Steem Science
Many people are waking up to the fact that scientific knowledge is being hidden, withheld, manipulated or altered before it reaches the public domain. Why is this happening? It's happening for a multitude of reasons but generally speaking, truth reveals too much and is often inconvenient for large corporations or the governments of the world. It comes down to power. Knowledge is power, therefore there is every incentive to ensuring its asymmetric distribution. Governments and corporations try to hoard the knowledge and leave the dregs for everyone else so that populations are easy to manipulate, undermine, confuse, distract, impoverish, sicken and ultimately make powerless. Also, if it's possible to hide or change information, at some point it becomes irresistible for some, normally short-sighted, accountability avoiding or profit making reason.
I cannot claim this idea for myself, several ideas along similar themes have been suggested before by several people, but this is a means to focus it and hopefully produce some action!
The idea is to crowdfund our own science on the Steem network and publish it on the Steemchain.
Steemians who are scientists can put forth a hypothesis post which Steemians can review and vote for and comment upon. If enough support or interest is expressed.....that may depend on many factors like; reputation, experience, skill set, resources, approach, transparency, cost of experiment etc...then a donation round could be held where every Steemian is give the opportunity to donate toward the target.
Any data gained from the experiment will be transparent (it would be down to the scientist to ensure complete integrity however they may) and any knowledge gained would be for the entire Steem community.
If we want to find out for sure if high doses of intravenous vitamin C can cure cancer? Let's fund some science, get it on the Steemchain and find out. Science we can trust.
Ok with the best will in the world, we don't yet have the money to review all of human knowledge or the existing scientific efforts. What we can do is establish a process that works and is robust. Give scientists the chance to establish a reputation on Steemit. Do some science that is not expensive but useful. Or pull out all the stops and try to learn something of great value to all Steemians and our fellow Earth dwellers.
Not all scientists are corrupt and not all science is corrupt. However, when you don't know who or what to trust, you have to establish the truth for yourself. Generally, corporations only lie about science when it suits their agenda, the same with governments. The problem is that their agendas tend to affect all the important aspects of our lives, like our economies, education and health.
Perhaps if we can make an initiative like this a success, our good science may drive out the bad as it will become evident where the most robust science is being conducted and reputations will begin to matter again. There it is, for your consideration. Steem Science.
Can we come up with a hypothesis we'd like to test, that is not overly expensive, and can attract a scientist to conduct it according to the best principals of scientific research and in keeping with the integrity of blockchains? We'll see.
pifgc - post ideas for general consideration
Happy Steeming