Why is all of scientific research locked behind paywalls instead of some open source, scientist-built, democratized system?
Because like most people, the average is just trying to get by with the least amount of effort. Structural change is hard and risky. Especially going against a highly experienced establishment tied to “traditional” or “conservative” values.
Anyone want to build one together? I’ve always been frustrated with the current academic publishing model. Parasitic “publishers” double dipping on authors and readers while outsourcing the bulk of the review work unpaid.
Anyone want to build one together? This issue, of “publishers” not only double dipping to accept and then share papers especially when outsourcing the review work unpaid back to the researchers themselves, has always frustrated me.
Why is all of scientific research locked behind paywalls
Because to advance in your field you need to publish your research in peer reviewed publications and the publishers need to monetise the content to keep publishing.
ArXiv is just a pre—print, and SciHub is a shadow library.
If you want an academic career, have your discoveries recognised, and stay in funded research, you must publish on peer reviewed traditional channels. Like it or not.
Of course you can still do research alone and publish on your website, but hardly anyone would take you seriously.
Yeah that’s why “science” has become such a failure. There’s no actual progress in forcing people to publish worthless research, forcing worthwhile information behind paywalls, etc. This is a major part of how/why science is used to enforce the extreme privilege of a few at the expense of fascism, violence, planetary destruction, etc. for everyone else.
I don’t even know what you are talking about, but I’m afraid that you are not well informed. Even as an undergraduate you get access to publications through your university.
That’s exactly the point. If you want to be a researcher right now you have to play their game. You have to publish papers even if you don’t have anything. So people publish bullshit, use chatGPT, force their name on papers they haven’t contributed and so on.
Meanwhile the science journals get paid by everyone and pay no one.
So people publish bullshit, use chatGPT, force their name on papers they haven’t contributed and so on.
Assuming that you pass the peer review, then nobody will reference your paper in other papers. It will become obvious that your research is not interesting or that you are just slapping your name on papers as a supervisor.
Lol, it shows you don’t know how things really work. New bullshit cites old bullshit, it’s all a game of pretending. You can check the statistics of fraudulent papers and that is just takes into account the most obvious ones.
A good example of this is the Amyloid Hypothesis for dementia. All the papers that “proved” this concept have been retracted, but after 8 years. Good work showed that looking at amyloid load in random brains showed no correlation close to 20 years ago, but amyloidists begat more amyloidists, until finally there was a drug that reduces amyloid by 30%. All it did was cause brain bleeds, deaths and no benefit, but the FDA approved it anyway. MDs will still explain how it really “should” work. It was all a cabal of US scientists who dominated all symposia, only inviting speakers who were in their cabal.
Meanwhile, genetic forms of neurodegeneration are highlighting defects in DNA damage repair. So, 25 years and billions wasted while there still are no treatments.
Of course I don’t know, while you are an accomplished scientist with tons of papers under his belt. All disagreements here ends with one genius saying lol I know better.
Of all people I’d expect scientists to have learned the lesson of Twitter and embrace fediverse
“Scientist” is just another job. The people who work these jobs are not inherently magic, genius, etc. Many are not even scientists in any meaningful sense.
Exactly what I Iearned by working in a scientific institute for 3 years. Before that I put scientists on a pedestal and wanted to be one. Now, not anymore. They are as flawed and morally mediocre as most of the general populace.
I was one of the original scientists on Twitter. I left long before Musk because all it was, was a tool of self promotion and people bullying their opinions to try and influence grant reviewers.
Most people aren’t that bright. Even people who are experts in one field or another.
But more than that, most people don’t care about things. They don’t know how platforms work, and they don’t care. Just picture a boundless void where things fall in- that’s the typical user apathy.
I love that the argument to, “scientists means smart and smart means Fediverse” is some magical connection made and that this comment basically says, scientist doesn’t really mean anything.
The actual argument to be made here is why in the hell does scientists and Lemmy have to have any connection at all? It is like we are associating that only smart people use the Fediverse. I will never the constant mentality Lemmy’s user base has that you are somehow better if you use the Fediverse. It is that same sort of thinking that makes the Fediverse so niche because the user base can’t grasp that Fediverse apps suck, they are annoying to sign up for. Swapping between instances is annoying in most cases and if you ar not handing your data to a single company you are putting your trust in the hands of those utilizing the Protocol to handle your data.
It is like there is some weird connection the user base on Lemmy just magically makes up to solving all of the worlds problems with big tech or something and then Facebook showed up and could have and talked about entering the Fediverse realm with Threads and everyone freaked out because Facebook would ultimately kill the Fediverse which pokes entire wholes into the Fediverse being the answer. It would just get popular and have the same issues as everything else Lemmy is scared of . Be glad your space is niche.
True. I just had a long discussion with a former coworker about that yesterday. I don’t buy the whole “people who go to college aren’t smart. the salt of the earth really know how the world works” that comes up sometimes.
You’re putting words in my mouth, that’s not even close to the point I was making.
In my eyes, education is nothing more than a measure of how much knowledge you have been taught.
Intelligence is your ability to use your existing knowledge in a creative way. (ie. creating a working scientific theory after experimentation)
So no, advancements aren’t just made by some smart person who never went to school and lives in a shed, they come from people who are both educated and smart.
One scientist I follow complained about the attitude on Mastodon. For example when a paywalled article is posted the comments are just filled with people complaining instead of discussions about the actual content.
But why? Of all people I’d expect scientists to have learned the lesson of Twitter and embrace fediverse 🤷♂️
Why is all of scientific research locked behind paywalls instead of some open source, scientist-built, democratized system?
Because like most people, the average is just trying to get by with the least amount of effort. Structural change is hard and risky. Especially going against a highly experienced establishment tied to “traditional” or “conservative” values.
Anyone want to build one together? I’ve always been frustrated with the current academic publishing model. Parasitic “publishers” double dipping on authors and readers while outsourcing the bulk of the review work unpaid.
Anyone want to build one together? This issue, of “publishers” not only double dipping to accept and then share papers especially when outsourcing the review work unpaid back to the researchers themselves, has always frustrated me.
Because to advance in your field you need to publish your research in peer reviewed publications and the publishers need to monetise the content to keep publishing.
It sucks, it works.
You should check out the planet sometime.
What are you talking about?
It certainly doesn’t work, that’s why there exists stuff like arXiv and SciHub
ArXiv is just a pre—print, and SciHub is a shadow library.
If you want an academic career, have your discoveries recognised, and stay in funded research, you must publish on peer reviewed traditional channels. Like it or not.
Of course you can still do research alone and publish on your website, but hardly anyone would take you seriously.
Yeah that’s why “science” has become such a failure. There’s no actual progress in forcing people to publish worthless research, forcing worthwhile information behind paywalls, etc. This is a major part of how/why science is used to enforce the extreme privilege of a few at the expense of fascism, violence, planetary destruction, etc. for everyone else.
I don’t even know what you are talking about, but I’m afraid that you are not well informed. Even as an undergraduate you get access to publications through your university.
That’s exactly the point. If you want to be a researcher right now you have to play their game. You have to publish papers even if you don’t have anything. So people publish bullshit, use chatGPT, force their name on papers they haven’t contributed and so on.
Meanwhile the science journals get paid by everyone and pay no one.
Assuming that you pass the peer review, then nobody will reference your paper in other papers. It will become obvious that your research is not interesting or that you are just slapping your name on papers as a supervisor.
So you have no idea what a supervisor does.
I do and I bet you don’t since you draw conclusions based on nothing.
Lol, it shows you don’t know how things really work. New bullshit cites old bullshit, it’s all a game of pretending. You can check the statistics of fraudulent papers and that is just takes into account the most obvious ones.
A good example of this is the Amyloid Hypothesis for dementia. All the papers that “proved” this concept have been retracted, but after 8 years. Good work showed that looking at amyloid load in random brains showed no correlation close to 20 years ago, but amyloidists begat more amyloidists, until finally there was a drug that reduces amyloid by 30%. All it did was cause brain bleeds, deaths and no benefit, but the FDA approved it anyway. MDs will still explain how it really “should” work. It was all a cabal of US scientists who dominated all symposia, only inviting speakers who were in their cabal.
Meanwhile, genetic forms of neurodegeneration are highlighting defects in DNA damage repair. So, 25 years and billions wasted while there still are no treatments.
Of course I don’t know, while you are an accomplished scientist with tons of papers under his belt. All disagreements here ends with one genius saying lol I know better.
“Scientist” is just another job. The people who work these jobs are not inherently magic, genius, etc. Many are not even scientists in any meaningful sense.
Exactly what I Iearned by working in a scientific institute for 3 years. Before that I put scientists on a pedestal and wanted to be one. Now, not anymore. They are as flawed and morally mediocre as most of the general populace.
✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
Sorry you flunked organic chem.
I was one of the original scientists on Twitter. I left long before Musk because all it was, was a tool of self promotion and people bullying their opinions to try and influence grant reviewers.
Most people aren’t that bright. Even people who are experts in one field or another.
But more than that, most people don’t care about things. They don’t know how platforms work, and they don’t care. Just picture a boundless void where things fall in- that’s the typical user apathy.
I love that the argument to, “scientists means smart and smart means Fediverse” is some magical connection made and that this comment basically says, scientist doesn’t really mean anything.
The actual argument to be made here is why in the hell does scientists and Lemmy have to have any connection at all? It is like we are associating that only smart people use the Fediverse. I will never the constant mentality Lemmy’s user base has that you are somehow better if you use the Fediverse. It is that same sort of thinking that makes the Fediverse so niche because the user base can’t grasp that Fediverse apps suck, they are annoying to sign up for. Swapping between instances is annoying in most cases and if you ar not handing your data to a single company you are putting your trust in the hands of those utilizing the Protocol to handle your data.
It is like there is some weird connection the user base on Lemmy just magically makes up to solving all of the worlds problems with big tech or something and then Facebook showed up and could have and talked about entering the Fediverse realm with Threads and everyone freaked out because Facebook would ultimately kill the Fediverse which pokes entire wholes into the Fediverse being the answer. It would just get popular and have the same issues as everything else Lemmy is scared of . Be glad your space is niche.
I always like to emphasize the difference between someone who’s educated, and someone who’s intelligent/smart/whatever
True. I just had a long discussion with a former coworker about that yesterday. I don’t buy the whole “people who go to college aren’t smart. the salt of the earth really know how the world works” that comes up sometimes.
oh, people love the idea that scientific advances come from a uneducated guy working in a shed.
You’re putting words in my mouth, that’s not even close to the point I was making.
In my eyes, education is nothing more than a measure of how much knowledge you have been taught.
Intelligence is your ability to use your existing knowledge in a creative way. (ie. creating a working scientific theory after experimentation)
So no, advancements aren’t just made by some smart person who never went to school and lives in a shed, they come from people who are both educated and smart.
One scientist I follow complained about the attitude on Mastodon. For example when a paywalled article is posted the comments are just filled with people complaining instead of discussions about the actual content.
That and the network effect.
I use both, but somehow I find more relevant content more easily on BlueSky. Plus, there’s the network effect: you go where everyone is.
I agree it is so stupid
it reaches more people, like XITTER did.
That’s the usual excuse, but at what price? 🤷♂️
The price is the eventual migration to another platform in the next 5~10 years