Khaotic Musings
Random musings on Linux and Free and Open Source Software.
Friday 12 June 2009, 4:50 AM
What Open Source shares with Science
My conversation partner knew something of these topics, but didn't know much about the computer industry. She was quite surprised when I introduced her to that concept of open source software, and how it was merely an extension of, if not the Scientific Method per-se, then at least the underpinning drive and methodology of Science.
This in tern got me to digging up an essay from many years back, which I thought may be of interest to this forum's members.
Enjoy. Feedback most welcome.
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One of the overlooked advantages that Open Source development affords, is that it imitates perhaps the most fruitful and beneficial of all human endeavours: Science. How has the scientific-method evolved, and what can it teach us about the future possibilities of software construction?
Science, in its clearly understood modern guise, is unique. This essentially Western tradition of open inquiry is believed to have developed only one instantiation throughout the whole period of human history. While almost all human societies have developed language, art, and music, open inquiry into the natural and philosophical world sprung only from the eastern rim of the Mediterranean sea, in a number of ancient Greek states, approximately 27 centuries ago.
Helped along by the advantages provided by the recently formulated Greek alphabet, the people of this region bought forth the makings of the primary conceptual and philosophical machinery that was necessary to develop an understanding of Nature that surrounded them. In short order, they had conceived ideas which led them to believe that the Universe was understandable, that it was measurable and that it could undergo rational analysis.
Through the advantages bestowed upon the Greeks by virtue of their written language and undoubtedly their open, democratic political environment, these concepts spread. Where once these people would have been manipulators purely of the physical world (pottery, sculpture) they now also became masters if symbolic manipulation. Mathematics, logic, geometry, geography, mechanics, hydraulics, medicine, architecture, astronomy and cosmology, optics and dozens of other disciplines flowered. There has never been a similar period in human history, with the possible exception of the 18th century 'age of reason', the Enlightenment, interceded by the Dark Ages following the fall of Rome and the burning of the great library in Alexandria.
Luckily for all of us, these same ideas were storehoused and enhanced by the Islamic world. Eventually, after the fall of Muslim-held Toledo in the 11th century, these same ideas resurfaced slowly but steadily into Western and Southern Europe, to precipitate the Renaissance; the re-birth (of civilisation.) The arrival of these Greek texts coincided with the development of the university as a legal entity with political and intellectual autonomy. Once again, the openness to new forms of thought, the cheap, efficient and accurate transmission of ideas through the wonderful machinery of technology (Gutenberg's printing press,) brought forth an explosion of creativity and propelled Western civilisation forward. Open Source software is a direct descendant of this culture of open thought, as it prizes the same properties and philosophy which form the basis of the driving force of Science.
Openness is a key area of the scientific process which holds our interest here for comparison with Open Source development. Science is the process of verifying or culling hypothesis, and is in essence an open and self correcting system. Because of this, progress occurs at a much faster rate and in a more dependable/trusted fashion. This doesn't mean that the self correction happens in minute, continuously flowing 'chunks'. In reality, corrections arise as mini-revolutions, characterised by philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, as paradigm shifts. Nonetheless, over longer periods of time, progress does occur. In many ways, this progress is accidental, as there is often no 'vision' or nomenclature to describe where Science is heading, until after it has arrived.
The speed of progress is greatly enhanced by virtue of the fact the practitioners of Science publish not only results, but methodology, and techniques. In programmatic terms, this is equivalent to both the binary and the source code. This not only helps 'bootstrap' others into the field, to learn from the examples set, but makes it possible for others to verify or refute the results (or techniques) under investigation. In an almost guided-Darwinian evolutionary fashion, this makes the scientific process a powerful tool for the highlighting, analysis and possible culling of ideas and concepts; less useful ideas and hypothesis die, and likely contenders come sharply into focus. Newton made his famous comment about 'standing on the shoulders of giants', in part, to indicate that his contributions to human knowledge could not have been achieved solely. He needed the 'firmament' beneath him hypothesised, tested and confirmed by generations of scientists, philosophers and thinkers before him, over centuries. With Science, in the medium to long run, all other issues ('marketing' and previous acceptance) fall by the wayside, and merit alone is the main attribute of the victorious memes.
By analogy, making the source code available for peer review and extension, is perhaps Open Source's most powerful advantage as a development methodology. Besides the verification provided by peer review, refutation for issues such as security is possible, learning of techniques by new practitioners is a great advantage, as is modification and redistribution of the code under similar conditions. It makes it possible for anyone who has a background in, or can acclimatise to the technology and skills required, to continue development, extending the code into whatever direction that they need. This, in turn can be plowed back into the original system, causing eddies of strengthening feedback. This results in an ever growing base (or firmament) of quality code, upon which more and more programmers can benefit from, and contribute back to. The open communication of source and ideas, while progressing slowly at first, builds momentum as more and more practitioners learn from, extend or revive from obscurity, more and more code.
Another facet of similarity between Open Source and Science, is the respective cultures. Both are strongly technical, perhaps verging on the geeky, and both are meritocracies. A large part of the impetus of scientists is the applause of others. Peer recognition is also perhaps the single most important reason attributed by Open Source advocates and developers as to the reason why they pursue Open Source methods of software construction. Finally, much like the contemporaneous invention of the printing press helping propel Science, the Internet has provided both the human inter-communication and resultant software distribution vehicle, to help catalyse the Open Source process.
This chain of attributes and contingencies which made Science perhaps the most effective and pervasive of successful human endeavours, is finding resonant similarities in the burgeoning success of the Open Source process and may help explain its rise and rise.
PreviousComments on this post
Absolutely excellent. Maybe all the fanbois adherents of the various Linux distributions can be inspired to stop bitching at one another. They need to talk to others not using Linux about the merits of Open Source, whatever they like to run personally.
This comment has been deleted at the users request
Hrmmm.. didn't seem to work the first time but I will try again because I think this post is THAT awesome.
Brilliant, totally brilliant. I'm a science major and a recent Open Source convert and this page is exactly all the things that drew me to it in the first place.
I hope you don't mind that I posted this in my blog. I gave you credit all over the place and included a proper trackback. If that's a problem I can edit it to just a excerpt... I just feel that as many people as possible need to read it!
Hello Asheyna!
Thanks for the feedback ;-)
No issues at all about reproduction; most everything I write is available under a Creative Commons of free documentation-style licence.
If it's of interest, this short piece is directly descended from a somewhat larger essay, which is available here:
http://www.cybersource.com.au/users/conz/shoulders.html
Great article, but I wanted to point at some historical facts that differ a bit.
1. Science is not unique for the Greek states. It has being developed long before that and later in parallel, all over the world and mainly in India, China, Egypt and later in the Arab world. In fact, the most popular and important books about geometry and algebra, were put together from Greeks, but using discoveries and principles that existed long before that.
2. The Greek alphabet was borrowed from the Greeks and "enhanced" in some sense from ancient Lebanon. At that period and long after, a lot of people and scholars were using it to describe discoveries and ideas, but that does not mean that the authors were Greek. This is the same if we say that all American scientists are British, just because they use English :-)
3. There were no "Dark Ages" in connection to the science. In the time when western Europe was "suppressed" and kept in the "dark" from the Catholic Church, in Constantinople (the capital of Byzantine empire) the science was developed and thought in the greatest European school at the time - Magnaur Academy in Constantinople. The same freedom enjoyed all Christians that were under the Orthodox church, which includes almost all Eastern Europe and part of Asia. Please note that at that point and pretty much at any point through the history of the region, creeks were no more then 4-5% of the population of the Byzantium empire and its rulers were in different times: Armenians, Italians, Tractarians.. even Africans and Slavs. The fact that at some point Byzantium empire decided on using Greek as the official language and not the original Lathin, is due to the fact that Alexander the Great made this language very popular in Asia and other Eastern regions which were mainly owned by the Byzantines at that time.
4. Western European Renaissance was greatly influenced (many historians say the it was even initiated) from the scholars that were running away from Eastern Europe after the turks coquetted this region, especially after the fall of Constantinople in year 1453.
Hi vgrozev, thanks for your feedback.
My responses follow snippets from your post.
1. Science is not unique for the Greek states.
My reading of history is different to yours. While I understand that there was some efforts in some segmented' aspects of what we now call Science, in Mesopotamia, China and Egypt, these efforts were sparse and still heavily embedded within a primarily Mythical worldview.
My information on this comes from a variety of source, All you need to do is take a quick look at any number of books which cover this period, nominatively called the Greek Miracle in Science and Philosophy.
This is obviously a complex and deep topic, and not something which can be covered to any extent in a blog post on open source software.
2. The Greek alphabet was borrowed from the Greeks and "enhanced" in some sense from ancient Lebanon.
The 'current' Greek alphabet, as opposed to the Greek Linear B script which predated it, did indeed grow from other alphabets, such as the Phoenician. However, most of the 'names' in classical Science and Philosophy, were not merely Greek-speakers, they were culturally Hellenic.
The broader middle-east, beyond the Ionic Greek colonies along the eastern Mediterranean, didn't really shift to using Greek for the 'learned classes' until centuries later, post Alexander the Great's conquest of the area beyond what is now modern Turkey.
3. There were no "Dark Ages" in connection to the science. In the time when western Europe was "suppressed" and kept in the "dark" from the Catholic Church...
You are correct, the suppression of Science was primarily a Western European issue. However, I use here the term 'Dark Ages', in a non-specialist-historical setting; I know that most of the readership will understand my meaning.
However, it's not entirely true that the suppression of Science (and other, non-religious realms) was a purely Western European behaviour. The Byzantine Emperor, Justinian as but one example, was quite active in closing schools of philosophical enquiry.
4. Western European Renaissance was greatly influenced (many historians say the it was even initiated) from the scholars that were running away from Eastern Europe
Indeed, this is true. However, the fall of Constantinople didn't occur until the middle of the 15th century, a long time after the initial kick-start of interest which happened the fall of Muslim Spain. It is because of the latter creating a great appetite for classical knowledge, that the scholars streaming out of the collapsed Byzantine Empire were welcomed with open arms in Italy and beyond.
