I'm left a bit conflicted by what conclusions to draw from this effort. How much of this is due to how much easier it is to publish something these days? Every

I'm left a bit conflicted by what conclusions to draw from this effort. How much of this is due to how much easier it is to publish something these days? Every statistics package spits out publication-ready charts and tables, Latex/Word has automated much of the typesetter's art, drafts can be communicated instantly via email, there are instantly searchable and linked databases of papers, etc, etc. Think about what it was like in the 1950's, when many scientists were hiring typists to convert their longhand manuscripts into something an editor could read, attaching hand drawn figures, then heading down to the post office to mail the draft in. That draft then had to be copied and mailed to reviewers, who then mailed their opinions back, every step taking at least a few days of communication overhead. It was a different world and it gradually changed with widespread adoption of different technologies. Also how does this interact with another pair of common suggestions for improving science: publishing negative results and doing more replications? Is this a sign that those two good practices are already occurring? Is it possible that the higher rate of disruption was due to shoddier work in the past?