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Royal Society Wants to Keep Science off Web

Posted by Zonk on from the at-least-leave-us-our-porn-and-conspiracy-theories dept.

truckaxle writes "Britain's national academy of science, The Royal Society, which publishes one of the world's oldest journals, Philosophical Transactions, has joined the debate of the publishing of scientific publications on the internet. In a article by the Guardian a spokesman for the Royal Society was quoted as saying: 'We think it conceivable that the journals in some disciplines might suffer. Why would you pay to subscribe to a journal if the papers appear free of charge?' They believe that internet publishing would harm the exchange of knowledge between researchers."

6 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Off the Web? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Host science on FTP then.

    1. Re:Off the Web? by suitepotato · · Score: 2, Funny

      Off the web?

      Usenet? I can see the titles of the spam in those groups now. "See hot intellectual babes getting down with their accellarators"

      Torrent? Oh yeah, I can trying to piece together ten thousand Postscript files of formulas and oops, was that the second part of the fifth equation or the fourth part of the eighth?

      P2P? "It has come to our attention that your IP address 192.168.24.32 has been identified as hosting intellectual property not belonging to you. You have five days to respond with an admission and pay our demand of $5000..."

      Paper? Didn't the computer SCIENCE world promise to eliminate paper from offices and so on?

      And we thought we had a fair grasp of where all the Luddites were. I guess we can add another one.

      --
      If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
  2. But the Internet is dangerous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    They believe that internet publishing would harm the exchange of knowledge between researchers.

    I'm glad these people are taking care to protect their researchers from the dangers of internet publishing.

    Not many people seem to realize this, but transfering knowledge across the Internet is very risky, because researchers run the risk of being tangled in the "World Wide Web", and stuck there until freed.

    These risks have been known to experts for some time, but the outside world has yet to understand the risks presented in such fine documentaries as "Tron", "The Matrix", and other such cautionary films.

    I for one saluate these web-fearing publishers, and applaud them for their socially responsible stance to protect the safety and well being of their researchers.
    --
    AC

  3. Re:Well, there is some truth to what you say by hoggoth · · Score: 1, Funny

    Mr Handelman, I find (others may feel differently) that your writing style itself (not to denigrate your content, but merely your style (which is of course always a matter of opinion)) shows a certain cruftiness (bringing up images of the very same 'old boys network' that you write about (derogatorily)), or alternatively instead of old style it may bring certain associations (to old programmers) of the LISP (List Processing) programming language (which is known to use many parenthetical constructs).

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  4. In other news by MykeBNY · · Score: 2, Funny

    Makers of hiking boots fear that paved roads and automobiles will be bad for the travel industry, because fewer people would then buy hiking boots.

  5. Clearly... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Pehaps scientists have discovered Secrets that Man was Not Meant to Know.