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The ultimate role of information is to bolster or undermine an assumption or argument. But how credible is the information or data we gather? The tenability of information plays a very critical role in almost every field. The entire argument based on an information becomes invalid if the reliability of that information is challenged.  The article " Scientific Truth-Seeking: An Evolving Process" by David Brin discusses the credibility and transparency of scientific data and its importance with some examples. The author embarks on the fact that issues of attention, scrutiny and transparency have attained supreme importance in science thus setting the standard for liability in the quest for truth. New technologies are both an advantage and a challenge as they speed up results publication, but also ensure exposure to criticism for credibility-ranking.

Brin quotes few examples to implant a question in our minds as to how the credibility of information could be judged. The first is the recent research findings that the distance from the sun and solar activity affect the rates of decay of some radioactive elements. This paper emphasizes that the distance form the sun is related to the quantity of neutrinos which in turn impacts radioactive decay. But this had invited dispute and controversy since neutrinos have no mass or charge and the influence of something with such a property is unheard of in Physics. Thus concrete evidence is required to prove such an assertion and until such proof is provided through experiments and observations, the information is not considered reliable.

With all the 'Go Green' campaigns going viral around the world, Brin enlightens us on some shocking details from "Save the world through sustainable web design" by Pete Markiewicz. According to an estimate the use of electronic publishing and reading have increased the power consumption in the USA by 6% from 2000 to 2011 thereby increasing water usage for cooling purposes. Within a decade the power usage is also estimated to increase to a huge amount. The article claims that the green medium is a little less eco friendly than people think making us debate the purpose of the why all this started in the first place.

The protocols or procedures as to how the liability of information could be determined still remain in the dark, thus giving us more room to experiment and pave the way for the evolution of efficient methods to Scientific Truth-Seeking!

Scientific Truth-Seeking: An Evolving Process