Science is the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.
Central to the scientific method are the concepts of falsifiability and hypothesis testing: We cannot prove a hypothesis, merely acquire evidence that supports or refutes it. We should reject those ideas that we can refute and advance those that we cannot.
Biases and corporate interests undermine the scientific method
In this respect, the generation and publication of negative data lie at the very heart of the scientific enterprise, and yet, there is an overwhelming focus on positive findings.
The concentration of ownership of academic journals varies widely among different fields and countries. Generally, a few large publishing companies own the majority of the most prestigious academic journals, while a large number of smaller publishers own the majority of the less prestigious journals. In some countries, such as the United States, the top three publishing companies own around 50% of the academic journals, while in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the top three publishing companies own around 80% of the journals.
Combined, the top five most prolific publishers account for more than 50% of all papers published in 2013. Disciplines of the social sciences have the highest level of concentration (70% of papers from the top five publishers), while the humanities have remained relatively independent (20% from top five publishers).
This causes some rather large issues with the prominence of studies that only endorse positive finds increasing by nearly 25% in the last quarter of a century and the findings of nearly 90% of all papers being unable to be reproduced.
This has led to nearly $30billion dollars of wasteful spending per year in the US alone. It also has the effect of diminishing people’s trust in the entire scientific establishment.
As trust breaks down in the scientific establishment, so too does the trust in all the fields that implement the findings of our scientific inquiry. Couple that with the profit motive for various industries to pay for findings that endorse their products or justify further funding of their inquiries, and the WHO apparatus gets rather murky.
Boosting the integrity and depth of research studies with blockchain
By leveraging the powers of the blockchain at all stages of scientific inquiry the explanatory power and integrity of the findings could increase, leading to huge value gains across all of society. Dan Robles reports as much as 90% of all value generated by mankind is derived from innovation by science and engineering.
IoT sensors and field devices which capture data from experiments and environmental variables can securely transmit data to their controller devices using the Bitcoin protocol and the integrity of the data set guaranteed through time using a Merkle tree.
Read: Unbounded IoT opportunities on the BSV Blockchain
Similar to the ambitions of the Riccardian contract, templates for the scientific method could be developed which allow computer systems to interpret the various fields (aim, method, results, conclusion) which reference standardised methodologies that are maintained in widely distributed libraries and extract the statistics to cross reference them against other studies to enhance methodologies and provide insights into confounds and biases.
Truly peer-reviewed science
The entire academic publishing industry could be entirely disrupted by allowing for individuals to publish their own articles within specific disciplines, to have them reviewed by other academics who had expertise endorsed by others, through a weighting of their own quantity of citations or some other acceptable metric.
Cutting out corporate interests through an incentivised publishing system
Articles could be paywalled behind a Bitcoin transaction and when one is purchased, the authors receive a percentage, the developers of the methodologies or proprietary devices used could also receive a percentage as could every article which was referenced in the paper.
Such transparency in the output from our scientific inquiry could dramatically increase the trust in the findings and interpretation of them.
Advancing mankind by creating a free market for scientific research
By opening up the entire process of scientific inquiry and publication to the free market, we may well find a significant improvement in not only the quality of research but also increase the efficient allocation of funding, identifying systematic bias and prejudice and advancing mankind as a whole.
This in turn could not only reduce the level of anti-science sentiment but may in many respects vindicate the positions of the sceptics on some of the most ferociously debated domains.
Such a transformation of the scientific establishment could lead to exponential gains to society at large, whether that be through implementing novel breakthroughs that have come from otherwise unpublished citizen scientists, identifying and eliminating the corrupt influences on the scientific process, or just the general advancement that occurs through the implementation of more up to date knowledge.