Code is science!

Premise

Science is often computing: Much of modern science involves code these days, in large part due to the amount of data available - it would be almost impossible to analyse without computational assistance.

Science requires peer review: One of the basic prerequisites for any published scientific results is that it be reviewed by peers, to ensure the research and conclusions are valid.

Software contains errors: We may try pretty hard to write software without bugs, but they definitely still happen - and errors can be hard to spot. The bug doesn’t have to cause catastrophic and obvious failure - it could be silent but sneaky.

Code == Science

If software is required to perform science, it stands to reason that errors in your software mean errors in your science.

Possible Solution?

Scientific code needs to be peer reviewed, and ideally open source.

That’s easier said than done. Getting there requires awareness, culture shift, and adherence to best practices.

Looking to Contribute?

• Do you wish more code was open source? Have you wished in the past that a DB of open source journals existed? Share your story
• Add more journals to our list Right now it’s a google form, but hopefully we’ll have the full site up and running soon!
• Pick up a technical or design task on GitHub: https://github.com/codeisscience/code-is-science