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> Were academic papers in past really better on average, or are you only reading the best ones that survived the past half century. There was both a barrier fo
by bsder 3y ago
> Were academic papers in past really better on average, or are you only reading the best ones that survived the past half century.
There was both a barrier for entry issue (your paper had to be typed, illustrated, etc.) as well as an "iterated game" issue where the field was small enough that if you got a reputation for junk you would get ignored.
Both of these have collapsed, so I would definitely argue that the papers of the past were better on average.
- MeetingsBrowser 3y ago> There was both a barrier for entry issue (your paper had to be typed, illustrated, etc.) I don't really understand this. The barrier to publishing academic work was (and is?) the ability to create a document? I would argue the barrier was and is, having sufficient background knowledge to produce academic work accepted by your peers. > the field was small enough that if you got a reputation for junk you would get ignored. Still largely the case today. It is true that anyone can publish to personal blogs or substack and that the average quality of that largely opinionated content is low. But academic papers (that matter) are published in very specific venues. Experts in a domain know which venue to look at and publish to. The bar to get work published in those specific venues remains much higher than substack. Is the bar lower than in the past? Maybe. Without someone actually looking into it we are just throwing around opinions and gut feelings.