Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Bio-Sphere Idea

How about creating a portal for creative ideas in modern biology? I think there are a large no. of ideas, thoughts, that glimpses scientists' mind, and never get tested, because of practical limitations. But, there is someone, somewhere who may be able to test the idea or hypothesis. Therefore, the portal, which will primarily work by wiki principle, where people can check out ideas, or get thought provoking facts, can help in changing a large no. of me-too type experiments and papers.

It is not to propose that me-too experiments are not necessary, or I'm pretending to be judge of the me-toos. It only, when better ideas are available, people will be intrigued or be more enthusiastic in carrying out better science.

Of course, it cannot be completely editor free. There has to be some kind of editorial intervention to remove profanity etc. and to determine policies for the ongoing forums, as well as for curation and categorization. But the basic premise will be a sharing of ideas that you might have thought of while reading a paper, listening to a seminar, talking to someone, which you may never be able to test or execute.

The contentious issue will be how to ascribe credit to the original thinker? Since, the contributor of the ideas are not going to carry out the ideas further out, they are assumed to be given up ownership of the idea. However, it will be the policy to expect acknowledgement. The editors, contributors and the staff will regularly scan the scientific literature, if they come up with findings, where the ideas posted in the "Bio-Sphere" were carried out without acknowledgement (of course you have to allow reasonable time limit e.g. 1 yr. after it was published in "Bio-Sphere"), it would be mentioned as the idea tested with links with the original posting, without the presumption that it was taken from "Bio-Sphere" without acknowledgement.

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