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!"

Comments

Science is open to everyone

[ObviousGuy]

Everyone has access to Nature. It is just waiting for someone to find out all its secrets.

But for those that do, it is important that they receive some sort of carrot to keep them motivated. If this means charging for academic journals, then perhaps that's the way to go about it.

Those that would steal their hard work because "Science is for everyone" doesn't quite grasp the concept of the reward system.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[mph]

Everyone has access to Nature.

But if you want to subscribe, it'll set you back up to $159 a year.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[lucabrasi999]

Those that would steal their hard work because "Science is for everyone" doesn't quite grasp the concept of the reward system.

"Stealing" is not quite the word that I would use. Remember that every piece of science today is based upon someone elses past research. In order to develop and prove new theories, you have to "steal" from someone else. If you, as a researcher had NO information on widgits, how would you even start developing a theory? Most researchers would begin by finding out what everyone else thinks of Widgits and go from there.

This all reminds me of a quote I read in college (can't remember the person that created the quote). "Western Civilization is a footnote to Plato". This means Without Plato beginning political discourse, the western world would probably have developed in an entirely different manner. It's the same way in pure science. Without having someone to start, how do you develop your own theories?

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Money motivated Venter, Wolfram, and Ramanujan.

For every scientist that you think was ambivalent about money, there is another that thought money was a pretty important thing.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

The scientists who publish in the non-free journals don't get any money. The only carrot in publishing in the journals is the increase in reputation and job prospects for publishing in a top journal. The only people who profit from the journals are the publishers.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Bicoid]

Yes, if you want to subscribe. However, to read a paper of interest, you can just get off your lazy duff and go to a local library...if your public library doesn't have it, then check out the local university library. True, that's not plausible for everyone, but if it's important to you and you lack the money, it IS availible.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Those that would steal their hard work because "Science is for everyone" doesn't quite grasp the concept of the reward system.

Someone doesn't understand the concept of the academic reward system, all right. Unfortunately, that person is you.

1) Scientists (and other academics) get their rewards (tenure, grants, etc.) by publishing material so that others can build on it, not by hoarding it or selling it for large amounts of money. That's how academia works.

2) Academics almost never get any money from journal articles. In fact, some journals CHARGE THE ACADEMIC FOR PRINTING THEM.

In the past, journals were expensive for a legitimate reason: printing a small press run (and let's face it, most academic journals have circulations measured in the hundreds or low thousands) resulted in a very high unit cost.

Now, with online publishing, there's no reason for this, yet the journal publishers are still charging exorbitant fees to their subscribers.

Academic publishing isn't anything like commercial fiction or non-fiction publishing, sorry. It's an entirely different business model.

If you have a vision of some guy doing neurobiology becoming the next Tom Clancy, you're just wrong.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if I can discover a fact for $1000, someone else might be able to discover it for $500. Someone else might discover it for $100, and finally someone else could do it for $0.50. Since it's just a piece of information we're talking about, I don't think we have to reward people all that much. We're not talking about some hot new song or movie, we're talking about repeatable facts.

Someone will discover the jewels nature has to offer.

Ignoring the fact that most scientists DON'T see much reward, of course. I remember one of my profs in EE telling us about his advancements in night-vision optics, and how he made his company millions and millions of dollars from his inventions and improvements. Someone in the class asked him how much of that he saw, he laughed and said "all I got was a plaque".

Re:Science is open to everyone

[rodgerd]

It also shows a number of flaws with the theory:

1/ Plato hardly started the philosophies that much of Western thinking are based upon. You may recall that Plato studied under Cratylus and was heavily influenced by Socrates. And Cratylus studied under...

2/ Many of Plato's views would likely be considered pretty horrible by those of us working in many of the major Enlightenment streams of thought. Western Civilisation may owe debts to Plato, but the like of Adam Smith, J S Mill, Woolstoncroft, Bertrand Russell, William Morris, and sundry others play a much more immediate role in our day to day lives, in much the same way that Rutherford splitting the atom is more meaningful for people getting their electricity in the US than Newton's work.

Essentially, picking Plato is arbitary. And that's the problem with most notions of identifying the "great thinkers", especially in collaborative areas that build and change over time; things are all too often reduced to popularity/PR contests. Hell, how many people think Edison was a great inventor?

Re:Science is open to everyone

[JanneM]

Yes, "Science" and "nature" are prety much available for everyone. They are possibly the two most prestigious journals you could find yourself in. Also, because they are the most prestigious journals, the cost is very low, as so many people - not just libraries or departments, but individuals - are subscribers. They also charge quite a bit for every page you publish.

I think the very point is that mosts cientific publishing is not in the vein of science or nature. There you get the finished results; the consensus stuff or the magnificient breakthroughs that would be a pride to any daily paper headline setter.

Most of scientific publishing is very boring, very cautious or very incredible. I know that all I've published certainly belongs to this class. That doees not mean it's bad science; for every revolutionary, you need a small army of people dotting the I:s and crssing the T:s. In that process you also tend to find a surprising amount of good, solid science.

Unfortunately, as soon as you step away from the Big Stars of science, things look bleak, as so many othes are documenting. /Jannne

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Idarubicin]

But for those that do, it is important that they receive some sort of carrot to keep them motivated. If this means charging for academic journals, then perhaps that's the way to go about it.

Those that would steal their hard work because "Science is for everyone" doesn't quite grasp the concept of the reward system

Who's stealing from whom? Journals don't do scientific work; scientists do. They've already been compensated for their work. They only publish because they want to contribute to the sum of human knowledge, because they want the prestige, and because their tenure-track job depends on it.

If Nature or Science or Cell can make a buck by printing a researcher's work and selling copies to other people, good for them. By putting together a selection of good papers they're saving me time and providing a useful service. After six months or a year, they've really squeezed all the money they're going to get out of the papers. (Very few reprints are purchased after this point.) The manuscripts should be released to a public repository. If anything, it may stimulate more research and lead to more fodder for the printing presses. And it ensures that older papers are not lost--trapped, mouldering, in musty old library collections--if a publishing house goes out of business.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Michael Woodhams]

I'm having troubles deciding whether this post is just plain ignorant, or whether it is a subtle parody of the music/napster/copyright/RIAA debate.

Almost all scientific journals charge the researcher money to publish in them. This money is paid from the grant that supported the research activity.

Like almost anyone, academics like to be well paid, but it isn't journal subscriptions that pays any part of their salary.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[whereiswaldo]

But for those that do, it is important that they receive some sort of carrot to keep them motivated. If this means charging for academic journals, then perhaps that's the way to go about it.

That kind of thinking is just wrong.

If scientists are motivated only by the money, they're in the wrong field. The reward is knowledge itself, and being the first person to discover and share that knowledge. Eureka! That's what it's all about: that is what has driven scientists for centuries.

I'd wager that scientists today haven't changed all that much on average. It's the big companies backing them that drive the lust for money and power.

There are other ways to make money than to hold the information ransom. What if Einstein Co. had all the rights to general relativity? How much less would we have advanced as a result?

Ultimately, I think, big picture of the future is that our willingness to learn will be the driving force behind humanity. That's a looong way off, though, but the winds of change are blowing and open source, sharing of information, and revolutionary new concepts and ways of thinking are helping to make it happen.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[first axiom]

The scientists who actually research and submit papers to journals usually receive no monetary compensation. It's just the opposite. Journals might charge for having eminent "names" in the field "peer-review" your article (the reviewers don't usually get paid), and the journals charge exorbitant subscription fees.

You might notice the common trend: only journals receive money. Much more money than the cost of publication. And they don't want anyone else publishing -their- papers (the ones they didn't write, nor pay for).

Science should be free. Most researchers have to jump through hoops just to get published, and they get no pay for having published, just notice and prestige. I completely agree with the PLoS.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[stand]

I'd rather have Newton, Einstein and Feynman on my science bowl team than Venter, Wolfram and Ramanujan any day. ;-)

Re:Science is open to everyone

[DarkMan]

Essentially, picking Plato is arbitary

Not really. He was a prolific writer, whose writings have survivied. Whether by coincidence, or not, it's because where have a record of what he did that he gets credit, rightly or wrongly.

I belive that there is a parrallel that could be drawn here, about people wanting a public record of what they did.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Those that would steal their hard work because "Science is for everyone" doesn't quite grasp the concept of the reward system.

As a scientist, I find that to be an offensive remark. If you ask any serious scientist why they research a problem, the answer should be, "Because it's there," not "Because I'll make some money." That's what separates scientists from economists.

The only way to "steal" work from another scientist is plagiarism and/or fraud- practices that are immoral in any academic field. Nobody can "steal" Newton's Laws. They can reference them, use them to build new theories and to reinforce existing ones, and that's all that's really possible.

If you believe that science is valuable to the general public-- that is, if you think the little line in the U.S. Constitution stating that Congress should support "the useful arts and sciences" says something important-- then there really shouldn't be any argument. If science is for humanity, which it should and must be, then charging for access to it when there's a perfectly reasonable method for free dissemination negates the original premise that it's for humanity for a large number of reasons.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Kynde]

But for those that do, it is important that they receive some sort of carrot to keep them motivated. If this means charging for academic journals, then perhaps that's the way to go about it.

Bollocks, it's little that the article writer gets compared to the publishing houses. Besides, because they're commercial publications some of poorer people in this world may not have the access for such publications.

This has been a long time coming and I'm sure all scientists will embrace this model. It's the parasitic publishers that will do what they can to prevent this.

This is not that far from artists vs record companies dispute....

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Jon Peterson]

"In the past, journals were expensive for a legitimate reason: printing a small press run (and let's face it, most academic journals have circulations measured in the hundreds or low thousands) resulted in a very high unit cost.
"

No. Journals are expensive because editing them requires an enormous amount of skill and expertise, and they have a miniscule target market. To edit a scientific journal requires editors, copy editors, and librarians who are additionally specialists in the scientific field covered by the journal. In the case of where I work, that means we have people who have maybe 12 years of medical training, as researchers or consultants in major hospitals and 6 years editorial experience including maybe national newspapers. That sort of person is not easy to find.

Do you know how long it takes to edit a scientific paper? To check the numbers? To check every reference - to have an external specialist in another country review the paper? Do you know how hard it is just to find someone with enough knowledge to be _able_ to review some of the submitted papers?

Unless you want science to be as accurate and careful as a Slashdot story, someone's going to have to pay for it.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[ancientreader]

In fact, for most reputable journals, researchers have to pay a fee to the journal just to submit a research study for consideration of it being published. Researchers receive no discounts on subscription or money from journals for publishing (it's not like they're submitting jokes to reader's digest...)

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Melantha_Bacchae]

I agree with what you said, first axiom. Just adding the following:

Scientists publish to get their work out there. Traditionally, they have done that through the journals, because they were the only means they had. The journals, because of their greedy nature and jumping on the IP bandwagon (with IP that isn't theirs in the first place), are actually blocking access to scientific work.

Thanks to the internet, scientists no longer have to rely on the journals. They can take their work back and publish it themselves if that is what they want. The journals have no rights to their work if the scientists choose not to give it to the journals in the first place.

The greedy journals stand to loose everything if they don't stop their IP hoarding and start doing their jobs. Their job is simple: publish the work the scientists give them. If they can't even do that (without all the hoarding and greed), then they have no reason to continue existing.

Now then, you greedy sharks, what was that you were squawking about the libraries allowing too many people to access *your* precious IP?

(Silence.)

That's what I thought. ;)

Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra!
Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Sgt York]

As a scientist, I want people to "steal" my work as you put it. When people read what I write and cite it, because their work is based on mine, that's the validation for what I do. It means that what I did didn't just die off, useless.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[chialea]

Err... most of the editing, overall, is done without pay by other researchers and graduate students in the field. Where you work may be an exception, but at least in CS, this is how it works. Peer review, you know. By peers who don't get paid, they do it to build up some positive karma.

In the case of conferences, the committee is not paid, and they (and unpaid people they delegate to -- except in the technical sense that my advisor pays me) do the review and editing.

Certainly there are other expenses involved, but I doubt that review is much of one. The papers are emailed to the reviewer, so there's not even any paper/shipping cost.

This sort of thing is certainly "paid for" by someone -- the universities and the groups that fund them, and the companies that have major research labs, and the groups that fund them. Same people who pay for the journals and proceedings, oddly enough.

Lea

Re:Science is open to everyone

[DoctorRad]

I believe the PLoS came about because academics were basically getting sick, tired and fed-up of effectively being forced to buy back their own work.

Say I do publicly funded research and publish papers in a commercial journal. I have to publish otherwise I or my department / college will find it harer to secure future funding. The publishers of the relevant journals then profit by publishing my work.

The cost of buying the publications that I need in order to further my research may be crippling to my department or college library. Why should the publishing houses be profiting so from content which they do not pay for? What are they contributing that a not-for-profit organisation could not?

This is exploitation, pure and simple. The PLoS is long overdue.

Dr. Matt...

Re:Science is open to everyone

[orac2]

Err... most of the editing, overall, is done without pay by other researchers and graduate students in the field. Where you work may be an exception, but at least in CS, this is how it works. Peer review, you know.

Peer review is not editing. In fact it usually annoys publishers when peer reviewers try to do copyediting, line editing etc: they usually have no idea of the house style, word count allocation, etc. Peer reviewers exist to check for factual accuracy. Period. If you're unpaid and doing more than that you're either on the editorial board or doing work most journals would in fact prefer you didn't do. (The situation may be different for very small or new journals, and conference reports in general but this article is about opening up the commercial publications.)

Skilled and expensive editors are still required to a) do an initial weeding out process so the peer review system isn't overloaded, b) whip manuscripts into shape which are usually written by people who got much better marks in science than composition in school, and c) prepare illustrations -- I've seen the fun when a publisher has to create something printable out of some power point file whipped up by an overeager grad student.

There's a reason why a magazines like Nature and Science get read by large numbers of people and self-edited conference reports aren't even read by all the conference attendees

Re:Science is open to everyone

[RealAlaskan]

If you ask any serious scientist why they research a problem, the answer should be, "Because it's there," not "Because I'll make some money." That's what separates scientists from economists.

I think that most academic economists are serious scientists, by this definition. In my limited experience, the ones who are interested mainly in making money for themselves soon get out of academics.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[orac2]

Editing is just making it look pretty.

hahahahaha! You're kidding right? Look at a page from Nature or Science: you think that was done in TeX? Nope, it was put together by professional layout artists and illustrators using tools like Adobe photoshop and Quark. And before anyone poo-poo's the value of good graphic design, take a look at the average conference proceeding - many articles in their own unique font, different type sizes, some articles with their own page numbers, some articles that look like they're ninth generation photocopies...

More fundamentally, the amount of work that goes into improving the text in one of these articles can be immense, especially when the author doesn't have english as a first language. Some articles have to be almost completely rewritten. Don't believe me? Find a sample of articles (including authors from non english speaking countries) which have unrevised pre-prints available on-line and which were subsequently published in either of these two magazines and compare their readability and conciseness.

I know some journals adopt a straight through approach to the text of papers and here I'm all for the on-line archive approach, because frankly I don't think these journals are doing what they are supposed to. If I want to read a dozen different versions of how to structure an article, style a reference, name a gene, or give a temperature, I'll take the pre-print feed.

Just because "Slashdot editor" is an oxymoron, doesn't mean it's true all over!

Re:Science is open to everyone

[orac2]

Exactly my point -- random crappy journal that doesn't add any value: to the Net with you!. But it has been suggested that it's wrong for any journal to be a commercial entity, whereas I think the better journals, like Science, Nature, and The JAMA and so on are entitled to charge money and avail of copyright protection for their products.

In an analogy to the open source commercial model, the better publications are providing a service in all the seen and unseen work that gets done on an article. The actual data in these articles is still free for for anyone to use after all, which seems to be forgotten (generally speaking abstracts are usually freely available too).

I'm just pointing out that not all journals are quite so parasitic as some would have you believe and don't deserve to be tarred with the same brush as the Journal of Obscure Interactions. That this is often the case is understandable: a lot of publishing Ph.Ds tend to be reluctant to admit that some editor with a fraction of their lab experience might actually be better than themselves at writing in general and conveying their ideas in particular.

Re:Science is open to everyone

[Transcendent]

...I want people to "steal" my work as you put it. When people read what I write and cite it, because their work is based on mine, that's the validation for what I do. It means that what I did didn't just die off, useless.

Absolutely. Although not a scientist (yet), every time I think of working in a scientific field, there is nothing I fear most than never making a difference or a contribution to my field of study. The most flattering act anyone could bestow upon me would be to cite my work and quote my words. It is as if they put me in a place above them (of course... if they are citing and quoting me positively).

I think the greatest reward any pure scientist could recieve is the recognition and even celebration of their genious and hard work.

nytimes google partner link

[mikecheng]

google partner link to nytimes

Merkac Dot : 48210

Links to Google Cache(N.B. Not always cached.)

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Harold Varmus cache [Cache link active]
Pat Brown cache [Cache link active]
Michael Eisen cache [Cache link active]
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Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation cache [Cache link active]
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Easiest question I've had to answer all day?

[SteweyGriffin]

Way back in the 19th century, protestant Englishman and Americans celebrated the new religion of amorality. This belief constituted a release from moral stricture for the then ruling class. Well this class rules today, and so does their moral law that they established.

Look, I don't know how to tell you this, but corporate america owns science, and has owned science for over a century. I think you should
consider what this means.

Check out arXiv.org

[Samir Gupta]

Many authors of scientific papers, at least in Physics, Math, and CS are making preprints available for free on arXiv.org. This is a great site, and as a fellow scientist, I for one would like to see more authors do this and make their knowledge accessible to those who don't want to feed greedy journal publishers.

Re:Check out arXiv.org

[jaoswald]

"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!!!"

Other supporters of the cause

[plone]

If I am not mistaken, the financier George Soros has also made noticeable contributions towards the liberalisation of science journals. Even though some of his other business "ventures" are more ruthless, I am glad to see that he realizes the importance of free information and the societal benefits that it will provide.

Re:Other supporters of the cause

[stu72]

Please provide documentation of George Soros' "ruthless" ventures.

Standing on the shoulders of Giants

[sflory]

Newton put it best. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants"

All science, and technology is built on prior theories, experimentation and research. Putting more information out there is the best to speed our understanding of the world. As well bring new technologies into being.

Re:Standing on the shoulders of Giants

[ice cream koan]

In computer science, we stand on each other's toes.

Learning is Co-evolutionary

[Quirk]

Research, knowledge and learning are co-evolutionary endeavours requiring persons capable of sending and deciphering symbols. Proprietory interferrence has no place in the process and proprietory interlopers are late comers to a process that began with the development of speech.

A strange but perhaps helpful analogy might be the railroads. The paths the railways followed were those travelled by those who came before the railways but the capital investment necessary to lay the track and get the trains rolling required huge outlays of private capital. To compensate the capital investment much land and resources was given to the railways. Now with the new technologies the proprietory moguls are trying to make a case that knowledge can't be dissiminated without similar out lays of capital to that necessary to underwrite the railways. And that the outlay entitles them to ownership of the goods and services that use the infrastructure and technology. This is akin to the railways being given ownership of all the goods and services the railway brought to developing nations. This amounts to the old adage of putting the cart before the horse. For knowledge and research to thrive it must have free reign and if the new technology is to carry the fruit of new research then it must be underwritten by government or non-proprietory means.

Re:Learning is Co-evolutionary

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

The paths the railways followed were those travelled by those who came before

Sometimes, but not always. Read Empire Express for a decent treatment of how much the transcontinental railroads followed known paths and how much they actually blazed new paths -- including levelling or raising the grade, if need be.

Re:Learning is Co-evolutionary

[JudasBlue]

The paths the railways followed were those travelled by those who came before the railways...

Horsepucky. There might be places this is true, but there are a TON where it isn't. Like anywhere with real elevations. Once you get past parts of the northeast in the US, I am willing to bet this is almost entirely bogus. One of the keys in building railroads in the US was blowing holes in mountains. Obviously, people weren't treading those paths before.

Re:Learning is Co-evolutionary

[HiThere]

Given a loose definition of a path as "the shortest feasible way from A to B", then this isn't an argument, although clearly they didn't follow the paths in detail. A train can't approach climbing the same grade as a horse.

That said, the tighter definition is the one more commonly assumed. I assumed it until the statement didn't make sense, and then I reframed it so that it did. But "trains always went along journey pairs that had previously had significant traffic". If a and b are cities, this is true. If they are grains of sand, this is false. For origins and destinations of intermediate size, the truth value is intermediate.

What is science? Can't all be free...

[dagg]

Here's one definition:

science: The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

Some science is patented, some science is copyrighted, some science is just plain hidden, and some science is common sense. The only way all science will ever be completely free/open is if we are all borg'ified.

How Ironic...

[bdesham]

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

Interesting... this is being run in the New York Times, FRRYYY . Obviously its editors aren't reading their own articles that closely...

Dartmouth fMRI DC - Public Data Warehouse

[sunguru]

This is exactly the kind of stuff being done today up at Dartmouth College. The fMRI Data Center is home to a public data warehouse of MRI scans. Publishing research involves more than just glossy pictures and a paper, the actual data should be shared to allow others to repeat the experiment.

The community has not yet decided if this is a good idea but they will come around.

Are we too late?

[thewickedmystic]

This movement is not new. It is in fact, the original way that science came to be. It only stopped when secrecy became involved.

When science was used to devolope weapons, it stopped being pure and became a new form of global currancy.

Corporations picked up on this later and started restircting information sharing by use of patents and such.

These have been the norm for so long, that a lot of the scientific growth we have made in the last centruy belongs to one entity or another. NOW we are saying that it needs to be shared... interesting.

We are all veterans of the latest battlefield, intellectual property. How many of us have had great ideas that we can't share with anyone else because we'll loose our jobs, or even worse, get sued for all we are worth because we violated our hiring contracts?

Is it too late to return to the way that worked? This is something to think about.

Re:Are we too late?

[stu72]

I hate to tell you this, but science has been advancing the state of weaponry since the dawn of humanity. If that makes it unpure, the it never was pure to begin with.

Oh and patents are legal instruments, worthless without the backing of government which is elected by the people. (or it would be if people would stop bitching and get out and vote) Corporations may lobby all they want for increased intellectual property protections but at the end of the day it will be the people *we* voted for (if we voted) who write them into law. If you haven't expressed your opinion to your representitive then you've nothing to complain about. Blaming everything on corporations is just a cop-out.

I do

[cca93014]

I own it all, and i will sell it to you for one million dollars

Bad Idea

[cperciva]

These people are asking authors to pay $1500 per paper to cover the editorial costs. This is a Bad Idea.

First, this will inevitably have a negative effect on the submission of papers; I certainly wouldn't have submitted my first paper (now published) while I was still an undergraduate student if I had to pay for it.

Second, this raises a conflict of interest. If a journal's costs are being met by its authors, there will be a pressure to keep those authors happy -- which means publishing their papers. The current situation, where a journal's costs are met by its subscribers is the opposite -- the journals are under pressure to keep the quality as high as possible.

Finally, remember that quite a few papers are available online already. This varies from field to field, of course, but most mathematicians I know have all of their papers from the past decade online.

Re:Bad Idea

[nucal]

Very few journals make a profit. A typical journal article is paid for by the investigators to cover costs of printing. If you look, most scientific journal articles are marked "advertisement" because of this ...

Re:Bad Idea

[Rainier Wolfecastle]

Don't forget, this $1500 fee, which might just seem a tad expensive to labs in North America, is oftentimes backbreaking to struggling third-world labs. Science has already strayed from discovery to business. The last thing we need is financial discrimination to totally exclude certain sections of the scientific community.

Re:Bad Idea

[Alomex]

Very few journals make a profit

Actually, academic journals used to make small profits until the mid-1980s, when a wave of consolidations changed this entirely. In fact, last time I looked into this (a few years back) the profits of academic journal publishing divisions had been rising steadily and well above inflation.

A typical journal article is paid for by the investigators to cover costs of printing.

Wrong again. Depends very much on the area. Math and computer science are not this way. Physics is about half and half, with some journals being free, others charging above a certain number of pages, and lastly others charging a per-page fee.

Re:Bad Idea

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

These people are asking authors to pay $1500 per paper to cover the editorial costs. This is a Bad Idea.

Maybe, maybe not. In any event, in many fields of science, the investigator already pays. That's right -- for some journals, the author pays to publish, the subscriber pays to receive, and the journal holds the copyright! When I was a grad student, way back in the early 1990s, Astrophysical Journal charged about $100 per page.

Re:Bad Idea

[taehan]

To publish in any reputable journal, the authors have to pay a fee. This fee depends on the number of pages of the article along with the number of figures. The costs go up dramatically if color figures are included. My last paper cost nearly $2000, but most of that was due to my color figures.

Re:Bad Idea

[cperciva]

To publish in any reputable journal, the authors have to pay a fee.

You have an interesting definition of "reputable".

Re:Bad Idea

[JanneM]

If you read the statement, this is an initial fee until other sources of income have been established. In addition, as they mention, they have money for waiving the fee in any cases of insufficient funds.

It sounds pretty reasonable; no, I wouldn't have the fee needed, but I could serve as a coordinator for a month or so, paying the fee in lieue. /Janne

Re:Bad Idea

[orthogonal]

some journals being free, others charging above a certain number of pages, and lastly others charging a per-page fee.

Per page???

No wonder Fermat was so concise with that Last Theorem.

(In fact, Fermat refused to publish his work at all, except for a single anonymous article. The first Anonymous Coward?)

--
I have discovered a truly remarkable .sig which this margin is too small to

Re:Bad Idea

[orthogonal]

Don't forget, this $1500 fee, which might just seem a tad expensive to labs in North America, is oftentimes backbreaking to struggling third-world labs.

<voice='Sally Struthers'>
...which is why those labs must often finance their articles with the freelance production of anthrax or penis enlargers.

So please give generously to Achmed and Asok, struggling third-world biologists, by supporting the Secularist Scientists' Fund.
</voice>

Re:Bad Idea

[Michael Eisen]

Sorry for bad formatting on previous post.

As one of the organizers of Public Library of Science, I'd like to respond.

From the outside, $1500 per article may seem like a lot. If you think of this as individual researchers digging into their own pockets to pay to publish the results of their research, sound a bit unreasonable. But that is not what we are proposing.

The reality is that it costs money to provide the services that authors expect from a top scientific journal: rigorous peer-review, editorial oversight, and high production standards. We (the scientific community and the institutions, funding agencies and taxpayers that support us) are already paying journals to provide this service - total annual expenditures on scientific journals are well in excess of $1 billion per year.

We are asking the funding agencies, universities and research institutions that support our work to recognize that the costs of publication are a fundamental part of the scientific research process. If they committed to directly paying journals to provide peer-review, editorial oversight and production (rather than indirectly as they do now) the latest scientific discoveries could be made freely available online to every scientist and physician or interested citizen in the world in comprehensive, searchable open archives of the scientific literature.

There is a growing consensus in the community that this is a sensible model (it is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and several major universities including the University of California and Harvard).

The system of giving away the copyrights to the original research reports and then paying to access them is woefully anachronistic. It costs more and it effectively deprives most of the world - including the people whose taxes paid for the research in the first place - from having any meaningful access to the results.

You are right to be concerned that $1500 is a steep price to pay for a student, or a scientist from a small university or poor country. We never want our publication charges to be a barrier to publication, and will publish any paper that our editors and reviewers deem to be appropriate for the journals, either by significantly reducing or waiving the charges. In addition, organization like the Soros Open Society Institute, are providing funds to help offset the costs of publication for scientists from developing countries.

I should also note that we expect the costs to decline significantly over time, as automated methods for peer-review develop, and as authors start to more widely use tools that allow for automatic conversion of documents to XML and properly formatted XML. In the end, the remaining costs will be primarily for editorial oversight, and authors will be able to choose the level that is appropriate for their work.

Your concern about conflicts of interest are unwarranted. There were certainly be journals that will, for a fee, publish anything that is sent to them. These already exist. However, nobody will want to publish their works in these journals since the citation will carry no significance. Why pay to publish in a journal that publishes anything when you can just post the article on the web for free? Many journals will still have a tremendous incentive to maintain high editorial standards, because this is something that scientists value.

Finally, you are correct that in fields like mathematics, computer science and physics, many works are already freely available. This, however, isn't true in biology and medicine, and thus initiatives like this are essential.

Re:Bad Idea

[wass]

Yeah, but they also send you a number of preprints of your article, which were very handy for sending to colleagues and interested students, back before the internet. Are there any journals you're aware of that still demand payment by the authors? I know some request it, but do not demand it.

Re:Bad Idea

[jonbaron]

I am associate editor of two journals (Medical Decision Making, Journal of Economic Psychology) and a member of the editorial boards of severa others. I do not get paid one cent. Yet, as an associate editor, I do most of the real work (both soliciting reviews and doing my own, plus final editing). I do not see why "rigorous peer-review, editorial oversight," are included in the cost of production. So far as I can tell, the main cost is copy editing, which often makes things worse! Editors seem to get paid too, for what I don't know, since I do pretty much what they do, and I am happy to work for free. Things may be different in real science, of course. But my field is a kind of scholarship, at least.

Re:Bad Idea

[BadlandZ]

You have to acknowledge that the simple fact that your shopping for funding will turn off a lot of people, especially the non-ivy-league school professors out there. Professor Joe Blow at Montana State Chemistry Department isn't going to have a lot of respect for someone who wants to make money off scientific publications after he's spent the last 20 years of his career doing peer reviews for ACS's Analytical Chemistry, only for the knowledge and never to make a dime.

I'm not saying the concept of the project is bad. I'm not saying something shouldn't be done. I'm not saying the way things are now is good enough. What I am saying is, why should someone support this project instead of some of the other ideas out there that could be more of a public effort supported by volunteers?

e Print Archives

[mentatjack]

I keep abreast of current science using http://xxx.lanl.gov

Articles show up in the ePrint archive often 6 months before they shows up in the journals.

It's pretty simple actually

[SteweyGriffin]

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.

Re:It's pretty simple actually

[jc42]

during the 'Dark Ages', the accumulated knowledge of centuries vanished,

Well, actually, it didn't quite vanish. It was carefully saved and protected in church archives ....

google research

[rediguana]

What I would like to see developed is Google Research, a search engine of papers only. Yes, your milage would vary as some would, and some would not have had peer review. But it would still be a very useful research tool.

Re:google research

[twistedcubic]

One exists, and is surprisingly very good.

http://www.scirus.com/

Not "science" -- "biology"

[StupendousMan]

Note that the PLoS plans to start with two journals which focus on biology and medicine. These are the fields where basic research can yield megabucks in the relatively short term. In my own field (astronomy), there's not a cent to be made by anyone; hence, I doubt we'll see a PLoS journal of astronomy or astrophysics anytime soon.

Note also that if researchers didn't care about getting money from industry, they wouldn't be chary of publishing their results for all to see. The real problems occur when scientists need big money to set up big labs employing many people to develop new medicines (or do research which has obvious applications to new medicines) which can treat "wealthy" diseases: diseases which affect many people in wealthy countries. I don't see a way around this: investment by big pharmaceutical companies WILL speed the pace of such research (that's good), but will also lead to secrecy and higher drug prices for some time after the products first appear (that's bad).

Some problems are just plain complicated. This is one of them. I wish the PLoS the best of luck, but I don't give them much of a chance. As long as a few researchers are willing to work in secrecy, they can use the PLoS results plus their "secret" results and often beat the "public" researchers to the punch. It's not unlike the prisoner's dilemma.

Re:Not "science" -- "biology"

[veddermatic]

we *do* pay for drug company research with our tax money.

Ever heard of Corporate Welfare? Guess who gets shitloads of it.... all those mulimillion dollar ads that are popping up on TV and are hidden in R&D budgets whcih get tax write offs, plus lots of other neato accounting tricks which are loopholed to the highest bidder.

Old folks by *far* are the largest consumers of prescription drugs. Ever heard of Medicade and Medicare? Guess who pays for those.

Ever heard of patent extensions granted to huge corporations who don't want thier cash-cow drug sales being under cut by generics? The $$ they donate adds to the cost of what you pay for the drug, then think of the HUGE ammounts of cash that could have been saved on genrics. Refer to point 1 on who pays the most for prescription drugs.

So basicaly, we DO pay for drug research with our tax money. Thank goodness for PACs.

PS: Hello to the TIA guys who have to read my posts... there's anotehr good use of my tax $$.

Re:Not "science" -- "biology"

[henben]

The reason they're focusing on biology and medicine is that there are already open access repositories of papers in the physical sciences.

What does the fact that "basic research can yield megabucks" in biology have to do with the fact that they're focussing on that area? (Clue: it doesn't).

They're doing this to meet a need. A need that more web-savvy astronomers, physicists and what-have-you have already met for themselves.

Enter Politics

[Anik315]

Of course this is all noble, well-intentioned and all that good stuff in principle...

But

This changes subtly capitalistic influences to a subtly politicized ones.

I don't care how accomplished these prominent scientists on the editorial boards are, they're not gods, and they'll have their own subconcious axes to grind. In journals like Science and Nature, at least the capitalistic incentive is dry and impersonal, unlike the motivation to maintain dogma.

I'm not so sure the monetary incentive is worse than the political one which would emerge here.

Re:Enter Politics

[rodgerd]

Yeah, the capitalistic process never influences scientific research and publication, leading to Great Purity. Why, look at all that research on the harmful effects of smoking in the 1940s and 1950s. Promptly published, it immediately led to a drop off in smoking and saved millions of lives that would have been lost if scientists had buried it at the beheat of their employers.

Re:Enter Politics

[blue trane]

They should just publish everything online (cheaper) and let peers rate the articles. Sort of like slashdot moderation. Wait, maybe that's not such a good idea...

Re:Enter Politics

[stu72]

That's exactly his point.

Capitalistic motivations are dry and unpersonal. If you want to know what's going on, you can always follow the money. This not to say that there will be no interference - no system can guarantee that - but that we all know what's motivating the capitalists and we can act accordingly. Political motivations are decidedly murkier.

For instance, imagine there is a public debate about a new environmental regulation to be enacted. Imagine two main camps come to shape the debate. One is a large company that may be adversely affected financially by the rule. The other is a local environmental lobby group.

We all know what motivates the large company - the are afraid of having to deal with higher costs.

Can we say the same about the lobby group? It might be safe to say all it's members want a cleaner environment. But doesn't everyone?

The lobby group will be portrayed as pure and honest because, you do like children don't you? But like the industrial, they will only advance arguments that support their case and have just as much bias as the industrial. The only difference is that we don't know why they fight or how much bias and we feel guilt bound to support them, because you do like children, don't you? In the absence of any direct threat to their wellbeing (i.e. toxic waste in their front yard) how do you know why they are fighting?

Maybe they read a convincing paper in a prestigious science journal that convinced them of a real danger.

Maybe they watched a competent investigative report that convinced them to act.

Maybe they read their horoscope and deduced that they should fight.

Who knows?

But we *know* why the company is fighting.

As the man said, dry and unpersonal.

Re:Enter Politics

[Rich0]

Yeah, the capitalistic process never influences scientific research and publication...look at all that research on the harmful effects of smoking in the 1940s and 1950s.

Actually, you have pretty much proven his point - despite there being lots of money in the hands of those interested in showing that smoking ISN'T harmful, papers were STILL published showing that it IS. Now, whether the public does anything about it is a different matter. Despite having LOTS of money, the tobacco industry wasn't able to squelch publication (though they could pay to have their own studies performed).

I would hardly say though that the current capitalistic system of publication is devoid of politics.

Still, I see no reason that we have to have an anachronistic publishing system out of fear of censorship. If nothing else, you can always put your research on a webpage for free. And knowing the typical AOL audience, it might get a better response than the aforementioned smoking studies in the '40s and '50s...

Distribution Models and the 'net

[ice cream koan]

"It sounds very sympathetic to say this should be available to the public," he said. "But this kind of material is only used by experts."

I have to disagree with this viewpoint. Just because the majority of people who want to get to this information are "experts" doesn't mean you shouldn't make it available to everyone. There are plenty of people (I am one of them) who have an interest in various scientific fields and like to read papers and yet who aren't studying for their PHDs. When are they going to start one of these journals for physics! (I guess there is Arxiv.)

Some people have said that lots of scientific work is copyrighted/patented, but that doesn't prevent free distribution. The whole _point_ of the patent process is to give the patentee a guaranteed limited monopoly so that they _will_ immediately publish their works, instead of hording them as secrets. Free distribution doesn't mean noone can make any money.

Really, this seems like the trend that is happening in many areas where distribution has hitherto been controlled by a small group of publishers, due to the high cost of publishing. The internet can change the way we distribute information without killing commerce!

At least Nature (the magazine) isn't passing their own version of the DMCA...

Re:Distribution Models and the 'net

[Michael Eisen]

Its amazing, although unsurprising, that the head of Elsevier would say something so unbelieveably wrongheaded. The are certainly many articles that are not interesting to the general public (or, for that matter, many scientists). But to argue that the entire contents of the scientific literature is for use only by experts is undbelievably patronizing, and simply wrong.

By his reckoning, the people Haank deems worthy of reading the scientific literature consist mostly of scientists at wealthy institutions in the developed world.

People he deems unworthy of reading about the latest scientific research include scientists in poorer countries and at poor institutions in the developed world, physicians of all stripes across the globe, highschool and college students without access to major research libraries, and interested members of the public, such as someone recently diagnosed with cancer who wants to read about the latest research into treatment options that their tax dollars paid for.

This quote, and this attitude, perfectly summarize why Elsevier (or any other individual or organization) should not be able to control the scientific literature.

Public libraries

[Door-opening Fascist]

When I want a copy of Science, I take a short bike ride to my local public library. It's good excercise, and it saves me quite a bit of money.

Granted, this doesn't solve the problem with distribution in the Third-World, but I think that can be solved mainly through grants and generosity on Science's part. Third-World doctors are unlikely to subscribe due to the financial costs involved, so Science isn't going to be losing any potential paying customers anyways.

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA was: Re:a great slipery slope

[blue trane]

freedom wants to be information

For great justice

[mao che minh]

It's like that old saying "Anyone can experience and learn astronomy, all you have to do is look up". Well, not really, but you get the idea. Now all you have to do is hit the plos journals. This is tremendous news to me. As it stands now, I have to go downtown to the university library in order to read the latest Science journals. That, or pay way to much for my favorates, especially certain technology related journals. If this all pans out, the progression of man can be shared and enjoyed by all, not just by those with access ('$') to the "closed sources".

You speak the truth, sensei

[mao che minh]

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.

Re:You speak the truth, sensei

[JudasBlue]

That was good except for one thing: scientific impossiblities like ghosts.

I don't believe in ghosts, and doubt the IQ of people who do. But there is nothing I know of that vigorously proves them to be impossiblities. There are just a ton of reasons to think they are very highly improbable. By saying something is impossible that you can't prove to be so, you are making a statement of faith instead of science. Which is what you are trying to decry in the first place.

Re:You speak the truth, sensei

[mao che minh]

Can you see a ghost? If so, then how can such a thing (something that reflects or emits photons) act as they do? How could such a thing pass through solid material, materials such as concrete and wood (if it was capable of reflecting or emitting photons)? Why would a camera, a device that is less complicated, slower, and efficient then a human eye ball detect ghosts while we cannot?

Think harder grass hopper.

Re:You speak the truth, sensei

[JudasBlue]

Now you are defining a ghost. Which starts putting you on the right path, sempai. But originally you were making a blanket statement without definitions using absolute judgments.

I am not disagreeing with your case, only with your imprecision in describing it.

And as for another take on what a ghost is, that is likely to be at least partially correct in the long run, take a look at the research being done by Persinger at Laurentian University in neuro psych. Very interesting stuff. Here is a link to a pop article about some of his work.

Re:You speak the truth, sensei

[bm_luethke]

That is simply your definition of a ghost. As your definition stands it is impossible. While I don't bel;eive in ghosts you are still making a HUGE mistake in your reasoning.

Now how about this one. We have inside of us a soul, you can't measure or see it. Once we die this soul leaves our bodies, with some people an event has happened that the soul stays around on the earth. Now some people souls are able to perceive another soul and thier mind simply interprets that as a vision, but the vision is not directly through the ocular nerves, but that section of the brain processes this.

proove it wrong. You can say there is not a shred of evidence to support this and you are right, produce some that says it's absolutly wrong. About camera's taking a ghosts pictures? they can't, they are all fakes, only a being with a soul can actually detecty one. Said ghost could easily pass through a wall (do you know the physics governing a soul? maybe they can also travel in time: who knows?)

Should what I said be belived? not really, I made it up on the spot. Any evidence for it? no. It has never made it passed the hypothesis stage, nor will it ever make it past that stage. I bet you can't prove it doesn't happen, lack of detection of the whole soul things means it can never be disproved. Is it impossible? no, it just not very probable (impossible means you have show, with evidence, that it can not happen, and even then you sometimes are proven that your "proof" is not right, it's happened a few times in scientific history).

In short, be VERY carefull about using absolutes, especially when you have no way of proving them to be absolute, it's just another version of faith when you do so (though I by no means think faith is a bad thing, it's amusing when someone uses faith to disprove and ridicule faith).

OT: .sig

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster's .sig:

If not all sentients are human, it stands to reason that not all humans are sentient either.

"If not all fruits are oranges, it stands to reason that not all oranges are fruits, either." Um, no... it exactly does not stand to reason.

My reply to Nytmes.org

[JanneM]

I sent more or less this as a reply to the editorial board of the New York Times earlier today:

You had a feature describing the reality of scientific publishing today.
As a scientist I can unfortunatey inform you that it was nowhere near
the actual situation today.

This is the typical sequence of events for a scientific publication:

1) We do science. This is sort of a basic prerequisite for anything else
to happen. It is also usually funded directly by the public, or
indirectly funded by various foundations. This part - which by many is
seen as our core competency - is largely funded by public institutions.

2) We try to publish. Now, here is the problem: We try to publish in the
most 'prestigious' journals that we can. Why? Because the number of
papers that we publish - and the importance of the journals that we
publish in - is absolutely critical to our future careers. And our
carreers is rather important to things like money for food, clothes to
our children and so on. There is no certainty in the academic world
apart from the one that expounds that few papers = few citations = no
future. Of course, having a lot of papers in prestigious journals
guarantees nothing except a greater chance of being noticed.

3) So, our important paper has been sent away - in some cases with a $10
charge (or more) per page. This paper is immediately sent on to the editors. Who
are the editors? Why, our own colleagues. The very act of being an
editor for any publication is still regarded as being important. In no
case is either the author nor editor compensated for anything-

4) Now, after several rounds between us, the editor and the reviewers
(who, like the editor, are doing the work for free), the paper is
finallyu ready for publication. Observe that not only is the content
finalized, but the entire typographical layout has been perfected by the
very same authours that are being paid by the university (ie. either a
private grant or by the public) to do research, but are now spending a
month of their time making usre their manuscript is conforming to the
smallest detail to the publications' standards.

4.5) As a small addendum, the authors are requested to sign a form
agreeing to the publication actually publishing the paper in question.
The researchers, having little choice, sign it.

5) Finally, the paper is out. It appears, formated exactly as the
researchers did it, in the next 'issue'. The number of 'issues' is equal
to the number of research libraries prepared to pay $5000 or more for
four issues of maybe four or five of these papers a year.

These publications pay nothing for the content (the researchers
sometimes evan pay cash to get content into them), editing (it is done
for free by otherresearchers) or typesetting (as it is done by the
researchers themselves). The total work for these publishers is
maximally in one half-time secretarial position to connect papers with
appropriate editors and reviewers. Yet they charge $5000 per year (or
more - sometimes much more) for four issues - or more than $10 per page -
for the very same results that the univerities, and, in the end, the
public, has paid for being conducted in teh first place.

6) So, even with this gouging, our researcher and her doctoral students
have at least a good publictaion to their name? Well, no. It turns out
that the to publish the rsults, the publishing company actually owns the
text of the paper. The doctoral students can not use the text they have
written as part of their theses. The people that have done the research
- and that want only to spread the results to their colleagues - do no
longer own their own text. Only with permission - and with a great deal
of money - may they actually use their own text in other situations,
like on the web or in their onwn theses.

The end result is that the authors do all the preparatorial work, using the publics' money; the editors and reviewers does their work using the publics money, and som printer somewhere prints a few hundred copies of the publication for a standard (low) fee. Meanwhile the company owning the publication retains the ownership of the papers and $5000 minus the printing cost of one (out of a few hundred (at the max)) printed copies of the journal.

Hell yes, I'd be delighted with being in a business with a 20000% profit margin...

Re:My reply to Nytmes.org

[MrEd]

Good reply.

Now if you could summarize it in fewer than 20 lines it might get printed in the 'letters' section...

Re:My reply to Nytmes.org

[gene_tailor]

The author makes some very good points, but I have one quibble: "The doctoral students cannot use the text they have written as part of their theses" is not a true statement. My PhD thesis contains three chapters that were previously published, and that's typical for many others I know (in biology, anyway -- is there some other rule in other fields?).

Re:My reply to Nytmes.org

[blakestah]

Wow - that is kinda close to the standard for our field. Except that editors get paid. But they don't edit so much as manage the editing process - they decide who reviews and edits which paper, and whether it is acceptable for publication.

Students can almost 100% of the time receive an OK from a journal to publish their article as part of their theses if it is cited appropriately and published in entirety in the thesis.

Journals usually typeset the paper. To do this they start by importing everything into Word. Why - it is a standard. Absolute crap for typesetting, but that is the way it goes. Some journals are getting adept at using TeX and PDF.

The important service the journal provide is peer-review. This process provides some assurances about quality, and varies from journal to journal. Often, in some fields, the most read journals are not the best reviewed - yet they are the most desireable in which to publish because the whole point of publishing is getting as many people as possible to read your work. But really poorly read journals invariably have weak review processes, since no one is going to read the paper anyway.

So different journals provide an important sorting mechanism: they sort papers by quality and by field. This sorting process dominates how we think about our colleagues. If an online publishing format is to work, it will HAVE to be better at sorting, which generally means the peer-review process must correspond better to the coverage of readership - better papers MUST appear in the more read online journals.

And, in the end, there is no escaping it. The quality of the whole process is dominated by the quality of the scientists that can peer-review the papers. And for this - the online journal may think about re-inventing manuscript review to make peer-review open and work consistently.

Re:My reply to Nytmes.org

[arvindn]

I agree with you 100%. I am a cryptography researcher, and the situation is pretty much the same in my field too. I want to point out two further ill-effects of the publishers' greed:

• It contributes to this pathetic situation: Scientists Don't Read the Papers They Cite
• It makes life really difficult for independent researchers (i.e not working in an institution that will fund them), and for researchers in thrid world countries.

Someone pointed out about arXiv.org. This is really not a solution, because all the really important papers go to "prestigious" conferences/journals for it to bring credit to the researcher.

Re:My reply to Nytmes.org

[MattHaffner]

A few comments on your comments :)

First, remember that in this new public scheme, the authors still (well that's the standard in my field... astro) have to foot the bill for publishing. So, yes, it might be easier to get access to the publications, but there is still that wall to publish.

Second, the point about arXiv.org is that you can put your paper there as well as publish in a 'prestigious' journal. At least, in my field, there hasn't been an argument from publishers (to my knowledge) for anyone to send papers there as well. As well, we have not had any problems having students use published papers in their theses. In fact, it's encouraged by most(?) faculty since it's great to have on your vita when you graduate and it lends more credence to your thesis results (in a case where peer-review is working properly).

In fact, in some cases in astro it's gone to the extreme where pre-reviewed papers appear on arXiv.org (astro-ph in our lingo) and get incorporated into newly written papers before the referenced one has even been accepted/published. This happens more in the 'hot-topic' fields than anywhere. I, personally, am not all that crazy about that aspect of this public archive. In particular, without the ability for public discussion of said papers, there's little recourse for non-experts to wade into these non-reviewed papers and have some hint that they're verifiable (again, assuming peer-reviewing is working for the most part).

mh

bio science is already on a slipppery slope......

[bkontr]

particularly where the bio genetics corporations are concerned. For instance, foods already 70 percent of processed foods in the US contain genetically altered material.....most of which is patented. What's to stop some company from patenting human gene structures and so forth? I really think somewhere humans have already been cloned ....will natural people, animals, and food be bioengineered to the detriment of thier natural counterparts or out of existence altogether? I believe that bio science will be the most talked about science now and well into the future. Talking about whether people are going to want to share this technology with each other is just the tip of the iceberg..... playing God with bio science may be something we shouldn't be tampering with in the first place. I don't claim to be too knowledgeable in this area, but instinct tells me that this kind of science is too dangerous to igniore. I found a transcript from a radio show that discusses the possible implications...take a look:

http://www.radioproject.org/transcripts/9846.html

citeseer.org

[timeOday]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned citeseer.org yet. This is a big archives/search engine of published papers (mostly or all CS). I have had far better luck tracking down references at citeseer than anywhere else, including my university and workplaces' libraries, and paid online subscriptions (acm.org, ieeexplore, etc).

I think (and hope) that this will continue to take off and become more and more complete.

The reality...

[Anonymous Coward]

is that limited information access is not the biggest problem for researchers. I can get access to any paper I want for little or no cost. I have the opposite problem - I can't keep up with all the material being published in my relatively narrow field.

It's gotten so bad that unless I am familiar with the author(s), I often pass on a paper just based on the title. If the title looks promising, I scan the abstract. If the abstract looks promising, I add the paper to my "to read" list, hoping I'll have time to get to it.

Let's face it, with more people than ever actively engaged in research, the biggest threat to important scientific ideas is not the control of publishers or the oppression of government/religion/CowboyNeal, it's the threat of being lost in the crowd.

Re:The reality...

[truesaer]

Thats crap....too much information?

As you said, you have to screen it. Read the title, then the abstract, then the whole paper. Only if at each stage you are still interested.

You've overlooked the people who do research on something specific. I mean the person who is typing in a bunch of keywords, and hoping to find a specific set of info. This is where you really need as much info as possible, because it really sucks to find not much available on the subject you are looking in to.

Science™ was never peer reviewed!

[gacp]

Traditional science is NOT peer reviewed, it's censored. The famouns `peer review' is a fraud, it's neither, it's editorial censorship, editors who decide who and what will get published (they may ask the opinion of reviewers (your `peers') but editors have final decision). This is not true science, nor stops fraud.

Peer review---real peer review---means no editors (editors are not you peers) and no consoring, that is, publish first, and what you publish is reviewed by you peer. That's science.

>If it is public I mean, then couldn't anybody submit and be published?

Well, yes, that's true science. Publish, be reviewed, get grilled by your peers. Just like Free Software.

But no, this proposal is not that. It's just the same ol same ol, but just make sure that the `papers' are available for free (after six months!). This proposal is not good enough; and it won't save science.

Re:Science™ was never peer reviewed!

[orthogonal]

Peer review---real peer review---means no editors (editors are not you peers) and no consoring, that is, publish first, and what you publish is reviewed by you peer. That's science.

No, that's usenet.

WE INTERRUPT THIS POST TO ADVERTISE MULTI-LEVEL NIGERIAN PORNO GET OUT OF DEBT PENIS ENLARGERS FOLLOWED BY AN OBLIGATORY FOUR DIGIT STRING 5678

Usenet once ruled, but now it's only the strictly moderated groups (either by actual moderaters or by community pressure) like comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.c++.moderated that have an acceptale signal-to-noise ratio.

And comp.lang.c++ till gets too many d"do my homework" posts.

Re:Science is a process

[VoidEngineer]

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.

Peer Review Is a Bad Idea

[Louis Savain]

Publish your stuff on the web for everybody to see, download and critique. Science belongs to the public who pays for it all, not just a bunch of elitist a-holes competing for grant money. If your stuff any good, someone will notice. If it's a bunch of boring and inconsequential crap (like most of the stuff published in peer-reviewed journals), nobody will give a hoot. Be like the Wright brothers and do your own science. You don't need the approval of the insufferable pompous know-it-alls in the scientific community. Paul Feyarabend said it best:

"And a more detailed analysis of successful moves in the game of science ('successful' from the point of view of the scientists themselves) shows indeed that there is a wide range of freedom that demands a multiplicity of ideas and permits the application of democratic procedures (ballot-discussion-vote) but that is actually closed by power politics and propaganda. This is where the fairy-tale of a special method assumes its decisive function. It conceals the freedom of decision which creative scientists and the general public have even inside the most rigid and the most advanced parts of science by a recitation of 'objective' criteria and it thus protects the big-shots (Nobel Prize winners; heads of laboratories, of organizations such as the AMA, of special schools; 'educators'; etc.) from the masses (laymen; experts in non-scientific fields; experts in other fields of science): only those citizens count who were subjected to the pressures of scientific institutions (they have undergone a long process of education), who succumbed to these pressures (they have passed their examinations), and who are now firmly convinced of the truth of the fairy-tale. This is how scientists have deceived themselves and everyone else about their business, but without any real disadvantage: they have more money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society."

Re:Peer Review Is a Bad Idea

[glMatrixMode]

Louis wrote : Science belongs to the public who pays for it all, not just a bunch of elitist a-holes competing for grant money.

As an elitist a-hole, i'd like to add some comments to this.

Yes, science belongs to nobody in particular.

You suggest to Publish [my] stuff on the web for everybody to see, download and critique. Okay, so my paper on class field theory and Cebotarev's theorem is available on the web. Anyone can read it. But I've got no feedback from non-mathematicians, of course, because they simply didn't understand it. (In the improbable case that any non-mathematician did download it). I'm not proud of that. It's just a necessity : if I wanted to add enough explanations to make it readable by a very good hi-school student, my paper would be at least 3000 pages long. However, anybody can go to a math library, begin to read undergraduate books, and then more and more advanced books, and after 2 years (I guess) be able to read my paper.

Why do you call us elitist ? You're not the only one, you know. Science is growingly impopular, as obscurantist beliefs like astrology grow wider and wider. I'm from Paris, where the most ancient and prestigious university is called the 'Sorbonne'. Well, some years ago, a well-known astrologer has got a Ph.D. in 'sociology' in the Sorbonne ! One of the main arguments of such obscurantists is that 'official' science, being ununderstandable to the public, is no more verifiable, and hence is no more scientific, than astrology. More than 50% of the population believes in astrology.

I must add some words about the text you cite, which is near to what I hear from the many trotskysts that are present in my school. It talks about the most laughable results in their domain. Can you tell of one mathematic result you'd laugh about ? Every article you submit to publication is thouroughly verified by colleagues, and that verification can take 1 year. If you've noticed an error in a paper, I urge you to write to the author ASAP. But if you're one of the many that won't accept predictions of theoretical physics before they are brought to your eyes by technology, please understand than theoretical physics is not what one believes to be true, neither is it what one would like to be true. It is the most elegant way of formulating in mathematical words what is dictated by experiment. I don't say that there aren't fake papers written by unscrupulous physicists (for, regrettably, physics reviewers are less careful that math reviewers), but they'll all be unmasked if still not forgotten, and anyway most of the papers are very serious, even if they suggest that we live in a 26-dimensionnal space. Now if the public was asked to vote for such a theory against astrology, I guess there'd be 50% abstention, 30% for astrology and 20% for such a theory. And it'd be the end of our golden age.

Finally I'd like to say that I don't defend any business since I do only public research (and there ain't private funds for these useless, elitist, snobbish so-called 'pure' maths anyway).

Re:Peer Review Is a Bad Idea

[Louis Savain]

It is strange that you can see the obscurantism in the beliefs of others but you cannot see it in your own profession. There is nothing more obscure and inscrutinizable than science. Scientists make it a point to hide everything they do behind a impregnable wall of jargon and unnecessary mathematical obfuscation. That's part of the elitism. Truth is, if a scientist claims to have an understanding of a natural phenomenon but is unable to explain it in everyday terms that laypeople can understand, it is a sure bet that he or she has no clue as to the nature of the phenomenon in question.

It is the elitism and censorship afforded by peer review (a form of intellectual incest) that gives a free rein to world-famous physicists and computer scientists (such as Hawking, Thorne, Deutsch, Moravec, Kurzweil, etc...) to write on subjects like time travel, multiple universes, warped spacetime, machine consciousness (upload your brain to a computer), etc... as if they were any less objectionable than astrology and parapsychology.

And don't think for a minute that I hate science. I don't. I just hate the fact that it has been turned into a cult and taken over by a priesthood of unscrupulous charlatans and clueless crackpots.

We pay for scientific research and it is up to us to decide what is to be done with our money. I want to see a science open to public scrutiny. If you think that your scientific knowledge is so arcane and so special and complicated that it could never be explained to lay people, I am afraid that you are nothing but an elitist charlatan and/or a crackpot. My only consolation at this point is that nothing lasts forever.

I Agree. Science Belongs to All.

[Louis Savain]

Peer review---real peer review---means no editors (editors are not you peers) and no consoring, that is, publish first, and what you publish is reviewed by you peer. That's science.

Sorry to see that your post was modded down to 'troll' by some clueless Slashdot moderator. I absolutely agree with you. Here's what the late science critic Paul Feyarabend had to say on the matter:

"And a more detailed analysis of successful moves in the game of science ('successful' from the point of view of the scientists themselves) shows indeed that there is a wide range of freedom that demands a multiplicity of ideas and permits the application of democratic procedures (ballot-discussion-vote) but that is actually closed by power politics and propaganda. This is where the fairy-tale of a special method assumes its decisive function. It conceals the freedom of decision which creative scientists and the general public have even inside the most rigid and the most advanced parts of science by a recitation of 'objective' criteria and it thus protects the big-shots (Nobel Prize winners; heads of laboratories, of organizations such as the AMA, of special schools; 'educators'; etc.) from the masses (laymen; experts in non-scientific fields; experts in other fields of science): only those citizens count who were subjected to the pressures of scientific institutions (they have undergone a long process of education), who succumbed to these pressures (they have passed their examinations), and who are now firmly convinced of the truth of the fairy-tale. This is how scientists have deceived themselves and everyone else about their business, but without any real disadvantage: they have more money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society."

From "Against Method"

I dunno...

[Grendel Drago]

I think I'd want Ramanujan over Newton.

I thought he worked at a university with Thomas Hardy, anyway?

--grendel drago

Francis Bacon

[j_w_d]

...advanced arguments that outlined many of the basic ideas that distinguish modern science including the idea that investigations need to cooperative, that many research questions will require social backing and multiple generations of endeavour in order to succeed. The earliest scientific bodies were organized around the baconian model.

Key to these ideas was the view that science advances through the open commnuication of data and ideas. Once published, stealing "their hardwork" is an absurd idea. Without the review of others, their "hard work" might have been little more than mistakes and nonsense. Besides which, few journals pay authors much. The "carrot" a journal offers is usually exposure - fame not wealth.

No more xxx?

[wass]

When are they going to start one of these journals for physics! (I guess there is Arxiv [arxiv.org].)

Wow, I didn't know they changed names (to a more PC system, or to bypass nanny-ware, I guess) to arXiv. I was going to point you to the XXX site on the net where geeks actually contribute the most to the action. But apparently these sites are one and the same.

Disprovability.

[Grendel Drago]

Saying that there are ghosts is meaningless unless you provide a way to disprove your theory. "I propose that x. We can check x by doing y."

If a theory can't be disproven, it's as useless as weapons inspections in Iraq. (No, really, check the analogy. If we find weapons, Saddam is evil. If we don't, he's hiding them, and so Saddam is evil. It's a meaningless exercise.)

This is the problem with parapsychology/ESP people. They put out theories that can't be disproven. I'm sure legit experimentation would be trivial to do if someone would formally define what they're looking for. Of course, then they'd have to deal with getting a null result back...

--grendel drago

Some thoughts

[KjetilK]

Nice to hear your comments!

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... :-)

Re:Some thoughts

[HiThere]

There's noting wrong with a centralized archive, as long as it is extensively replicated. And assuming that the true meaning of archive is used (i.e., stuff that gets put in there STAYS in there).

Possibly backing up the entire internet is an impossible goal, but backing up even all published scientific papers is much less formidable.

Also, notice that the location of an archive containing the paper is recommended rather than required. Sound pretty fair to me.

PLOS does not go far enough.

[WSXWS]

It seems to me that Michael Eisen and others setting up the PLOS initiative, are trying to appease the big publishing companies (Springer, Elsevier) by appearing not to threaten their cartel on the scientific discourse. The truth is that all scientific journals are dinosaurs from the age of paper. There is simply no reason why a larger version of the arxiv, with electronic peer-review (Slashdot as a model?), would not be a workable substitute for every scientific journal. If the PLOS organisers were to be true to their principles of open science, they would be pushing for an end to the journal system altogether. Physicists are far ahead of the bioscientists in this respect.

Re:PLOS does not go far enough.

[jaoswald]

Slashdot as a model? You must be out of your mind. Slashdot has almost uniformly worked against the possibility of informative, rigorously reasoned discourse.

I agree that scientific journals are in trouble, and the means of their survival are not at all clear. But I am skeptical that arXiv is a model that will be successful. It is instead corrosive to methodical, rigorous, careful investigation, and promotes flashy, hasty, and superficial discussion. (Much like slashdot?) "Publish early, publish often" is the arXiv game.

Re:PLOS does not go far enough.

[jaoswald]

I am a physicist by training, in a field which didn't go over to preprint servers while I was in it. Preprint servers are good ways for groups to post their current results. By what strategy do you read preprint servers, though? From what I saw of my colleagues, you had to apply a skepticism rating that was generally based on reputation, and the preprints gave you a rough idea of what they thought they had achieved or had in progress. Unfortunately, there was no way to know if they eventually found some big problem in their analysis, unless you talked to them at conferences, called them up, or noticed that the result never ended up published under peer review, all of which you could do without arXiv. ArXiv.org doesn't magically break the rule that 99% of everything is crap. It just increases volume without increasing signal-to-noise.

The slashdot reference in my post was a response to someone suggesting a slashdot moderation system to move preprint servers toward peer review, not a response to the current state of preprint servers.

TINSTAAFL

[El Camino SS]

But if you want to subscribe, it'll set you back up to $159 a year.

And in America if you want to eat, it'll set you back about that much a month.

Honestly people, there is no justification on plunking down a little expense if it is your LIVELYHOOD for goodness sake. After all, this is like saying that textbooks that contain known science should be handed out for free.

Everything costs money to get done if someone is manning the helm. $159 US a year is not bad for a group of people who mull over the interesting in a field and report on it.

After all I know a lot of scientists with $159 calculators.

Re:TINSTAAFL

[nomadic]

And in America if you want to eat, it'll set you back about that much a month

Honestly people, there is no justification on plunking down a little expense if it is your LIVELYHOOD for goodness sake. After all, this is like saying that textbooks that contain known science should be handed out for free.

Do you see the flaw in your argument? Hint, it's the third word I quoted.

Editorial Costs....

[BadlandZ]

Editorial costs... Let's see. Papers submitted to the best journals need to

• Be in a very exact format, or they are rejected. The author of the paper does this formatting (read scientist, not an editor), the editor just rejects them.
• Be "peer reviewed." This is key, this is what keeps the better journals really honest and true, with good science. Who reviews them? Other scientists, for free. The SUBMITTING author usually recommends at least 3 people in his specific field, then the paper gets sent out to 3 to 5 scientists who review it for free for the Journal to be considered someday to be a "editor" or get editorial credit. What's this cost the journal? Shipping? They don't even make copies, the submitting author is required to provide all the copies.

Sorry, but where are the "editorial costs?" You mean those 1 page, un-reviewed, opinion pages they sometimes stick in the front after the index? Or the trouble of having to create the index page?

I'd believe publication costs (like printing and such), but editorial? Come on.

The system isn't totally broken, but it could be improved. The key is the peer review process, not the editorial parts. Good science passes peer review. Bad science is published only when peer review is not present or poor.

prestige chicken-and-egg

[peter303]

There is the startup problem of attracting the best scientists to publish your "new" way. The best want to publish in the the best journals. If you have no track record, then it is hard to get the chain going.

A large fraction of the scientific journals are backed by a quality professional society. For example, Science magazine is sponsored by the American Association for Advancement of Science, annual meeting in Denver 2/03. If the AAAS would buy into this new on-line journal, then it would fly.

Spock said it best

[ReelOddeeo]

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.

Spock said it best...

"Since the information on Memory Alpha is freely available to everyone, no defensive systems were deemed necessary."

Hopefully we don't make the same mistake. The federation did not have an evil copyright industry to contend with.

Ball lightning

[pommiekiwifruit]

Glowing balls of stuff (plasma?) have been known to pass through solid objects (you don't want them to do that to you!) and reflect (and emit) photons quite easily. You picked a bad definition there. Note also that many things (e.g. wood or glass) are opaque to some photons (e.g. visible light or UV) but transparent to others (e.g. radio or visible light).

that's why I love science!

[Transcendent]

This has very important implications for the fundamental principle that Science must transcend all economic, national and other barriers.

there's my favorite word again! ;)

Re:Science is a process

[Transcendent]

measurement of the speed of light (constant! no more Ether!)

nnooppeee... it's not a constant...

Re:Science is a process

[VoidEngineer]

I won't deny that you have some valid points. There is a question regarding literature, however, which begs being answered. The issue at hand, it seems to me, is to what extent does there need to be a 'lack of literature' on a subject before somebody somebody's published theory is considered 'new'. Please note that each of my examples demonstrates a concept which some people describe as 'History is written by the victors'.

measurement of the speed of light (constant! no more Ether!) But you have to know about Maxwell's laws (prediction of electromagnetic wave speed), the fact that light's a wave (Newton's optics amoung others)

I see your point. I would suggest considering aetheric interpretations and aetheric mathematics regarding Maxwell's laws versus post-Michelson-Morley aethric wind experiment interpretations and mathematics. Um, that is, the mathematics were rewritten based on this observation of a new phenomena. The prior mathematics did not correctly describe nature, so aetheric interpretations no longer exist. Yes, you have to know about Maxwell's laws, but I would turn the argument around, and suggest that Maxwell was part of the group who measured the speed of light as constant, rather than being part of the group who were measuring Aetheric values (who subsuquently got written out of history).

radioactive isotopes (they glow! different weights!) Atoms exist (not continuous matter), they contain subatomic particles ...

If I was feeling billigerant, I could draw this topic out into a tedious and pedantic argument, which nobody would like. I'm going to conceed this point, however.

electromagnetic spectrum (waves in the air!) Maxwell again, Newton again, the existance of radio waves, the properties of waves ...

OK, what about these people? Did they not publish these laws and define the existance of radio waves and properties of waves? Where is the supporting literature prior to them, regarding these phenomena? I think they proposed new theories, based on observations which people had never observed before. Perhaps part of observation is recording your particular viewpoint. nucleic acid alpha/beta structures (stores information! genetics!) (I'm not sure what you mean by alpha/beta structures, but :) There exists an acid precipitable chemical compound found in the nucleus, genetic inheretance is particle, these are the same, the nucleic acids are linear polymers ...

Look it up. DNA has primary, secondary, and tertiary structures, based on folding patterns (commonly called alpha/beta structures; specifically 'alpha helix' and 'beta sheet'. I'm not entirely sure that DNA is a linear polymer. Each of these are factors based on the new theory of genetics proposed by Watson-Crick, which were most definately not in the literature prior to them. It's what they got the Nobel Prize for.

penicillin production (germs! small things! drugs!) Germs exist, they are the cause of disease, they are living and can be killed ...

I'm not all that sure that folks believe that germs existed prior to Pasteur and his penicillin experiments. I mean, penicillin is sort of what started the whole 'germ theory' concept. Before the mid 1800s, humans were a pretty sickly and unhygenic lot. Frankly, history just doesn't seem to support the concept that biology and medicine were practiced with the concept of germ theory prior to penicillin. Also, part of germ theory, it may be argued, is that germs are different than viruses. Nonetheless, none of it was in the literature.

columbus crosses the atlantic (america! real estate for the taking!) (How is this a scientific discovery?) The sextant, the concept of a spherical world (Columbus didn't make it up), astronomical navigation ...

Cartography and geology, yo! That's way scientific. I dunno, the discovery of an entirely new continent, which wasn't in the literature before, seems like a good candidate to be considered a scientific revolution.

Forums.

[Grendel Drago]

Slashdot as a model?

I'm not sure if you're kidding here or not, but the usage of Scoop (see Kuro5hin) tends to get you a much more usable signal-to-noise ration. For something like debating journal articles, I don't think AC posting is really necessary. Heck, comment moderation (apart from friends/foes, perhaps) wouldn't be that useful. But the nested discussion model (as opposed to the god-awful flat model that phpBB has (can someone explain why the hell it's so popular?!)) has its applications.

--grendel drago