5 ms·

Hardly equivalent "for all intents and purposes." The purposes of the layman are nothing like those of the research community.

• geggam 8y ago
  If you put it in the public domain it is your responsibility to ensure it is digestible by the audience you publish it to. So yes... public posted information should be layman ready
  • radus 8y ago
    Do you apply this reasoning to articles or comments discussing kernel development? Some topics have higher irreducible complexity than others. More importantly, I can make whatever I want public, and I can do so with whatever audience I have in mind.
    • geggam 8y ago
      Interesting. So inciting panic online is fine but not in a theater ?
      • metaphor 8y ago
        Your remark finds difficulty in satisfying clear and present danger.
        • geggam 8y ago
          Vaccine studies
          • metaphor 8y ago
            ...are of a certain irreducible complexity which undergo a process of peer review prior to publication in scientific journals, and rightfully presume a minimum prerequisite background for proper interpretation? I'm sure the topic and its meta are interesting to the professional audience in which they were intended for.
  • Intermernet 8y ago
    Emphatically, no, it's not. Putting something in the public domain allows other people with knowledge in the field to use the information. It doesn't mean that the lay-person should be able to digest it. The public domain isn't some lowest common denominator clearing house of information, it's just public.
• gaius 8y ago
  The purposes of the layman are nothing like those of the research community. The "laymen" are the ones funding all of this through their taxes. I'm sure scientists would love it if the plebs just shut up and kept on giving them money, but it doesn't work like that. In fact that is why it is becoming harder and harder for scientists to communicate with the public to affect policy.