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Comment by moi2388 | Hacker News Reader

Science publications are a business. Most results can’t even be reproduced, are paid by taxpayers yet the researchers or university gets to patent it.

This is a joke. Public funding ought to equal public results. Both to the claims, the paper, the raw data and the peer reviews.

Having said that; peer reviewers and disproving older papers should earn more money than making claims that cannot be reproduced.

Also the practice of ranking scientists and universities by citations is moronic. I could in theory write a paper that claims the earth is square. Now a 1,000 friends and colleagues quote me, explaining I don’t make sense, but somehow both I and my university will RISE in ranking?!

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It's a common joke in Mathematics that the way to get lots of citations is to publish a paper with a subtle error - then every "someone was wrong on ~the internet~ _a paper_" type will cite you with suggested corrections.

Not just math. The technique is called "nerd sniping":

https://xkcd.com/356/

Beware. It's a common trick on forums not entirely unlike this one.

Cunningham's Law.

There was an opportunity of comical irony here...

Yeah. Everyone claiming peer-review and publishing is broke, are completely discounting this effect. That people like finding things wrong in other papers.

I'm actually glad that people like doing that, as I imagine it reduces the risk of false beliefs becoming accepted as true.

But maybe there are other factors that make it a net negative? (I haven't really followed academia since concluding my studies.)

> Public funding ought to equal public results. Both to the claims, the paper, the raw data and the peer reviews.

One of my biggest gripes with academia. More and more are universities and those who run it act like private corporations than non-profit research institutions

Harvard is an investment fund with a side-business of training future investors (via alumni donations).

Disproving old papers is done by people attempting replication, not by peer reviewers. Peer review doesn't typically entail replication attempts, it's just a sniff test for obvious errors that would embarrass the journal if let through.

I didn’t claim it was. I merely said both peer reviewers and people disproving results ought to get paid more.

Peer reviewers usually don’t even get paid at all, and getting funding for trying to replicate results is often non-existent, meaning at best it gets done by a couple of undergrads

The research is publicly funded by US tax payers, but releasing it without any restrictions or delays makes it public for everyone, even for those countries who had nothing to do with funding it and are sworn enemies of the US and it's allies.

Oh, no! Anyway

This is a defense of the current system? That a paywall is what stands between our precious research and our “sworn enemies”?

So, other countries and entities can fund weapons, armies, spies, but a paywall is a bridge too far to cross? That’s an extremely weak argument.

There's nothing about the academic publishing system preventing "sworn enemies of the US" from getting access to journals. If you're conducting research on something that the US federal government deems a matter of national security, it means you've received a security clearance. You're not publishing anything in a journal unless you fancy a long prison sentence.

Who do you mean by "... those countries ..."? If we are talking state level, will a paywall really make any difference? Could it be that enemy spies already have their finger on the pulse for interesting research, unless it is very secret? And indeed the most secret stuff is often the primary target... Or is the target only scientists and students?

If everybody has X then someone I dislike will is a terrible argument.

It does not cost $1k a year to have access to these publications as an individual, anything our "enemies" would want could be obtained for effectively zero dollars.

If something needs to be classified for national security reasons, that's another matter entirely. Putting papers behind a journal's $100 paywall won't deter China!

Those countries can already pirate that data with minimal effort. The only way to keep that kind of data out of your rivals' hands is via trade secrets.

Are we really going to pretend that America's "sworn enemies" can't get behind a $150 paywall for article access? This effectively only keeps poor people out and severely limits access for the struggling middle class scientists/hobbyists/students (including grad students and adjuncts) who lack institutional access.

Generally speaking, science (and particularly publicly funded science) is an internationally collaborative process. Anything that would be of material harm in the hands of a rival government should either be classified or kept well protected within the bowels of private industry.

Is there any reason the believe that science publisher's gatekeeping has ever been a significant roadblock to nation-states that are already capable of industrial espionage and intelligence activity?

That’s the rational way of doing things. But emotionally humans strive more for the honor and glory that comes from making a big discovery so I’m happy with the status quo.

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