Good episode and I agree with you about all the problems with scientific publishing and peer review. I also think it's worth exploring any and all options and reforms.
But I found both both of you to be far more credulous about some of the reformist ideas than I expected given how hard-headed and skeptical you are about some of the scientific studies you discuss.
For instance, Stuart says something like: why do we need scientific papers at all given that they serve more of an aesthetic purpose? What about just a database of results (or something to that effect)? (He alludes to a piece by Roger Giner-Sorolla that I have bookmarked and will read soon). The implication here seems to be that if we remove the "aesthetics," then we will solve the problem of papers trumpeting their own novelty. But that seems to confuse the symptoms with the cause. If authors don't use papers to trumpet their own novelty, they will figure out a way to so in any format. The problem is that science is a competitive business; so if we want people to not be fighting over novelty, then you want to make it less competitive, not find some alternative format. To be honest, I think scientific competition might be a good thing but whether it's good or not, it's probably better to factor it into any alternative to current scientific publishing rather than assuming that the new publishing paradigm will just eliminate it.
Later (or earlier?), Stuart wonders about why we need staff at journals. Again, I'm sure some of the specifics can change but even open-access publishing requires infrastructure. It's not just about pushing out pdfs. When the journal Cultural Anthropology went open access (so they kind of separated but didn't divorce Wiley), their managing editor (so not the editor editor) did this great interview where he explained some of the issues the journal had to solve in order to become open access. It's quite illuminating. https://savageminds.org/2014/02/11/inside-baseball-with-tim-elfenbein-managing-editor-of-cultural-anthropology/
Again, I agree that we should be trying everything out. I just wish you guys had adopted a bit more of your traditional skepticism while discussing these new ideas.
And apologies in advance if I misunderstood you in some way!
There is a whole industry of professional ‘ghost writers’ who will take scientific results and(say) a presentation to a conference and turn it into a paper for publication. Also doing the hard work of meeting journal standards for fonts, references, and diagrams/tables.
Fantastic ep gents!
Good episode and I agree with you about all the problems with scientific publishing and peer review. I also think it's worth exploring any and all options and reforms.
But I found both both of you to be far more credulous about some of the reformist ideas than I expected given how hard-headed and skeptical you are about some of the scientific studies you discuss.
For instance, Stuart says something like: why do we need scientific papers at all given that they serve more of an aesthetic purpose? What about just a database of results (or something to that effect)? (He alludes to a piece by Roger Giner-Sorolla that I have bookmarked and will read soon). The implication here seems to be that if we remove the "aesthetics," then we will solve the problem of papers trumpeting their own novelty. But that seems to confuse the symptoms with the cause. If authors don't use papers to trumpet their own novelty, they will figure out a way to so in any format. The problem is that science is a competitive business; so if we want people to not be fighting over novelty, then you want to make it less competitive, not find some alternative format. To be honest, I think scientific competition might be a good thing but whether it's good or not, it's probably better to factor it into any alternative to current scientific publishing rather than assuming that the new publishing paradigm will just eliminate it.
Later (or earlier?), Stuart wonders about why we need staff at journals. Again, I'm sure some of the specifics can change but even open-access publishing requires infrastructure. It's not just about pushing out pdfs. When the journal Cultural Anthropology went open access (so they kind of separated but didn't divorce Wiley), their managing editor (so not the editor editor) did this great interview where he explained some of the issues the journal had to solve in order to become open access. It's quite illuminating. https://savageminds.org/2014/02/11/inside-baseball-with-tim-elfenbein-managing-editor-of-cultural-anthropology/
Again, I agree that we should be trying everything out. I just wish you guys had adopted a bit more of your traditional skepticism while discussing these new ideas.
And apologies in advance if I misunderstood you in some way!
There is a whole industry of professional ‘ghost writers’ who will take scientific results and(say) a presentation to a conference and turn it into a paper for publication. Also doing the hard work of meeting journal standards for fonts, references, and diagrams/tables.