A new position paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has generated a lotof controversy among some scientists: Toward Fairness in Data Sharing. It's not hard to see why: the piece criticizes the concept of data sharing in the context of clinical trials. Data sharing is the much-discussed idea that researchers should make their raw data available to anyone who wants to access it. While the NEJM piece is specifically framed as a rebuttal to this recent pro-data sharing NEJM article, the arguments advanced apply to science more generally.
Here's my take. There is a strong prima facie case that raw scientific data should be made freely available. It is widely recognized that
"on the word of no-one" or "take no-one's word for it" - is one of the fundamental principles of the scientific endeavor. Scientists do not believe something just because someone ...
