@freemo

Fundamental Scientific Research is Infrastructure for society.

And we should not be using government money to build toll roads for private companies.

@Coyote usually if a study is funded by the government then it often, though not always, wont be behind a paywall. It is public and therefore not for private infrastructure.

When a study is private it means they couldn't get government funding and they are therefore paying for the study with that paywall (albeit after the fact).

@Coyote No thats not remotely true. Funding in the vast majority of cases must come on the condition that the funding is received no matter the outcome of the study. Moreover you do not get funding specifically for favorable studies. Thats just not how it works.. Why do you think there are paywalls? You are paying for the studies, and the fact that the vast majority of those payments are subscriptions to all studies (not just the ones that agree with your biases) you can not, even if you wished to, pay for studies to be favorable.

Obviously there are always a few exceptions of fraudulent studies. But they are rare and few between and the community is quick to expose them.

Whenever a study **is** funded by a company or entity with a personal interest in the outcome it absolutely must be stated in the study itself and the conflict of interest exposed.

If you ever actually worked on peer reviewed publications in any capacity you'd understand most of what you said is not at all applicable. Most scientist will happily make 1/10th of what they could make just to ensure their work is objective and without backally deals.

@freemo

"You are paying for the studies, and the fact that the vast majority of those payments are subscriptions to all studies (not just the ones that agree with your biases) you can not, even if you wished to, pay for studies to be favorable."

The reviewers are not compensated, nor should they be.

The payments to the subscriptions do not go towards any meaningful share of the research funding.

Private funding does happen, and that's fine, but it generally speaking is immediately in-sourced (hire the grad students) if any significant findings are reached, leaving only the raw initial research sitting behind both a paywall, and what likely just turned into at a minimum, a lot of trade secrets, but probably eventually patents.

Fundamental research funding is incentivized by a system that allows those who contribute the least to profit the most, through a government orchestrated and enforced system.

Paywalls for fundamental scientific research, funded by tax dollars, however indirectly, should never be behind a paywall, as a simple, moral, absolute position. Again, IMHO. And we should be working towards that end.

@Coyote That depends.. there is private funding sometimes, and as I stated when that happens if there is a conflict of interest it must and usually is mentioned in the paper.

However very often papers are funded by the paywall for sure. though it depends on the industry.

For example if you spend 50 hours writing a paper, which is very doable for a computer science paper you would be paid on average about 50$ an hour as the author from the publishing journal (which comes from the paywall).

If a peer reviewer spends about 10 hours reviewing it then likewise on average their pay would be about 50$ an hour. Again more than enough to cover their time.

However if we talk about medical studies or more expensive endeavors than that can be very different as thee are patents involved in that case and it is the patents that draw most of the money.

@freemo

"For example if you spend 50 hours writing a paper, which is very doable for a computer science paper you would be paid on average about 50$ an hour as the author from the publishing journal (which comes from the paywall)."

I was unfamiliar with this, and have no (educational) computer related background (sorta, long story). That is fascinating, and, gives me a lot of ideas (see, data-mining). But in the end, wouldn't fund the kind of thing I'm personally interested in, that I can see, but this is fascinating. Thank you.

@10grans tip 0.001 to @freemo

@freemo

"Funding in the vast majority of cases must come on the condition that the funding is received no matter the outcome of the study"

Wherever you think I said that, I either greatly errored in phrasing, or you in interpretation. That's not the issue at all, and I don't disagree on it.

Hi, @freemo

Thanks for the stirring presentation on the selfless, brave, pure warriors of knowledge. Yes, I'm being ironic. I know a lot of people who work in the academic sciences (and related government agencies). Some are kind, some are smart, they are all very, very human. Every human weakness is present.

Just to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

Or to call out more concrete examples:

https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/03/31/reproducibility-crisis-15446

@Coyote

@vandys

Never said they were perfect. Notice that the replication crisis is focused the medical field, and most especially psychology. This should not at all be surprising for many reasons. for starters it is a less exact field with a lot of unknowns. Second, it is a field where conditions change. An antibiotic that is 99% effective one year might be 10% effective a few years later. That might lead to a lack of replication but it doesnt mean that either study was in error.

@Coyote

@freemo @vandys @Coyote
> effective one year and not another
this is common apparently. some lab liked to redo old drug trials from time to time and found that like, aspirin or something was starting to be outcompeted by placebos a few times.

@icedquinn

Yup, there is a very legit replication crisis in medicine, but biology changes over time, and like you said even things like aspirin change as we as a species respond to it generation after generation, or even decade after decade.

@vandys @Coyote