[SIGCIS-Members] history of autoincorrect

[Alexandre Hocquet]

Dear Jonathan,

Thank you very much for this neat example. I never use Excel so I am not 
sure if the autocorrect feature can be disabled in settings or not (my 
guess is that it surely is, but you never know). That said, I find that 
this is more telling about the acculturation of users to Microsoft 
packages than the reckless use of pieces of software, even in areas 
where you might think better solutions exist, especially scientific ones.

After all, a lot of scientific mistakes occur because of the (incorrect) 
use of default settings, even in specialized software.
I have this example of a recent publication in chemistry regarding 
calculations of NMR chemical shifts whose output turn out to depend 
on.... the OS the calculations are run on !
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b03216#

It gives me the opportunity to shamelessly self-promote my upcoming talk 
where I will use Jonathan's example. If you're interested in open 
science and its complex relationship with software

"Only the initiates will have the secrets revealed" : The politics and 
materialities of open science
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Käte Hamburger Kolleg "cultures of research" lecture series
in Aachen and [online](https://khk.rwth-aachen.de/lecture-series/)
Wednesday, January 26th, 5pm CET

Open Science has been pervading the scientific world in the last decade. 
It is a buzzword, and a promise. First, through Open Access, as a combat 
against corporate publishers, then through Open Data as a mean to 
enhance sharing practices, and more recently, and more timidly, through 
the promotion of Open Software. Strikingly, Open Software in science has 
attracted until now less interest even though Open Science itself is 
rooted in 1980s free software principles.
This talk focuses on software in science and its diversity of 
entanglements with openness. Software has been "eating" the world and 
science is no exception. From Excel to complex "big" scientific 
instruments, via Photoshop or molecular modelling software suites, the 
vast majority of software used in science is not open, and a vast 
majority has nothing to do with computer science. When software is open, 
it is very often naively represented as a solution to all issues in 
science, especially reproducibility. Yet, even open software is full of 
epistemic issues, from governance to consistency, and the consequences 
of its influence on the rest of open science are often misunderstood, 
especially regarding licensing policies.


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Alexandre Hocquet
Archives Henri Poincaré & RWTH c:o/re
https://poincare.univ-lorraine.fr/fr/membre-titulaire/alexandre-hocquet
https://khk.rwth-aachen.de/fellows/prof-alexandre-hocquet/
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