He won’t make many influential friends with this one but when did the truth ever do that:
cheers
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Yes it’s a good article and absolutely spot-on, in particular, regarding the absolute racket of academic publishing, much of which is controlled by a very small number of publishers.
Academics, in the hard sciences particularly (STEMM) are caught right in the middle: they are pressured into bringing in research income and achieving ‘esteem’ or ‘impact’. To achieve this they need to publish, and as much as possible. There’s also the ‘REF’ here in the UK which essentially creates a league table sorted by area of inquiry.
It’s not so different to the album charts: release some avant garde beats and you may win kudos (Captain Beefheart, Dālek, Antipop Consortium, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, to name a few personal favourites) but you ain’t gonna sell out the O2 arena or pile on the big sales like Rihanna or those Mumford dweebs. But it’s possible to make a living.
For the scientists it’s much the same: quiet steady progress, or flashy mega-cited papers, both sustainable. Heretical new ideas. Not so much. Loudly expressed heretical ideas may mean a tailgating from a big black SUV, or worse.
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