The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Publish Late, Publish Rarely! : Network Density and Group Performance in Scientific Communication

På svenska

Author

Editor

  • Thomas Boyer
  • Conor Mayo-Wilson
  • Michael Weisberg

Summary, in English

Research programs regularly compete to achieve the same goal, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA or the construction of a TEA laser. The more the competing programs share information, the faster the goal is likely to be reached, to society’s benefit. But the “priority rule”-the scientific norm according to which the first program to reach the goal in question must receive all the credit for the achievement-provides a powerful disincentive for programs to share information. How, then, is the clash between social and individual interest resolved in scientific practice? This chapter investigates what Robert Merton called science’s “communist” norm, which mandates universal sharing of knowledge, and uses mathematical models of discovery to argue that a communist regime may be on the whole advantageous and fair to all parties, and so might be implemented by a social contract that all scientists would be willing to sign.

Department/s

Publishing year

2017

Language

English

Pages

34-62

Publication/Series

Scientific Collaboration and Collective Knowledge

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Philosophy

Status

Published

Project

  • Collective Competence in Deliberative Groups: On the Epistemological Foundation of Democracy

Research group

  • Lund University Information Quality Research Group (LUIQ)

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 9780190680534