software. Pieces of software are the filter, which connect researchers to the world, through layers of data. They assist in observing, in choosing, and in selecting. Open scientists should be aware of the fact that their autonomy in science depends on the quality of these pieces. Another lesson is that ethics—regarded as a source of innovative activities—must be a core component of innovative processes in OS, because society needs a responsible use of data and algorithms in corresponding practices that serve OS.