I agree with the open data concept in the Wikipedia entry, especially in certain circumstances.  Imagine if the Tufte reading about John Snow finding the origin point of cholera happened today and that information was restricted to the public.  It’s basically like the Wikipedia entry states; data that contains information on “genomes, organisms, medical science, environmental” should be open to the public.  All of the previous things listed do not belong to anyone; facts about these things should always be open to the public domain.  Another reason which the Wikipedia entry brought up but I actually first read in Badke was the idea that if the data was funded with public money than it should at some point be made available to the public for free.  If the research was funded by government grants or through taxes then it was actually funded by the people and so why should we have to pay for it twice.  Some people might say’ if you discover something first you should be allowed to make a profit to fund future work or to be compensated for your time’, I do not disagree all I am saying is that at some point you have to turn that information over to the public.

Tufte’s reading on John Snow painted Snow as a man whose main focus was stopping a deadly cholera outbreak that was claiming nearly 100+ lives a day.  It wasn’t until after the incident he received the recognition of being called one of the fathers of epidemiology.  All in all I do not believe the advancement of humanity should be for profit, sometimes doing the right thing is truly its own reward.