Main Menu NEW HOME NEW REGISTRATION PAGE (at our new site) For discussion Viewpoints! Weblog Recommend us Old FAQ (curiosity value only) Registered Users Nickname Password Don't have an account yet? You can create one. UPGRADED TO NEW SITE The Research Cooperative has now been upgraded to a new site hosted by the social networking company, Ning. Our new site is located here: http://cooperative.ning.com/ The new site offers greater security and better services for our members. Please visit and see! Who's Online There are currently, 3 guest(s) and 0 member(s) that are online. You are Anonymous user. For full and free access to our forums, register here. here.

History of the Research Cooperative Posted by peter on Monday, April 02 @ 00:17:00 EDT This website has been established for personal reasons, and also to help others, for public purposes. Some personal history In New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and Japan, I have lived and worked in a variety of research environments. It has become increasingly obvious to me that language barriers and poor writing skills are huge limitations for communicating research and for self-improvement by research writers. One example of a language barrier is described in an article on editing in Japan. Although language barriers and writing skills are widely recognised as limitations for communicating science, affordable and effective solutions are not obvious. Student and research exchange programmes are very good in breaking down barriers, but they are expensive to run, and are not available to all people who could benefit from them. One reason for creating this site has been to present my own experience of research in ways that are not possible with other media. I also intend to direct my own colleagues to this site when I unable to help with requests for editing of their research papers. I am currently operating this site at my own expense, but in the future, when my own working circumstances change, I might also want to use this site as a vehicle for earning income - as an editor, as a research consultant, or something similar. Public purposes A larger public purpose in creating this website is to encourage more effective communication between researchers operating in different languages and social circumstances, and more effective communication between researchers and society generally. Much more could be done here with the input of publically-minded financial sponsors, and the use of part-time or full-time employees. If sponsors appear, my main priorities will be to seek assistance for promotion of the site, for monitoring related sites on the internet an managing links to those sites, for creating translated versions of the site or articles within the present site, and for commissioning articles by professional writers so that the site can become a more useful resource for learning and teaching. With such inputs, my own role might be to become a professional advisor for developing the site. Different kinds of sponsorship are needed, and do not necessarily involve financial assistance (see article on sponsors). Science and society There are also philosophical reasons for creating this site, and these are related to some basic questions concerning curiosity, competition, cooperation, and the social roles of science: Recently a good and curious friend asked if unlimited or unbounded scientific curiosity is a good thing or a bad thing for the well-being of our species and the planet (I am paraphrasing here). There are so many examples of science and technology becoming tools for destructive, all-consuming pursuits of unlimited economic growth and material wealth. Perhaps it would be better if scientific curiosity could be limited or controlled in some way? Is such self-restraint undesirable or impossible, and are we therefore doomed? If science is to be restrained by social means, who should be in control?! How is science already controlled or moved in certain directions?! In reply, all I can suggest is that knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing, that even with existing knowledge we can exterminate ourselves, and other forms of life (and have already demonstrated this capacity many times), and that in the face of inevitable change (regardless of human action or inaction), there will always be a place for scientific curiosity, new knowledge, and new wisdoms. Science may not be necessary, but it can be fun, it can be a way of living, it can be an art or something like it, and it can be useful. It can even help some of us to discover wisdom, but it is not the only path to wisdom. As for inherent limits to what can be known, the fundamental boundaries with which my friend is partly concerned, these may be unknowable even if they exist. In New Zealand - my home country - the pursuit of economic growth and the export dollar seems to have been the over-riding aim of most governments, politicans, and business leaders in the 1980s and 1990s. Many people are suggesting other human and national goals, but these suggestions are not backed by the power of money. Some aspects of education and science in New Zealand may have improved as a result of recent changes, but the impression from afar is that education and science are being pushed beyond the reach of young people who lack inherited privileges, and that financial and material wealth are being promoted as the highest or ultimate goals for education, science, and technology. This is a recipe for social, educational, intellectual, and spiritual poverty. It may also be a recipe for financial and material poverty. One way to counter the (so-called) economic-rationalist approach to education and science may be to actively promote cooperative attitudes. This does not mean that there should be no competition among students, teachers, researchers, and academic institutions. A balanced scientific culture must allow both competition and cooperation, and must recognise the existence of other ways to acquire and communicate knowledge. The above statements do not mean that I recognise all ways of acquiring and communicating knowledge as scientific. For science, the primary claim to social value, intellectual worth, or conceptual difference lies in the demand for self-criticism and the willingness to receive and reply to criticism from any quarter. Contrary to popular sterotypes, true science requires humility as well as an ability and willingness to speak out, and to make mistakes, and to learn from mistakes. Science serves as a buffer and as a balancing counter-tendency in a world where many kinds of non-rational or unquestioned knowledge remain important (and necessary). There are benefits and dangers in all kinds of knowledge, and diversity and constant reappraisal are our only security. The qualities attributed here to science exist in many cultures and knowledge systems. They are common sense, even if scientific understanding goes beyond common sense. These qualities are not exclusive to science, but they are essential for scientific research - and communication - whatever the cultural or social origins of the scientist. The need for research cooperation Research cooperation is needed to justify and moderate scientific research. Science and the knowledge that comes from science should not belong merely to elite classes in the world. If science becomes or remains elitist (the circumstances vary in different locations), then anti-scientific thinking will become common. Science should be filtered through open cooperative processes that both support and challenge the standards and aims of scientific research.