Star Trek Discovery: The Case For Collaborative Science
Star Trek Discovery was often criticised in early episodes for the characters arguing often. However, Discovery as a show maintains a strong sense that collaboration and connection are critical for our scientific progress.
We first see this when Stamets and Straal talk and Straal keeps his process secret from his scientific collaborator. This is out of competitiveness. However, this means Straal dismisses Stamets' concerns.
We later learn that Straal's methods were not only ethically immoral (essentially torturing a sentient being) but also unsafe, leading to the death of him and the USS Glenn crew.
As a counter to this, Stamets starts secretive about his research, especially towards Burnham, but we see him grow and become more open and collaborative. It is through his collaboration with Tilly and Burnham that progress and breakthroughs are made. It also gives him a support system when troubles arise with the spore drive.
We also see throughout that interdisciplinary research can lead to better outcomes. It takes a team of multiple specialities to solve every scientific problem on Discovery. Everyone contributes and builds off each other, but also learns and expands their own horizons. This is raised first in episode 1.03 where Stamets chastised Burnham for trying to categorise his work as either physics or biology when he is working in an interdisciplinary manner.
The spore drive itself is the perfect example of how collaboration benefits science. It requires the astromycology of Straal and Stamets, the engineering of Tilly and Reno, the more coding and quantum physics specialty of Adira, and the medical support of Culber in order to make it safe and effective.
Discovery is an excellent statement on how open and collaborative science is critical for a better future.
