DIYBio and commons-based peer production in the field of agricultural biotechnologies
goliste1
Dear all,
I am
preparing a paper for a conference on “Knowledge commons for sustainable
agricultural innovations” and I will focus on how DIYBio practices may
contribute to a commons-based peer production model in the field of
agricultural biotechnology (if you wish, see the attachment for the abstract).
In this regard, I would be extremely grateful if you can take some time to fill a brief questionnaire that you can reach through this link
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/52QCTV8 .
I know that you are getting bored of all these “political” researchers concerning the DIYBio community, but it won’t take a lot of time to answer and your feedback would be immensely valuable for my research. Obviously, if there is someone particularly interested in these issues, I’d love to receive more elaborated inputs on the role that DIYBio might play in agricultural development. You can write me here, however if you’d like more privacy my e-mail is goli...@hotmail.com.
Best,
Stefano
Avery louie
Another day, another survey.
I was going to take it, but then I noticed that like most of the other surveys it is full of typos, buzzwords, loaded language and bias. I find this insulting, and annoying. If anyone is interested, here are my criticisms on your survey. It also seems like you have done very little research on this topic, and that you just sent this survey off to get some quotes for your paper. This could breed more BS when people cite your paper. Hopefully this will nip it in the bud. If anyone researches your "paper" they will hopefully find the source of the data, and see the problems with how it was collected.
Question 1: "socio-political reasons" is even more vague than "fun". This spans people who would want to see governments/organizations taken down, to people who want to build companies to help their economy.
Question 2: Leading question. Double barreled question. "DIYBIO" is more than what it is stated as, but it makes it sound like it is mostly about "experimentation, creativity and amusement". "in the economy and in everyday life" is double barreled, meaning that choosing yes is choosing yes to both. Including "DIYBIO equipment and practices" makes it essentially quadruple-barreled.
This could be re-written as something like "Do you think that in the next 15 years DIYBio equipment might have a tangible impact on the way biotechnologies are employed in the economy".
Question 3: "DIY is becoming a popular topic and has been promoted from very
different perspectives." is Irrelevant and leading. Also, slightly ambiguous. Are you talking about biology, or repairing your home by yourself? Making your own PCBS? "DIY" is a big category. "BigBio" is also loaded with (negative) meaning, especially in English where we have "big brother", from orwells novel, 1984.
Question 6: "GM crops diffusion has not granted so far any benefit to farmers"
In addition to the negative, the only options that make sense are "I totally agree" "it is plausible" "I don't agree" and "I don't know". However "it is a dangerous idea" makes no sense, and is an emotionally charged and ambiguous wording.
Question 7:
Then, you combine the buzzword "Open Source" with Biology to make "open source biology" which is not well defined. It could mean something totally different to different people. According to openwetware (1st, 2nd google hit) nobody has cared to post anything about it since 2007 (link). This is kind of like asking 10 people.
Question 8:
"In your opinion, are biotechnological products currently "on the shelf" adecuate to face the following agricultural and development challenges"
I have never seen a kit, product, or service that is "adequate to face" or even targeted at "Reduction of rural poverty" or any of the other questions. Not in biology, anywhere.
Question 9:
"Open Source Biotechnology aims to foster the use of biotechnologies in developing countries" Loaded language, "foster X in developing countries" and again with the OSB thing. Who are these open source biologists? I have not met anyone or heard of anyone who uses that term, and I can't google them, so the burden of proof is on you.
"redefining intellectual property protection" Nobody here has a particularly rosy view of IP. Loaded language again.
"Can you envisage how DIYBio practices might contribute to this effort?" So you want us to write you some good quotes here, where we explain how DIYBIO is going to help an imaginary organization or idea that has literally never been discussed on this group? No thanks.
--A
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Cathal Garvey (Phone)
Just FYI: Google is not, even slightly, objective. Your first results are not mine, and likely not the survey author's. So, it's not a useful indicator of anything but what Google think you want to see. See dontbubble.us
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
Avery louie
Cathal Garvey (Phone)
Also, there are no copy left licenses yet AFAIK, which is a pain. Copy left is necessary to prevent adopt/extend/extinguish, a well documented anti-open tactic pioneered by Microsoft back when they were relevant, and continued by similar organisations long since.
I meant that if there were some mysterious OSB out there, I would expect some kind of reference to pop up. According to searching the google group (where our results should be the same), OSB stands for "open source brain" "oriented strand board" and is used to describe cambia in some context. Cambia refers to it as BiOS though.--A
Stefano Golinelli
I am aware that many of your comments make sense, however I don't get your bitterness.
First of all, the survey was just intended to be informative and it is not the basis for my research, so it was not meant to have any "scientific" value. I just hoped to get some insights on blog participants' views on agriculture and "green biotechnologies", because I am curious about that topic and I haven't found many clues on the blog and/or in literature (btw, I can assure that I have done a good amount of research on DIYBio, believe it or not). I promise that I won't insert in my paper any quote from the answers received.
Concerning your specific comments, as I said before I understand, even if not fully share, many of the problems you emphasized, but still I think that some of your comments are biased. I don't want to try to challenge point by point your post, but let me say something about "open source bio(techno)logy", which by the way is the topic of my research.
First, the acronym OSB could obviously have many meanings, but I think t have clearly specificed that in the survey it was referred to
"open source biotechnology"....in addition, BiOs is not used by CAMBIA to define "open source biotechnology", as you suggest, but rather to define their "Biological Innovation for Open Society" initiative.
Second, and most important, I totally agree on that "open source biology" is a vague term that could be subject to different understandings, but it is not true that nobody is caring about the concept. If you have never met "open source biologists", that's because "open source biology" is not a scientific discipline but a proposal (or, several proposals) for a different model of research governance. Actually, the notion of OSB and initiatives such as BiOs are attracting a lot of interest, even though their progresses are modest, and you can find references in the web. I know that google might not be the best search engine, but: https://www.google.it/search?q=%22open+source+biology%22&client=firefox-a&hs=w7m&rls=org.mozilla%3Ait%3Aofficial&sa=X&ei=MEoHUqi_NIu5hAeju4H4Aw&ved=0CCIQpwUoBg&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2007%2Ccd_max%3A10%2F08%2F2013&tbm=#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=f14391d54b77116e&q=%22open+source+biotechnology%22&rls=org.mozilla:it%3Aofficial&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2007%2Ccd_max%3A10%2F08%2F2013;
http://scholar.google.it/scholar?q=%22open+source+biotechnology%22&btnG=&hl=it&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2007&as_yhi=2013
Thanks however for your valuable comments, and please forgive me for eventual language errors, unfortunately I am not a native english speaker and I apologize for that.
Best,
Stefano
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 11:33:55 -0400
Subject: Re: [DIYbio] DIYBio and commons-based peer production in the field of agricultural biotechnologies
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