Open Source Science Brings Skeptics and Controversial Science Together

May 17, 2007 (PRLEAP.COM) Education News
OpenSourceScience officially launched its new website located at www.opensourcescience.net today. The website offers a variety of tools for managing scientific experiments and lets site visitors discuss and participate in the research process. Besides promoting scientific collaboration, OpenSourceScience offers financial grants to researchers working within the areas featured on the website.

According to Alex Tsakiris, one of the sites creators, the open source model is well suited for this task: “The open source model has proven to be a powerful enabling technology because it promotes collaboration. When you look at some of the controversial areas of research, like whether our consciousness is separate from our brain, there has been very little collaboration between researchers and those with opposing views. Everyone seems to agree that collaboration is necessary, but until now, it just hasn’t happened.”

OpenSourceScience suited for scientifically-minded skeptics as well as those interested in controversial subjects such as parapsychology and human consciousness. The site’s first experiment examines whether dogs can anticipate their owners coming home, and whether they do this in a way currently unexplained by science. The original researchers, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and Dr. Richard Wiseman, have offered their support to this collaborative re-examination of their experiments and are looking forward to the results.

About OpenSourceScience

OpenSourceScience is the first scientifically oriented website to bring the power of open source methods to the skeptical examination of controversial areas of science such as telepathy, psi, parapsychology, near-death experiences, reincarnation, and after-life encounters.