Science publishing holds us back. We need to do better.

This issue of Deliberate Internet is one of those deep dives fueled by curiosity. This time it’s about science journals, Sci-Hub, Open Access, and the ugly underworld of academic publishing.

I don’t recall much from my psychology studies. I have some vague notion of what I learned over the 5 years, but one of the strongest memories was a feeling of utter frustration over accessing the research papers needed to write my thesis. I would find a perfect avenue of research only to be stopped by a science journal paywall.

My research on a quirk of human memory called “source monitoring error” probably would not advance the COVID vaccine, HIV cure, or the hunt for clean energy sources. But others working on those problems may be missing a key breakthrough because their university may have not purchased access to that particular journal.

The dizzying progress of humanity over the last 500 years is all thanks to the scientific method:

Despite what your uncle may believe, the canonical unit of disseminating science is not Youtube.

The research paper is the “deliverable” of scientists’ work. But it’s nothing without a research journal to publish it in. Science and Nature are the most prestigious ones.

Amongst scientists, there is the mantra “publish or perish” — they need to earn points (quite literary) by publishing papers in journals. The system is designed in theory to incentivize sharing results, discussing them, and subjecting them to peer review.

The article opens with the story of Amirkabir from Iran. His experience closely mirrors my own:

Scientist incentivized to publish research papers present demand. It’s no wonder that the supply side has popped up — and is serving stuff that is not up to snuff:

A whole crop of “predatory journals” is publishing any paper — for a fee.

In this cesspool of fraud, spam, and lies, scientists are desperate to get their names into at least a half-decent journal, so they buckle up and pay.

Here is how it works:

Saying that Sci-Hub is big is an understatement. It’s now THE science article database. And no wonder — from the same Science article:

Researchers can now find all the papers they need in one place, without tracking down for weeks that elusive obscure paper that they really need. God, I wish I had something like this during my studies.

Yes, it very well may be. But I also think it’s ethical.

Paying the science journals helps noone (except, again, Elsevier execs). Consider following facts:

The cost of the current situation is not the $9.8 Billion that Elsevier is able to rake in yearly. It’s trillions in opportunity cost due to scientists not being able to pay and access the paper that they needed for their next breakthrough.

Berlin Declaration of Open Access has been published in 2003. The progress of adoption hasn’t been that rapid, so we need Sci-Hub in the meantime.

But despite technological progress, Science itself has been known to move slower at times. The above link to the Open Access declaration is published on Max Planck Society, and it was Max Planck who said that “Science progresses one funeral at a time“.

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