Michael Nielsen's new book Reinventing Discovery is invigorating. Here's one passage on how a small group talked an issue through and had a large impact on scientific progress:

Why is it that biologists share genetic data in GenBank in the first place? When you think about it, it’s a peculiar choice: if you’re a professional biologist it’s to your advantage to keep data secret as long as possible. Why share your data online before you get a chance to publish a paper or take out a patent on your work? In the scientific world it’s papers and, in some fields, patents that are rewarded by jobs and promotions. Publicly releasing data typically does nothing for your career, and might even damage it, by helping your scientific competitors.

In part for these reasons, GenBank took off slowly after it was launched in 1982. While many biologists were happy to access others’ data in GenBank, they had little interest in contributing their own data. But that has changed over time. Part of the reason for the change was a historic conference held in Bermuda in 1996, and attended by many of the world’s leading biologists, including several of the leaders of the government-sponsored Human Genome Project. Also present was Craig Venter, who would later lead a private effort to sequence the human genome. Although many attendees weren’t willing to unilaterally make the first move to share all their genetic data in advance of publication, everyone could see that science as a whole would benefit enormously if open sharing of data became common practice. So they sat and talked the issue over for days, eventually coming to a joint agreement—now known as the Bermuda Agreement—that all human genetic data should be immediately shared online. The agreement wasn’t just empty rhetoric. The biologists in the room had enough clout that they convinced several major scientific grant agencies to make immediate data sharing a mandatory requirement of working on the human genome. Scientists who refused to share data would get no grant money to do research. This changed the game, and immediate sharing of human genetic data became the norm. The Bermuda agreement eventually made its way to the highest levels of government: on March 14, 2000, US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a joint statement praising the principles described in the Bermuda Agreement, and urging scientists in every country to adopt similar principles. It’s because of the Bermuda Agreement and similar subsequent agreements that the human genome and the HapMap are publicly available.