Wikipedia as a tool for contemporary history of science: A case study on CRISPR

Rapid developments and methodological divides hinder the study of how scientific knowledge accumulates, consolidates and transfers to the public sphere. Our work proposes using Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, as a historiographical source regarding contemporary science. We chose the high-profile...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:bioRxiv 2022-11
Main Authors: Benjakob, Omer, Guley, Olha, Sevin, Jean-Marc, Blondel, Leo, Augustoni, Ariane, Collet, Matthieu, Jouveshomme, Louise, Roy, Amit, Linder, Ariel, Aviram, Rona
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bibliometrics
Circadian rhythms
COVID-19
CRISPR
Encyclopedias
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:Rapid developments and methodological divides hinder the study of how scientific knowledge accumulates, consolidates and transfers to the public sphere. Our work proposes using Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, as a historiographical source regarding contemporary science. We chose the high-profile field of gene editing as our test case, performing a historical analysis of the English-language Wikipedia articles on CRISPR. Using a mixed method approach, we qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed its text, sections and references, alongside 50 affiliated articles. These, we found, documented CRISPR's maturation from a fundamental scientific discovery to a biotechnological revolution with vast social and cultural implications. We developed automated tools to support such research generically and demonstrated its applicability on two other scientific fields we have previously studied - COVID-19 and Circadian clocks. This method makes use of Wikipedia as a digital and free archive, documenting the incremental growth of knowledge and the manner scientific research accumulates and translates into public discourse. Using Wikipedia in this manner compliments and overcomes some issues with contemporary histories and can also augment existing bibliometric research.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Footnotes* https://github.com/RonaTheBrave/WikiCorpusBuilder* https://zenodo.org/record/7206381#.Y1JoEezP23I
DOI:10.1101/2022.11.25.517950