Making Science Better

There are important changes underway in science. Not headline-grabbing discoveries, but subtle shifts in how the scientific process works. Science — the grand endeavor of collectively seeking and organizing knowledge — is once again changing shape. The evolution can be seen from inside the ivory tower of academia as well as outside. Science Better is a collection of interviews with people driving the change.

The Mystery of Research

In 1955, the director Henri-Georges Clouzot sought to capture the creative genius of Pablo Picasso on film. The documentary, The Mystery of Picasso, follows Picasso through time-lapse and stop motion as he creates several works of art from scratch. With the screen doubling as the canvas, the viewer is given a unique window into the creative process — shown not told, from the inside out. It’s magic.

Part of the Science Better interview attempts something similar. We ask the researcher or interviewee to share their screen and walk us through their research process: where they get ideas or data, how they take notes, and turn disparate thoughts into papers, books, or lectures. Manual techniques, like hand-written notes or book marginalia, are often shown, too.

The goal is to reveal the tacit and practical ways that research is changing: ideas and techniques.

The Host (Me)

I’m David Lang, an entrepreneur and writer. I build tools for science and conservation. I’m not a formally-trained scientist, but I’m working to add more rigor to my question-asking. I write occasional essays about what I’m learning and testing:

The Science Preface | The scientific project | Science Angels (Preface) | Fixing the Back Burner | True believers | Making a scene | Advance Market Commitments for Science |  Consider the experiment | Science in the making | Open labs | The Hollywood Analogy | "De-scI" | Institutes ad infinitum | Equipment Supply Shocks | Wanted: Side Projects | Papers, Policies, and Prototypes

How To Use This Site

Science Better is designed to be a Twitter-first video podcast. These discussions are fishing expeditions — winding and wandering until we catch something interesting. To be respectful of your time, I’ve pulled together the interesting and useful clips as short highlights, which are also posted directly to Twitter. Comments, questions, and suggestions are best sent via Twitter, too.

This site is meant to serve as an archive, but also a place for the brave souls who long for the whole discussion.