The
Washington Postreported last month on the early demise of the EPA scientific data transparency rule from procedural irregularities. The rule was less than three years old.
The rule sounds perfectly reasonable. It would have required the Environmental Protection Agency to use scientific research when setting pollution exposure standards only if the original data were publicly available, allowing other researchers to examine and replicate findings.
Increased transparency in data used in empirical research and the facilitation of replication of studies are like mom and apple pie. In an ideal world, such practices are the very essence of the scientific method. In practice, academic journals inmanydisciplines already require that data used in empirical and experimental work be available for replication.