Initiative to provoke a systemic change We need to realign incentives with the scientific endeavor
Venues are profiting from Science, not contributing to it anymore. Citations, h-indexes and impact factors are flawed to the root.
Now is the time for a new scientific system to be born!
Sure it has been published in a top tier journal ... but does it actually work? When we try to build on other works, we have to first redo what has been done. Until now, you had no way to value those intermediary steps. This is why we are building a platform to value Replications.
With Bycelium, value
Could you replicate the phenomenon? Upload only the core work to show it: Methods and Data. No introduction, abstract or story to tell. Just the experiment.
Get constructive feedback on what matters: Scientific rigor. Open feedback will also help others that will try to replicate the same experiment after you.
Update your experiments by taking feedback into account. Mistakes are normal and expected. We should not freeze scientific works but allow them to evolve and converge to consensus.
Value your portfolio of experiments, and see your contributions to science. What matters is your scientific rigor, and how surprising your findings were, not how novel the method is.
About Bycelium in general
An alternative to review-filter-publish is publish-review-curate.
The review-filter-publish method worked when the quantity of works to review was much smaller, allowing the filter to be efficient.
Today the filter is lotterie and publishing became a goal in itself. Contributing to science is not just publishing, contributing to science is sharing experiments that will strenghten or shake or beliefs.
Switching to publish-review-curate allows us to let time and replications be long term filters of what is relevant.
It is possible to build a system robust to intentional attacks from individuals and small groups (for example decentralized finance).
Here with mechanism of contributor's credibility, we have a defensive mecanism that allows us to increase the cost of gaming the system.
Trying to cheat, and doing bad reviews, would lower your credibility and reduce how much your reviews impact the community.
Once you have a defensive mechanism like this, it is just a matter of tweeking the equation to make it more expensive to cheat than the money you would get anyway.
In comparison, the current citation system only has retraction as a defensive mecanism, and we all know how well it works at dissuading misconduct.
This is why the current system can be gamed by single individuals and even worst by small groups of researchers citing themselves in circle.
Discontent for the current system is at its peak, and the pressure given by language model will push it to its breaking limit.
We hope to build a sane and self-sustained alternative to switch to.
As the number of empty AI-generated papers and reviews grows, the power given to alternative systems will grow too.
Bycelium will be one of them, and if we build it well together it will be the best of them.
Yes! We would love to collaborate with anyone that want to push for better science!
This includes Universities, non-profit and for-profit organisations. If you want to partner in any way, contact us!
How Science is broken for you? How it should evolve?
Contact us: contact@bycelium.com
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