How to engineer the unexpected

From ABC-RN's Future Tense program of 20 October 2015:

Serendipity, generally thought of as accidental good fortune, has long been a staple of popular science. The notion of fortuitous discovery still has strong appeal, but could it encourage innovation? Antony Funnell meets researchers who not only believe in serendipity, but are actively trying to engineer it.

"...search has become so effective over the past decade that it has completely overshadowed the value of browsing and exploring: 'I think there really is a bias towards supporting search,' he says, 'and it has meant that supporting serendipity when finding information has been relatively neglected.'"

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/creating-innovation-through-serendipity/6868960

Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Science

Brill and Data Archiving and Networking Services (DANS) have launched a new peer-reviewed, open access data journal: Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences

More info: http://www.brill.com/news/brill-and-dans-launch-new-open-access-journal-research-data

New journal launched: Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Brill and Data Archiving and Networking Services (DANS) have launched a new peer-reviewed, open access data journal: Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences

More info: http://www.brill.com/news/brill-and-dans-launch-new-open-access-journal-research-data

Editorial office: datajournal@dans.knaw.nl

Science is best when the data is an open book

... researchers should routinely examine others' raw data. But in many fields today there is no opportunity to do so.

Scientists communicate their findings to each other via journal articles. These articles provide summaries of the data, often with a good deal of detail, but in many fields the raw numbers aren’t shared. And the summaries can be artfully arranged to conceal contradictions and maximise the apparent support for the author’s theory.

Occasionally, an article is true to the data behind it, showing the warts and all. But we shouldn’t count on it. As the chemist Matthew Todd has said to me, that would be like expecting a real estate agent’s brochure for a property to show the property’s flaws. You wouldn’t buy a house without seeing it with your own eyes. It can be unwise to buy into a theory without seeing the unfiltered data.

More at: https://theconversation.com/science-is-best-when-the-data-is-an-open-book-49147