Slashdot Mirror
Who Owns Science?
immerrath writes "The New York Times has an article [Sorry, tomorrow's article, no Google link yet] on a movement that is rapidly gaining support in the scientific community: the Public Library of Science(PLoS). The founders, Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus, Stanford biologist Pat Brown and Berkeley Lab scientist Michael Eisen, argue that scientific literature cannot be privately controlled or owned by the publishers of scientific journals, and must instead be available in public archives freely accessible by anyone and everyone. This has very important implications for the fundamental principle that Science must transcend all economic, national and other barriers. For a while now, PLoS has been trying to get scientific journals to release the rights to scientific papers; many major journals have not complied -- in response, PLoS is starting PLoS-standard-compliant journals (for which they received a $9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), to demonstrate the validity of the idea and persuade academic publishers to adopt the free access model. They even have a GPL-like open access Licence, and their journals have some very prominent scientists on the editorial board. Here is the text of an earlier Newsweek article about PLoS, and here is a Nature Public Debate explaining the issues. Michael Eisen received the 2002 Benjamin Franklin award for his work on PLoS. Don't forget to sign the PLoS open letter!"
There's a rarely-explored connection between science and freedom AFAIK.
IANAL, but I still feel that the automatic assumption that these two things will always get better rests on the broad but not infinite shoulders of Aristotle, the Founding Fathers (regardless of where you live), and Ayn Rand-like characters.
IIRC from my studies, during the 'Dark Ages', the accumulated knowledge of centuries vanished, and these instants nearly coincided with repression of freedom (either from church or state).
PMFJI, but there is much evidence that the American era is coming to an end, and with it may come darker ages than those ever before known. (specifally, I cite the FDA, for crushing the advance of pharmacudical/medical science, as well as the departments of education, for caving to the mysics in their insistance that creationism be taught in public schools; and the gov't in general for any and all attempts to regulate, censor, or tax the Internet.)
This may sound TLTBT, but I say enjoy the freedom you have while you still have it. Our time time may be running out.
TXS.
Ain't that the truth. Just think about the legions of people that still think our Earth to be 6,000 years old, or do not understand the fundamentals of evolution, or who still harbor belief in scietific impossibilities like ghosts, or blatant myths like efreets and virgins giving birth to supermen that can walk on water. The world is suffering from a severe lack of scientific education and frankly, any little bit helps.
Despite the media propoganda that scientists are 'rational and analytical', the fact of the matter is that much of scientific discourse is based on animosity/debate, personal motivations, and mostly 'un-scientific' behavior. The thing is, however, that scientists have got these protocols established which allow for improvement, peer review, and communications.
Now then, most scientists are not exactly in science for the money, so I'm skeptical about the reward system argument. Moreover, I agree that 'stealing' may not be the correct term to use. Therefore, I am going to go out on a limb here, and say that it may be the case that scientists themselves may not completely understand the reward system.
Now, I've known a lot of scientists in my time, and I'd have to say that most of them:
1) Specialize in a certain field, and have a great grasp of that field;
2) Don't have a great concept of money (unless they are specializing in that field, although that still doesn't mean that they have alot of money).
3) Have general human interests and desires, just like everyone else (health, security, friendships, feeling of importance, etc).
4) Are interested in receiving credit for work they've done.
5) They wind up receiving credit for their work, but rewards go to other groups, because of the structure of modern science.
Anyhow, I'm digressing. Your question: Without having someone to start, how do you develop your own theories?
Yeah... That question has sort of been asked, and answered, by a guy named Thomas Kuhn. He writes to the affect that generally one has to start with someone else's theories. The exceptions which proove the rule are what he calls 'Anamoly of Oservation' (I think that's the term he uses). Anyhow, the answer to your question, as I understand it, is that you develop your own theories by observing something which nobody else has ever observed before, and stating a theory about it. This is a rather difficult proposition generally, but it does happen. Examples include:
measurement of the speed of light (constant! no more Ether!)
radioactive isotopes (they glow! different weights!)
electromagnetic spectrum (waves in the air!)
nucleic acid alpha/beta structures (stores information! genetics!)
penicillin production (germs! small things! drugs!)
columbus crosses the atlantic (america! real estate for the taking!)
These examples illustrate general 'ah-ha' experiences and fundamental observations which may very well defy the 'reward system' and the concept of stealing (well, maybe columbus and folks stole america, but that's another story).
I'm rambling. Signing off.
I signed the Open Letter long ago, not because I agreed with every point, but because it was good to see something stir up some noise. I also licensed my thesis under the PLoS license, not because I think it has much legal value (it confuses "public domain" with RMS' concept of copyleft), but because I think that if anybody wants to copy that thesis, it can only help me, and besides the fuzz you created was great! As it turns out, all of those of my childhood friends who have become scientists have independently signed the Open Letter! :-)
One of my main beefs with the PLoS is the insistence of a centralized archive. True, it may be easier to build something good on the top of for example the existing Arxiv.org (I'm an astrophysicist), but decentralization is one of the fundamental principles of the web. It is wise to learn as much as possible from these architectural principles, and make use of them as fast as possible.
I have for long wanted to write an article with the many thoughts I have in my head, but time has not allowed me to. The future of scientific publishing is perhaps the topic that I would most like to work with.
I noted in the Nature debate (which I submitted a link to some time ago), that some of the non-profit publishers wouldn't let go of their published articles because they couldn't ensure the integrity of the articles. This has a rather obvious technical solution to most people here on Slashdot, in the form of signatures. Now that XML Signature is a W3C Recommendation, I think it is just a matter of implementing it, the problem is really solved.
As for finance (now comes the excuse for posting in this thread), it is a problem that needs addressing for the whole Internet community. Many different modes should be available, for example, a nice, printed journal set by a professional typographer will not seize to be attractive although the article is available on the web. Some may well find a steady income there. Also, micropayments is something that is worth checking out.
I would personally like to work on those solutions, so if anybody is hiring... :-)
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
"greedy journal publishers" is pure flamebait. What is this, an argument about record labels?
The problem with arXiv is that much of the stuff on there would not pass peer-review, and some of it never gets revised to pass muster. By the time the author gets around to publishing it in a peer-reviewed journal, the on-line preprints have moved on, so the topic is no longer considered worth the effort of publication.
The end result is that all the readers of preprint servers have to do their own peer review, which is incredibly wasteful of effort.
Journal publishers are *not* making any kind of outrageous profits. Instead, they are defraying the substantial costs they incur in managing the editorial process that keeps scientific journals from becoming cesspools of "we publish anything!!!"