Saturday, October 20, 2018

#Accepting science; the solution is in the reading not the publishing

The most important thing religion has over science? Its papers can be read. Sources like the Bible, he Quran can be read for free. You can get *your* copy from many true believers. A copy is in your library. With science the papers that can prove to you that goldfish should be classified as endangered are behind a paywall. It is only your common sense that might say: "Hey, wait a minute.."

When Wikipedia insists on its sources, they are only functional when these sources can actually be read. This is why the Internet Archive plays such a vital role in maintaining the validity of stated facts.

Some scientists think that "the public" cannot read scientific papers. They forget that even for scientists a paper that cannot be read is a paper that does not exist in their contemplations. The public does read scientific papers. The Cochrane crowd for instance reads papers and checks particular premises for validity.. We know that scientific research of coronary disease was biased for males and as a consequence women still die. A bias like that is what they look for, it is why they reject many papers because they are basically *not* valid.

There is a lot to do about what scientific publishing should be. How it should be funded.. The base line is that when a publication is not available for anyone to read, the facts do not matter. Why believe vaccines are safe when the publications that prove it are behind a paywall?
Thanks,
       GerardM

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