---
title: "Open science"
chunk: 6/8
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:48:21.258734+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Disadvantages ===
Arguments against open science tend to focus on the advantages of data ownership and concerns about the misuse of data, but see.  Other concerns around data misuse involve privacy and safety risks that arise from ecological data on protected animal populations or sensitive data on human specimens that could potentially be re-identified and lead to hard and stigma for certain populations.
Potential misuse
Allowing open access can bring documented cases of misuse, and such misuse can take various forms from accidental errors to intentional forms of misuse like misrepresenting data in order to manipulate or deceive.
In 2011, Dutch researchers announced their intention to publish a research paper in the journal Science describing the creation of a strain of H5N1 influenza which can be easily passed between ferrets, the mammals which most closely mimic the human response to the flu. The announcement triggered a controversy in both political and scientific circles about the ethical implications of publishing scientific data which could be used to create biological weapons. These events are examples of how science data could potentially be misused. It has been argued that constraining the dissemination of dual-use knowledge can in certain cases be justified because, for example, "scientists have a responsibility for potentially harmful consequences of their research; the public need not always know of all scientific discoveries [or all its details]; uncertainty about the risks of harm may warrant precaution; and expected benefits do not always outweigh potential harm".
Scientists have collaboratively agreed to limit their own fields of inquiry on occasions such as the Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA in 1975, and a proposed 2015 worldwide moratorium on a human-genome-editing technique. Differential technological development aims to decrease risks by influencing the sequence in which technologies are developed. Traditional legislative and regulatory approaches may prove insufficient because they typically respond too slowly to emerging dual-use research concerns.

The public may misunderstand science data
Data literacy is often positioned as a barrier to successful re-use of open data. Scholars highlight the potential for citizens to misinterpret data because they lack the expertise to critically evaluate, analyze, and interpret data correctly.
In 2009 NASA launched the Kepler spacecraft and promised that they would release collected data in June 2010. Later they decided to postpone release so that their scientists could look at it first. Their rationale was that non-scientists might unintentionally misinterpret the data, and NASA scientists thought it would be preferable for them to be familiar with the data in advance so that they could report on it with their level of accuracy.

Low-quality science
Post-publication peer review, a staple of open science, has been criticized as promoting the production of lower quality papers that are extremely voluminous. Specifically, critics assert that as quality is not guaranteed by preprint servers, the veracity of papers will be difficult to assess by individual readers. This will lead to rippling effects of false science, akin to the recent epidemic of false news, propagated with ease on social media websites. Common solutions to this problem have been cited as adaptations of a new format in which everything is allowed to be published but a subsequent filter-curator model is imposed to ensure some basic quality of standards are met by all publications.

WEIRD-focus
Open Science is primarily driven by Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) society making it challenging for people from the Global South to adopt these aspects of Open Science. As a result, it perpetuates inequalities found across cultures. However, journal editors have taken note of guidelines for change (e.g.) in order to make sure Open Science is more inclusive with a focus of multi-site studies and value of diversity within Open Science discussion.

== Actions and initiatives ==