Science should be transparent, but not everything should be public. Medical research can contain private patient information, and some datasets could be misused or allow people to be identified. There’s also a fairness issue: scientists can spend years collecting data, and forcing them to release everything immediately could let others take their work before they’ve had a chance to properly analyse and publish it. The goal should be accountability, and not unlimited disclosure. Scientists should share enough data and methodology for their work to be independently checked, while protecting privacy, security, and legitimate research interests.

I understand the point about public funding, but publicly funded does not automatically mean every piece of raw data should be publicly available. If that data includes sensitive medical information, releasing it could harm the very people the research is supposed to help. And when you say you’re “not sure how to fix the tricky parts,” that’s exactly the problem with making this an absolute rule. We can demand transparency and public access to research findings while still protecting genuinely sensitive data, because openness should serve science and society, not become a rule that creates new harms.

Another issue is that raw data without context can actually make science less trustworthy. Most people cannot tell which variables matter, how the data was collected, or whether an apparent pattern is statistically meaningful. If everything is dumped online, people can cherry-pick numbers to support whatever conclusion they already believe. Scientists should be transparent about their methods and evidence, but that does not mean every raw dataset needs to be freely available to anyone, regardless of whether they understand it or how they use it.

I get why that feels unfair, but paying for research doesn't mean you're entitled to every piece of information produced from it. If taxpayers fund a medical study, for example, they can reasonably expect the findings and methodology to be accessible, but that doesn't mean they should get access to identifiable patient data. And if we don't have a solution for the privacy problem, we can't just ignore it because openness feels better. The right standard is meaningful transparency, not unlimited access to everything.