Science Journal Publishers Wary of Free Information

Billosaur writes "Nature.com is reporting that the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which includes the companies that publish scientific journals, is becoming concerned with the free-information movement. A meeting was arranged with PR professional Eric Dezenhall to discuss the problem. Dezenhall's firm has worked with the likes of ExxonMobil 'to criticize the environmental group Greenpeace', among other campaigns. The publishers are worried that the free exchange of scientific information may be bad for the bottom line, as it might cause the money from subscriptions to their journals to dry up. Among the recommendations: 'The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as "Public access equals government censorship". He hinted that the publishers should attempt to equate traditional publishing models with peer review, and "paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles.' The AAP is trying to counter messages from groups such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS), an open-access publisher and prominent advocate of free access to information, or the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) PubMed Central."

Comments

Re:I'm lost.

[spun]

Hey, if you do not like the social contract you were born into, you are free to leave and find a country where you can be your own selfish self. Similar to how, in a libertarian/anarcho capitalist world, people who aren't of the owning class are free to leave and support themselves somewhere else. Of course in this world, as it exists only in the fantasies of libertarians and anarcho capitalists, due to some magical unexplained process, everyone is and always will be a member of the owning class, and no one will ever have to sell themselves into slavery just to have a place to sleep.

Libertarianism is based on a falsehood. The inalienable property rights espoused by libertarians are just as authoritarian and represent just as much of an initiation of force as anything done by a government. Before you mingle your labor with a thing, there is no justification for you to call that thing your own. Yet in order to mingle your labor with a natural resource, you must first claim it as your own. yet you do so without justification. As that natural resource was freely shareable by all, you have stolen from all by your taking. That is initiation of force, and libertarianism is founded on it.

It is based on another falsehood: that every individual is an island unto themselves, and that barring some kind of court challenge, nothing anyone does can be said to impact anyone else. The fact is, everything you do impacts everything else. Therefore, any decision or action you take is the concern of every other human being on the planet. You have a responsibility to the rest of humanity, because we all need to live together and cooperate to make society work.

Libertarianism seems to be designed as a system for keeping the have-nots from challenging the supremacy of the haves. It is a philosophy (and I use that term loosely) that places selfishness as the ultimate good, and denies that the individual has any responsibility to society.

It bases it's ideas of Rights on the fallacy of appeal to authority, rather than acknowledging that rights come not from Nature or your invisible friend in the sky, but from people's agreement to uphold those rights in others. Rights derive from society. Without society, there would be no need to even speak of rights.

It appeals to intellectual snobs who see themselves as better than the common person. These people feel their brilliance is not properly rewarded, and they are being imposed upon by all the lesser men around them. Libertarianism tells them they are correct, and that they are valient individualists fighting Authority by pursuing their selfish fantasies.

In short, libertarianism is an evil and destructive philosophy of selfishness that appeals to snobs with an over-inflated sense of their own importance. It's practitioners posses a level of intellectual dishonesty and hypocricy that I've only ever seen before in Scientologists. It has taken the noble roots of anarchism and twisted them into something unfathomably horrid, yet banal at the same time.

Here we go again.....

[cyberscan]

Here goes more bashing people who believe in a creator. You imply that people who have moral values or believe in "God" want to live in caves and are afraid of thunder or want to force that lifestyle on everyone else. FYI, I believe in a supreme creator and have moral values. It may also surprise you that I also support the teaching of the theory of evolution in school. What I do not support is the fervent teaching of evolution as ONLY explanation of the existence of life. I do not support teaching that there "is no God" in the public schools. If you want to label those who believe in a creator anti-science, then you might as well apply that label to the father of modern physics and calculus, Sir Isaac Newton.

I only say that other points of view (non-sectarian) should be at least mentioned. I know that I will get a lot of replies from all of the anti-religious nutbags out there, but I do have a valid point. Science have brought us a lot of good things, but it has also brought us a lot of bad things as well.

Scientific progress have brought us motor vehicles. These allow us to get around rapidly and speed the delivery of goods and services. Science has also brought us better medicines, which are used in the treatment of disease. Science have also brought us computers which help us communicate and become much more productive. Science has also brought us new forms of energy as well, making lives easier and longer. Science has brought about gene splicing, pesticides, and farming techniques which increase food supply.

Some of the bad things science has brought us are motor vehicles because they bring about a great number of deaths due to accidents, and their exhaust gasses are a big contributor to global warming (if scientists are correct). Science has also brought about drugs which have as much side
effects as the diseases that they are supposed to treat as well as bringing about the creation of super-bacteria. Science has also brought about computers which are used to surveil, subjugate and control entire populations as well as used to spread pornography, fill our landfills with toxic, technological waste. Science has also brought us new forms of energy many of which contribute to global warming, and threaten the destruction of life as we know it via nuclear war. Science has brought forth the creation of gene splicing, pesticides, and farming techniques that threaten the environment and has increased the amount of desert area and has been responsible for the destruction of critical wildlife and wildlife habitat. Knowlege is dangerous without wisdom. Wisdom is taught in books such as the Bible.

Science should be taught in school but should not be taught in a way that attempts to destroy children's belief in a creator. Science can neither prove or disprove the existence of a Creator. However, the way science is being taught in public schools today essentially teaches that there is no Creator. I resent this just as much as I do with Christmas being thrust upon my kids. Many anti-religious nutbags do will not even agree with a disclaimer put in biology books stating that evolution is just a theory.

I and many Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths are sick and tired of having beliefs like yours thrust upon our children. Even worse is the fact that we are expected to pay for the efforts of people like you to undermine the values taught at home. I lived in a country where atheism and Darwinism was forced upon both children and adults while belief in a Supreme Creator was forbidden. That country was East Germany. I now live in the United States. When the population of the United States was more "God fearing," it was a superb place to live. Now that people like you seem to want to take any mention of "God" out of public life, this country is become more and more of a police state like the former East Germany. No, I am not anti-science because I believe that we should live by Biblical values any more than Issac Newton was for believing the same.