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posted by
Fnord666
on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:08PM
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together dept.
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together dept.
What happens to research that is funded by taxpayers? A lot ends up in subscription-only journals, protected from the eyes of most by a paywall.
But a new initiative known as Plan S could change that. Plan S focuses on making all publicly funded research immediately fully and freely available by open access publication.
It sounds like a good idea – but there are possible downsides. This model could potentially undermine peer review, the process vital for ensuring the rigour and quality of published research. It could also increase costs of publication for researchers and funding bodies. So let's do Plan S right.
Taxpayers will have the right to see the research they paid for?
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All Publicly Funded Australian Research Could Soon Be Free for You, the Taxpayer, to Read
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(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:02PM (12 children)
This is the biggest load of BS I have ever heard. Far from being vital for good research, it is an actively negative force in research.
Peer review is a very recent phenomenon associated with the rise of government funded crap academic research since WWII. The quality is so much worse now than it was the first half of the 20th century, just go read some old papers to find out.
In many fields no progress has been made since at least the 1970s, this is not surprising since every study on peer review shows it only serves to reinforce status quo beliefs.
http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/three-myths-about-scientific-peer-review/ [michaelnielsen.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:08PM (4 children)
Well exactly!
And what the fuck does "undermine peer review" mean?
Our whole language is suffering for this kind of crap. This is why people like Trump and Clinton win elections. *Baffle 'em with Bullshit* Works every time!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:30PM (3 children)
I think it means that they will stop paying the peer reviewers. Of course, they do not do that now. So I have no idea what they mean.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:45PM (2 children)
"peer reviewers" are just supposed to be other professors, students, and shit. Problem is, they're probably high while they're reading that stuff.. Heh, it's the only way to get through it. And it's late, the old lady wants you in bed... You know what? Fuck this journal crap!
Let's do it in reverse. If nobody (like, the competition, because, you know, there's always money in tearing stuff down) says a study is bullshit, then assume it's good.
Oh, and the troll moderator up there can go fuck himself!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:19PM (1 child)
And the troll moderator right here can fuck himself too! What the fuck is the matter with you assholes? What a bunch of dicks! I shall pray for karma to smite you!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:12PM
We will not let you have any karma! For we are capitalists, and we own all the karma, even the karma you produce with the sweat of your brow using our means of karma production, because you are a proletarian who only has his labor power to sell. Don't like it? Well, it's a two party system! You're wasting your vote if you vote for anybody other than the two pre-approved capitalist candidates!
Bwahahaha!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:22PM
You sound like some kind of subversive. What's wrong with the status quo, anyway? Damned revolutionaries, always want to unquo my status.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:47PM (3 children)
Indeed - if you want to ensure the rigor and quality of published research you should make it easy to publish research, along with neatly cross-referencing any published support and criticism of it. Lets make it really obvious that there's not actually anything special about being published - the important part is how well you survive criticism.
Heck, there would even still be a place for journals to curate the cream of the crop, I don't have time to read everything, but a decent journal could keep up with the latest significant publications (even harnessing their readers to suggest new papers to consider) and present those papers along with at least a summary of the current conversation around them. If I read something in Conservative Science Journal, it should be because the research was well-done and has been independently verified, whereas Cutting Edge Research Compendium is going to involve a lot more unverified claims.
There's a LOT of room for an honest journal to add value, without having a stranglehold on "legitimate" publications.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:22AM (2 children)
Not just you, NOBODY can read all the shit coming out these days. Occasionally I'll dip into the computer science abstracts and it's utterly full of ad hoc crap. Not a simplifying principle or insight to be found. Layers and layers of crud compacted into layers of crud which are then formed into more layers. That's what gets accepted nowadays. Good luck, future!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @04:11AM
Yep, that is why you get "cancer/depression/alzhiemers is many diseases" and such. The philosophy and methodology is actually exactly the opposite of what science is about (discovering unifying/simplifying principles/laws).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 27 2019, @04:24PM
Absolutely, I just figured I'd make it personal.
As for the crap - I'm reminded of the phrase "Of course 90% of X is crap. 90% of everything is crap." And publishing potentially suffers worse than most, as the "publish or perish" mentality around academia encourages a lot of gratuitous publishing. And worst of all, publishing of duplicate or negative results seems to be a difficult and unrewarding activity, which means that some of the most important aspects of science - independent confirmation and limiting duplicate dead-end research, is actively discouraged by the current system.
(Score: 2) by jb on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:56AM (1 child)
Depends on the field.
My understanding was that peer review in academia as an idea potentially to standardise on has been on the table since Oldenburg's famous paper, roughly half a millennium ago, although it didn't get adopted as a standard until much later: about 200 years ago for the various medical disciplines; about 100 to 150 years ago for the other sciences & some early adopters in engineering; then finally in the mid 20th century for the less scientific disciplines.
Even when peer review is not used as a formal requirement, it tends to happen naturally in many disciplines: as I understand it "letters on" the published research of scientists by their peers (in disciplines without formal requirements for peer review at the time) were published relatively common in the 18th & 19th centuries.
That was both better & worse than the current system. Better because the reviewing author put his name (and therefore staked his own reputation) on his review, which was naturally conducive to a higher quality of review; but worse because research in unpopular or noncontroversial fields often didn't get reviewed at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:07PM
Yes, of course people had others give feedback on their work/ideas. That is not what "peer review" means.