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Also: "Imagine one library with all the world's research and data, open, categorized, expandable, for everyone to use." OK, I'm imagining it. Now what? Are yo
by roel_v 15y ago
Also:
"Imagine one library with all the world's research and data, open, categorized, expandable, for everyone to use."
OK, I'm imagining it. Now what? Are you suggesting every Joe off the street can now write a groundbreaking paper that advances our understanding of string theory? Of course not. (Most) everybody today whose success in advancing the state of the art depends on having access to libraries already has access to one.
This is what I mean by 'philosophical idea' in my post above: yes theoretically it would be nice if everybody had access to the complete body of all research ever done. In practice, however, it wouldn't make more than a tiny shred of difference.
- ericb 15y agoAre you suggesting every Joe off the street can now write a groundbreaking paper that advances our understanding of string theory? Of course not. Yeah, what a laugh. Can you imagine if Albert the Patent Clerk started writing science papers?
- roel_v 15y agoI wasn't going to use this example because he's such an outlier and not representative, but you're basically making my point for me: if Einstein managed to 'get into research' without having 'open science' or libraries or whatever (I don't know to which extent he had access, but he certainly didn't have the access that everybody with an internet connection nowadays has), then why would not having 'open science' be an issue today? Even if there are for-pay article databases, it's still possible to get access to vastly more information than back then. Additionally, one counterexample doesn't disprove a general concept. The fact remains that the vast, vast majority of people don't give a hoot about having access to research papers.