<story><title>Science’s Pirate Queen</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16985666/alexandra-elbakyan-sci-hub-open-access-science-papers-lawsuit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrepd</author><text>&amp;gt;she enables the lay public to read and interpret science rather than awaiting the interpretation and approval of academics from high-status institutions&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;science becomes accessible to everyone with basic scientific literacy&lt;p&gt;The thing is most research papers are simply not accessible to neophytes; you often need to dedicate a significant portion of your life to the study of a given field in order to understand and critically evaluate the latest research in that field. It&amp;#x27;s not that academics are sitting in a high throne, dictating what is truth and what is not, its that you &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to be an academic with many years of formation in order to understand, let alone improve, the research that is being undertaken. A &amp;quot;basic science literacy&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t enough.&lt;p&gt;Still, it&amp;#x27;s very positive that, in principle, anyone can grab a book or three of libgen, study hard, become knowledgeable in the field, then grab as many papers as they want off libgen and read and interpret them. That&amp;#x27;s undoubtedly very positive.</text></item><item><author>afpx</author><text>To me, Alexandra Elbakyan is kind of like a Martin Luther of science. That is, she enables the lay public to read and interpret science rather than awaiting the interpretation and approval of academics from high-status institutions. That may be a ‘sacrilege’ view here, given the audience of HN. And, in a way, I do feel somewhat nervous of people making decisions based on papers they read without understanding of the philosophy and practice of science. Yet, it’s unavoidable and already being done through popular journalism.&lt;p&gt;With sci-hub (and with some reference books obtained via libgen), science becomes accessible to everyone with basic scientific literacy - a surprising large number of people. I see these two tools together as enablers of a new generation of scientists. For instance, recently I have seen many of my collegues and friends sending me direct links to research papers. That’s crazy and would have never happened just a few years ago. These tools will drive the democratization of science. Just as I now see the religious kids at the coffee shop discussing their scripture, I hope to soon see science kids there discussing classic science papers - doing it not for economic or career reasons, but simply to understand and discover.&lt;p&gt;To me, that’s not an economic issue but one of morality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>totalZero</author><text>I would argue that most people who studied an empirical discipline in college and did ok (good school and&amp;#x2F;or good grades) can pick up a paper and, using the internet, understand and critique it creatively within three weeks. The basic idea of science (minus a little nuance) is &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ll believe it when I see it, and I can show that it can&amp;#x27;t be explained otherwise.&amp;quot; This isn&amp;#x27;t too much to think about.&lt;p&gt;If a paper doesn&amp;#x27;t link back to its foundations directly (citations) and clarify its assumptions, that isn&amp;#x27;t the fault of the reader.&lt;p&gt;One really dumb thing that many academics do is, in an effort to be respected in their field or accepted to a solid paper or a good conference, they write obscurely. With very few exceptions, this results in bad science writing because the point of science writing is to express clearly and precisely the steps and formulations that lead to an ideological or project accomplishment. But that bad writing doesn&amp;#x27;t make the paper less intelligible for normal people. It simply makes it take longer to read, for a typical person.&lt;p&gt;One of the reasons it&amp;#x27;s easier to understand research than to do it, is that it&amp;#x27;s easier to verify a solution than to create it. This is the famous Columbus&amp;#x27; Egg, and it is a principle that should be well known to computer scientists who understand the time complexity of verification versus solution.&lt;p&gt;So, I argue that basic science literacy is enough to understand and critique. Verification of an idea is different than creating it. Papers that don&amp;#x27;t reference how they fit into their field are flawed in a way that can&amp;#x27;t be blamed on the reader. Obscure, bad writing doesn&amp;#x27;t change the meaning of a paper, even if it hides it. And the basic tool of science is a pretty accessible idea.</text></comment>
<story><title>Science’s Pirate Queen</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16985666/alexandra-elbakyan-sci-hub-open-access-science-papers-lawsuit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrepd</author><text>&amp;gt;she enables the lay public to read and interpret science rather than awaiting the interpretation and approval of academics from high-status institutions&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;science becomes accessible to everyone with basic scientific literacy&lt;p&gt;The thing is most research papers are simply not accessible to neophytes; you often need to dedicate a significant portion of your life to the study of a given field in order to understand and critically evaluate the latest research in that field. It&amp;#x27;s not that academics are sitting in a high throne, dictating what is truth and what is not, its that you &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to be an academic with many years of formation in order to understand, let alone improve, the research that is being undertaken. A &amp;quot;basic science literacy&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t enough.&lt;p&gt;Still, it&amp;#x27;s very positive that, in principle, anyone can grab a book or three of libgen, study hard, become knowledgeable in the field, then grab as many papers as they want off libgen and read and interpret them. That&amp;#x27;s undoubtedly very positive.</text></item><item><author>afpx</author><text>To me, Alexandra Elbakyan is kind of like a Martin Luther of science. That is, she enables the lay public to read and interpret science rather than awaiting the interpretation and approval of academics from high-status institutions. That may be a ‘sacrilege’ view here, given the audience of HN. And, in a way, I do feel somewhat nervous of people making decisions based on papers they read without understanding of the philosophy and practice of science. Yet, it’s unavoidable and already being done through popular journalism.&lt;p&gt;With sci-hub (and with some reference books obtained via libgen), science becomes accessible to everyone with basic scientific literacy - a surprising large number of people. I see these two tools together as enablers of a new generation of scientists. For instance, recently I have seen many of my collegues and friends sending me direct links to research papers. That’s crazy and would have never happened just a few years ago. These tools will drive the democratization of science. Just as I now see the religious kids at the coffee shop discussing their scripture, I hope to soon see science kids there discussing classic science papers - doing it not for economic or career reasons, but simply to understand and discover.&lt;p&gt;To me, that’s not an economic issue but one of morality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdietrich</author><text>&amp;gt;The thing is most research papers are simply not accessible to neophytes&lt;p&gt;That very much depends on how you define &amp;quot;neophyte&amp;quot; and what field you&amp;#x27;re talking about. You don&amp;#x27;t need to be a doctor to make sense of most clinical trials, you just need a reasonable education in statistics. A mechanical engineer can usefully learn from a lot of materials science or fluid dynamics research. Our society is increasingly well-educated, which creates a huge number of people who can make use of sci-hub in one way or another.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re writing papers that are of no use whatsoever to anyone outside of a tiny coterie of specialists in your field, then either you&amp;#x27;re doing absolutely cutting-edge theoretical work or you&amp;#x27;re just really bad at writing papers.</text></comment>