[jdminhbg]

As a non-scientist who's seen that quote tossed around in a few different places in the past couple days... Is there a non-awful way to read that? It sounds almost like a parody of a tone-deaf status-obsessed researcher; is there some kind of context that makes it ok?

[frankmcsherry]

If you put the omitted "..." back in to the quote, it makes it clearer that the "for their own ends" is about appropriating credit rather than testing alternate hypotheses.

More importantly, the full paragraph starts "A second concern held by some is that...", signaling that this characterization is a not-universal opinion about what might be bad about data sharing. The very next paragraph argues that it doesn't have to be this way, which is the whole (missed?) point of the text.

It's almost like the posts here are trying to make the authors' case about the hazards of data sharing for them.

[aschreyer]

The "second concern held by some" is clearly a rhetorical figure of speech to make it sound as if they are not really sharing it, although the rest of what the authors say only deals with this exclusively. The first concern complete disappears. They are also using the term parasite or parasitically throughout the paper, which is not really helpful in this context.

The real concern of the authors, as it appears to me, is that you "own" the data that you produce and should have the exclusive right to use it - they call it "obvious extension of the reported work".

How would data sharing work best? We think it should happen symbiotically, not parasitically. Start with a novel idea, one that is not an obvious extension of the reported work

On the other hand, if you have a novel idea, you are supposed to work "symbiotically" with the authors with relevant coauthorship:

Third, work together to test the new hypothesis. Fourth, report the new findings with relevant coauthorship to acknowledge both the group that proposed the new idea and the investigative group that accrued the data that allowed it to be tested

The problem is that science does not work this way. You cannot own the facts, as someone famously said. Imagine people in computer science or mathematics held the same attitude, especially in artificial intelligence/machine learning.

[CamperBob2]

Imagine people in computer science or mathematics held the same attitude, especially in artificial intelligence/machine learning.

"Hi, I'm a patent attorney. What's going on in this thread?"

[aschreyer]

You could translate it as "how dare you trying to sabotage my career by attacking my research", something like this. It is fairly common that researchers build their careers on single results/breakthroughs and those have to be fiercely defended against everyone. For example, by rejecting/delaying research grants/papers that are competing with your own opinion/results, thanks to anonymous peer review. Sounds crazy, but I have seen this more than once.