>" and there's no technical or intellectual reason they should exist"
I disagree with this completely, and I described the objective and intellectual reasons behind it in my other post!
Very, very few people are capable of taking a post-graduate course-load and producing journal-quality research without any formal training.
It's become a trope to dislike academia and to make the assumption that it is incapable of producing a result that is worthwhile (all while most of us in programming make intense, constant fundamental use of functions, ideas, algorithms, systems, etc that are the results of PhD in Computer Science or academia in general)
The objective reason is that academia produces better researchers who are far better prepared to publish their results. The intellectual reason is that a system of learning statistics, experimental design, and a subject matter under the tutelage of a proven expert which requires the person to literally succeed in their job of researching and publishing before even being given the title PhD produces a very high rate of high level success.
>Yes, yes it is. Research should not be for a closed shop of inward looking, often archaic and relatively backward academic institutions.
IT ISN'T! Just because you're not a part of centralized, systemized education and can't access this tool doesn't mean you can't research.
You also don't have access to a NMR, or an fMRI, or any number of hundreds of others of tools that cost $100k - 1m+, but you can still as a layperson educate yourself and attempt to contribute.
But I think to assert that randos-at-home are the literal equivalent of the academic process and PhD's is beyond absurd, and that every man should have identical access to what earning an PhD earns you, is also absurd to me.
But when it comes to the best tools that cost the most and the best opportunities, those who are a part of the system will get those options. If you want to study medicine you can do that anywhere but if you're not apart of a med school getting access to medical cadavers will be difficult.
There is so much disrespect for institutions and what we as a people are capable of when we systemize. I understand the appreciation for decentralization and the FOSS model behind technology but there is so often a complete unwillingness to show any respect to any centralization at all, it's very strange.