The Problematic Liberation of Science

You known, it's sad the Aaron Swartz killed himself.  He was bright, intelligent and accomplished quite a bit.  He clearly had many laudable goals and/or ideas.  But his worst idea, and one he seemed unprepared for the consequences of, was his idea for how to reform scientific publishing.  For those who don't know, most academic articles are kept behind the paywalls of for-profit publishers, and the authors are not compensated for purchases made.  In fact, as a published journal author (1 article, woo!), I can tell you that not only that, but scientists have to pay handsomely to get their articles published at all.  It's an old model, it's unwieldy, it could be better.  Swartz's idea of fixing it was to steal (acquire without paying for) millions of articles, I assume with intent to publish to the masses because he had already done a similar stunt with the PACER database.   I've seen a lot of commentary about how he didn't really steal anything, or he was trying to save science or bring it to the masses and that what he was doing was a self-evidently good thing. And I would like to argue that a bit, because I find it highly arguable.  

First, was the problem real?  Yes, absolutely.  I think things like paywalled publishers profiting off of the distribution of scientific articles and research is a relic of the past, that could easily be replaced by the internet as long as a suitable source of funding could be found and the peer-review practices were solid.  I think the apparently sky-rocketing costs of access to these articles are directly linked to the sky-rocketing cost of college tuition, if obviously not wholly responsible.  So yes, I agree this is a system that could be much cheaper, and much more open.

I do NOT agree that scientists are hiding something, or that the masses are being denied access to important information.  For the most part, anything you would want to effectively comment on, utilize or completely understand will require some training in the relevant field.   Most people who go get this training will end up with access to these articles through their school or employer.  I have yet to hear exactly who it is could make use of these articles that is being denied access.  I do agree that there's a larger problem in the interface between science and the general public in that the scientists generally write for each other (which is reasonable) and the non-scientist doesn't really have the education to grasp the context, significance or lack thereof of the results.

Second, was the problem pressing?  Maybe?  I don't hear a lot of grumbling about it in my small professional scientific circle, but that's largely because we all work for an academic institution that pays for it and don't have access problems.  But I imagine most scientists would be happy with lower publishing costs.  And they'd probably be happy to be paid for purchased copies of their articles, although that's never going to be a driving motivation for most scientists, because their actual audience is relatively tiny.  Remember, this is written for review by peers, and not for submission to the general public.  This doesn't mean they have something to hide, it just means the research is typically complicated and written for peers who have an understanding of the tools, concepts and methods involved in investigating complicated topics.  But regardless, people with good research tend to get published, and I don't think  that scientists are having problems discussing and peer reviewing research for each other.  So I would say the cost is an increasingly big problem, but does not actually keep scientists from doing science with each other just yet.

So what's my problem with how Swartz handled it?  He went straight for the illegal option.  Cory Doctorow in his remembrance for his friend, also mentions Swartz was big believer in directly challenging authority and subverting laws he found unjust.  This is laudable to some degree, but there were a wide variety of options less sensationalistic than ripping off JSTOR, even if he thought their business model is bullshit.  Bullshit or not, when you fight the system, and break the law, the system fights back.  But he could have used his remaining money to fund a viral campaign of the brokenness of that system, he could have approached JSTOR, individual universities with an alternative or a compelling argument.  He could have done any number of things to convince people, some of whom would not have taken much convincing, that scientific publishing needed to be reformed and he could have done it in a way that conveyed respect for the scientific need to have SOME respected body publishing articles after peer-review for further peer-review.  Because that's how it works, your articles are peer-reviewed by people knowledgeable in your field before publishing, and then reviewed at-large after publishing. How would destroying JSTOR today preserve that system? How would you fund a replacement?  How do you fund the editors that oversee the peer-review?  These are not easy questions.  And it's not so easily fixed by stealing from JSTOR.

But, you say, is more and open exchange of information always better for science?  Well, yes, but the scientists aren't currently having problems communicating with each other.  But, haven't talented amateurs contributed greatly to fields like computer science, shouldn't they have all the data?  Well, yes,  but everyone can have a computer and tinker with code.  Not everyone can do super-collider research, and the people in a position to do it have generally already have access to all of the articles they need.  As hard as it might be to believe, doing science might require more or different education than that required to write computer code.  And talented amateurs contribute to harder material sciences all the time, especially in fields like astronomy, but usually in conjunction with professional scientists.  Even so, JSTOR ended up releasing millions of articles for free, in the last few weeks, so what exactly is the problem?  Who is it exactly that suffers from lack of necessary information to do their research?

But, you say, aren't scientists just being too secretive?  What are they hiding that they don't want us to know about?  Nothing.  Outside of classified defense research, they are hiding nothing from you.  The reason it seems locked up an inaccessible to you, the casual observer, is an accident of tradition from the pre-interenet days, when published journals were the best way for scientists to present research. Believe it or not, they might be loathe to completely abandon a system with a sound methodology for peer review just because you're excited about your ipod.  And while yes, I wish they would get to re-organizing the publishing into more modern and affordable methods, why on earth would they want scientifically illiterate activists to lead that effort?  Where are the scientists asking the computer hackers to save them from JSTOR?   In addition, I have yet to meet a scientist that won't send you any of his published papers in pdf form if you simply just ask for them.  It's not that you're dumb either, it's that these topics are just very complicated.  If you wanted to read a paper on atmospheric physics and make sense of it, you would first need the relevant training in statistics, and atmospheric science and basic physics and calculus, and by the time you're getting that, you're already in school with access to the paper.

Beyond that, is "scientists are keeping things from us!" really the argument you're making?  I understand that the entertainment, financial and political industries have greatly eroded the public's trust in authority, expertise and the belief that the people in power are behaving with any kind of basic honesty.  Pivoting to science and making the same accusation is just a huge mistake.  There's no conspiracy of scientists because, as mentioned, they don't profit off of their articles and the restriction of information is not malicious and does not yield them more money or power (well, the publishers get both, but not the scientists).  And even with the publishers, it's more a matter of staying relevant than squashing ideas.  You know who else thinks scientists are involved in some kind of giant conspiracy?  Global warming deniers, anti-vaccers, flat-earthers and every other fringe group that doesn't like scientific results because they conflict with their own unsupported biases and decides the whole enterprise must be rotten from the top down.  Scientists aren't keeping anything from you.  That doesn't mean scientific publishing practices aren't a little bullshit, but keep in mind they kind of have scientists by the balls too.  Provide a better, cheaper equally scientifically robust platform to publish in, and they will jump ship, but it's going to be hard, and long, and time-involving  and will require more care than a publicity stunt.

So what are my solutions?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  I think scientific publishing is much more honest and straight-forward than the doubters think it is.  Having said that, I think scientists need to take the lead in pushing peer review away from the old-fashioned publishing houses and into more accessible online journals with the same robust peer review and no charge for download.  I think the general public needs to understand that just because they have google, it doesn't mean they can science, that there remain trades that take years of training and dedication to become competent in, and they are probably not qualified to fully understand the implications of an article if they are not trained in that field.  You don't assume you know more than your doctor about medicine, why would you assume you know more about physics than a physicist?  In terms of communicating with the public, I think we need to hire either better journalists (most science journalists are terrible and misrepresent or misunderstand the studies they're reporting on) or the scientific community needs to make a concerted effort to create an information buffer that translates the science we have into readable language and, crucially, how much evidentiary support a given conclusion actually has (for instance 1 study or 1000 studies and with what degree of confidence).  I've actually been thinking about making a web page for this.

As a larger problem, education is clearly to the internet instead of solely through the traditional institutions of learning.  In addition, university costs are increasingly well above the rate of inflation.  There needs to be alternate methods of acquiring accreditation and qualification that don't necessarily rely on paying through the nose to go to a university.  There also needs to be the same amount of rigor on the internet required in an intense education and I'm not sure how to manage that.  But having seen every yahoo with access to station data that they think disproves global warming calmly and patiently get a crash course on climate science from people who've actually been trained and have years of experience in this stuff, there needs to be some sort of understanding that everyone's knowledge is not equal just because google exists.  There needs to be some standard of evidence and qualification to analyze evidence higher than, "I read about it on wikipedia."

In short, science could communicate it's ideas and methods better, and could probably benefit from more modern and cost-effective publishing practices.  But please super hackers, maybe try talking to people and convincing them to safely and calmly change their behavior and preserve some sense of order and progress in the field before attempting to tear it all down in a fit of pique.  Because that's just about your ego and impatience and it's bullshit.