Against Open Access???
It seems that a coalition of non-Open Access journals, Partnership in Research Integrity in Science & Medicine, is out to take down journals like PLOS. I know people have to put bread on the table, but really there isn’t an open-ended guarantee that you can milk your business model forever. In any case, Blog Around the Clock has links to many comments around the web in regards to this issue.
Labels: science
Two points.
One. I do not understand how it’s remotely justifiable to block
taxpayers from access to research that they have more or less completely
financed. Elsevier and the like engage in what is at heart an
outrageous sort of theft.
Two. I’m puzzled by this emphasis on “peer review.” First of
all the phrase as normally used does not mean what the words say.
If we actually had peer review — as in open public comment and discussion
and criticism by other people in the field — that would be great. But
we don’t. We have anonymous, hidden review. This is a completely different
kettle of fish. Why do we want that?
I understand the motivations of the journals who are looking for
mechanisms to minimize their costs. But should the profitability of scientific
journals become the dominant purpose of the scientific community?
Imagine that some group of the scientists is intensely politicized
and approves or disapproves papers based on the author’s politics.
Imagine that to a significant degree professional standing is determined
by the number of “peer reviewed” papers to be published.
Run the math.
Even if the initial set of politically-determined reviewers is small and
even if there are competing political conspiracies, it doesn’t take that
many decades but for one view to become dominant and a field to become
transformed to where political conformity is now the hidden criteria
for success.
Even if contrary to human nature and contrary to what can be seen by
simply opening one eyes, politics plays no role at all, why do we want
a situation where papers are approved or disapproved by anonymous people
whose reasoning is not disclosed?