Is the scientific paper still a fraud?

How we write scientific papers does not reflect how we do science. Their formal structure infers a pre-ordained linear process rather than reflecting the messy creativity of research. This matters in the AI age because it masks the human in the process.

The Robyn Dawes Institute for the Improvement of Science

Making research quality visible so everyone can act on reliable evidence.

The Least Agentic People Alive

The arms race of deferring agency and the dark acquiescence to robotic bureaucracy.

How can citizen science reduce psychological distance to science? Insights from three projects in contested environmental contexts

Citizen science (CS) is a participatory mode of knowledge production, enabling non-scientific actors to contribute to and sometimes contest scientific agendas and interpretations, making it a way to bridge science and society. This paper examines how that potential unfolds by analysing the individual perspectives of citizen scientists through the lens of Psychological Distance to Science (PSYDISC). Drawing on three case studies of contested environmental CS, we identify which contextual aspects of CS shape citizen scientists' experiences of social, spatial, temporal, or hypothetical distance to relevant science, and how these experiences may relate to trust. Our findings underscore the role of science communication as both a channel for dissemination, and as a constitutive element of participatory research; crucial for reducing psychological distance and enabling socially robust knowledge production, especially in contested, policy-relevant science settings.

Nova Scotia’s Experiment in Research That Solves Real Problems

Locally focused research investments enable coalitions of scientists and citizens to serve community needs.

We argue badly, and nothing accumulates. How could we do better? | Reason Commons — Issue Trees & Logical Thinking Process

Millions of people argue every day about the things that matter most — climate change, what to do about AI, how we might build a better world. Some of it is sharp, even insightful. And almost none of it accumulates.

The Ground Truth Institute

Could we engineer scientific revolutions, then spin out radical improvements to everyday life?

Can we measure trust in scientific publications? - LSE Impact

Jonathon Alexis Coates outlines how a constellation of static and dynamic indicators could provide a means for assessing the trustworthiness of published research

What Humanity Needs To Flourish In The Next Decade

We are headed toward a world of productivity without prosperity, execution without verification and capacity without constraint. But this outcome is not inevitable.

Linking the world's research to the code it runs on - OpenAlex blog

Research relies on software. Software written by scientists, for science, runs through the entire modern research stack: NumPy and SciPy, R and ggplot2, Jupyter, BLAST, ImageJ, AlphaFold. Yet in the scholarly record, that software is nearly invisible. Software is not usually cited formally in publications and is usually just mentioned in the text, which means […]

Q&A from the slop trenches – GeoSpatial ML

We reviewed 22 ML conference submissions this summer. Fifteen had fabricated citations, hallucinated authors, or clear LLM slop, so we complain about that a bit, and release the paper references audit we now run.

Large language models are not the problem

If a Large Language Model (LLM) can replicate your scientific contribution, the problem is not the LLM. What does it say about our field that so much of the anxiety about AI comes down to the fear that a machine could do what we do? Perhaps it says we should be doing something better.

modular research preprint server demo with meaningful social context

a concept preprint server demonstrating what kinds of features would be possible in the future with more modular research publishing and an open social protocol to layer in the public discourse in meaningful ways.

Issue-based information system

The issue-based information system (IBIS) is an argumentation-based approach to clarifying wicked problems—complex, ill-defined problems that involve multiple stakeholders. Diagrammatic visualization using IBIS notation is often called issue mapping.

Research topic choice: Motivations, strategies, and consequences

Abstract. Scientists’ choices of what research topics to pursue are highly consequential and have been the subject of many studies. However, these studies are dispersed across several fields and literatures. This paper provides a review of this body of work. It first reviews theory from economics and sociology to explain how topic choice fits into scientists’ broader competitive strategy, and how the social valuation of research topics reproduces inequalities in science. Then it examines empirical literature on how research topics are chosen in practice, first looking at observational accounts derived from large-scale secondary data sources, then looking at self-reported accounts elicited by surveys and interviews of researchers. Finally, it concludes with a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical literature and identifies research gaps. Themes in these literatures include the rewards associated with certain topics, demographic differences in topic choices, and whether choices are broadly reward maximizing or driven by social context, identities, and path dependence. We also identify several research gaps, including the types and impacts of costs impeding topic entry and switching, the causal mechanisms associating topics with rewards, and the discrepancy between scientists’ self-reported topic motivations and observed behavior.

Science: A New Golden Age

President Trump seeks to lay the foundations for a new Golden Age of American Innovation. The Trump administration is working to revitalize the national science enterprise, to secure U.S. leadership in emerging technologies against foreign rivals, and to ensure that all of America’s citizens will benefit from new scientific breakthroughs and technological transformations. The President understands the American story as one of ambition, discovery, and invention, of pioneers who forever seek new frontiers for exploration, particularly now in science and technology.

Big if True Science Accelerator — Renaissance Philanthropy – A brighter future for all through science, technology, and innovation

A part-time accelerator for scientists and technologists to design and pitch ambitious R&D programs. Meet our cohorts here.

The Race to Allocate One Trillion Dollars in Philanthropic Capital

Frontier Lab IPOs are coming, and philanthropy isn’t ready