4 ms·

The problem of publicly-funded-but-privately-owned scientific research is a pet peeve of mine, but this guerilla action is not the answer. Scientific research i

The problem of publicly-funded-but-privately-owned scientific research is a pet peeve of mine, but this guerilla action is not the answer. Scientific research is a slow process of careful accumulation, sifting, and construction of links. What we need to build are permanent, publicly accessible webs built of reliable links, webs that are built up over years -- probably over the course of entire careers, and one's successors's careers. Not a pile of PDF files smuggled out of the academy and distributed via thumb drive and anonymous Bittorrent. If I cannot simultaneously post my name, a pertinent comment, and a bunch of reliable direct links to the scientific literature on a public blog without risking legal repercussions, the discourse is still screwed. We're still trapped in the last century, when I could write a letter to my colleagues commenting on recent publications but nobody could properly understand and critique the letter without independently looking up those publications.

dpres 15y ago
Sounds like your describing WikiPedia...
- granite_scones 15y ago
  Not really. This is about being able to access the specific papers written; it is not about being able to read an aggregate of the research without necessarily being able to look at the original source (which is what Wikipedia is). (EDIT: grammar)
  - mechanical_fish 15y ago
    Indeed, Wikipedia's particular style won't work for science. The shame of modern science is that what might work is so simple to build, because it is already built. Research papers already form a web: They all have references to prior research papers, which in turn have references of their own. Moreover, the community of researchers and their students would quickly and happily turn all those links into clickable ones -- if only paywalls didn't prevent them. [1] It's no coincidence that even the simplest of web pages is already perfectly suited for scientific research: Tim Berners-Lee built HTML and HTTP for that purpose. But now science lags behind, say, LOLcats or the Twilight books when it comes to online discussion, and I assert that it's not merely because science is esoteric [2]: It's because scientific publishing is suffocated by rent-seekers. --- [1] Actually, my understanding is that cross-journal hyperlinks are slowly evolving within academia: Once you're inside the university library's firewall you can make actual working hyperlinks that are only, say, 65% less efficient than the average Wikipedia link. This is great for those who are currently inside the ivory tower. Not so great for me and the other 99.9% of humanity. [2] What I wonder is the extent to which science remains esoteric because it has always required so much training and money to read the literature that the literature has never needed to evolve actual readability. Why bother learning to explain your work to a popular audience when your writing will only ever appear in journals that are only visible to your colleagues? Historically, we've relied on great science journalism to make up the difference. (Gods bless you, Isaac Asimov.) But great science journalism, like all journalism, is rare and getting rarer.

dpres 15y ago

Sounds like your describing WikiPedia...

granite_scones 15y ago
Not really. This is about being able to access the specific papers written; it is not about being able to read an aggregate of the research without necessarily being able to look at the original source (which is what Wikipedia is). (EDIT: grammar)
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  Indeed, Wikipedia's particular style won't work for science. The shame of modern science is that what might work is so simple to build, because it is already built. Research papers already form a web: They all have references to prior research papers, which in turn have references of their own. Moreover, the community of researchers and their students would quickly and happily turn all those links into clickable ones -- if only paywalls didn't prevent them. [1] It's no coincidence that even the simplest of web pages is already perfectly suited for scientific research: Tim Berners-Lee built HTML and HTTP for that purpose. But now science lags behind, say, LOLcats or the Twilight books when it comes to online discussion, and I assert that it's not merely because science is esoteric [2]: It's because scientific publishing is suffocated by rent-seekers. --- [1] Actually, my understanding is that cross-journal hyperlinks are slowly evolving within academia: Once you're inside the university library's firewall you can make actual working hyperlinks that are only, say, 65% less efficient than the average Wikipedia link. This is great for those who are currently inside the ivory tower. Not so great for me and the other 99.9% of humanity. [2] What I wonder is the extent to which science remains esoteric because it has always required so much training and money to read the literature that the literature has never needed to evolve actual readability. Why bother learning to explain your work to a popular audience when your writing will only ever appear in journals that are only visible to your colleagues? Historically, we've relied on great science journalism to make up the difference. (Gods bless you, Isaac Asimov.) But great science journalism, like all journalism, is rare and getting rarer.