GoKawiilScience is open software
TL;DR I claim that modern science is synonymous with open source software. This post explains why, why it matters, and what you can (and should) do next.
Why do you care about (open source) software? - Everyone
I spend a lot of my time working on software. I have been asked why software matters more times than I can remember. Software is, people say, not science. It’s a time sink, something to rush past in the pursuit of what really matters: results (and papers if you’re in academia). Publish or perish.
Well. I think software matters. In fact, I think open source software is science. Or, at least computational science. And this post tells you why. Why we as scientists must insist on the scientific method and why that means working on open and reproducible software. This post is not easy to write. It challenges many of the current trends in academia, but it is an important move towards better science that doesn’t turn us all insane.
What is science?
If you look up science on Wikipedia, here’s what hits you:
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. - Wikipedia
Now, go and grab a random arXiv paper. It clearly contains “knowledge” of some sort. But, does the paper contribute predictions that are testable and can by systematically organized ? Can you test it? Can you systematize it?
The answer is never a flat no , but it’s hard. You rarely have direct access to that knowledge.
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