Should Knowledge Be Free?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- Should academic research be behind paywalls? Researchers and peer reviewers earn nothing for their work, and yet academic publishers boast enormous profit margins every year from subscription fees to journals. Especially during a global pandemic, is it right for scientific research to be pay-to-read?
Sci-Hub is an illegal website that offers almost all academic publications for free, created by Alexandra Elbakyan, who I interview in this video. Aaron Swartz, like Alexandra, felt that information should be freely available on the Internet. He ended his own life after being charged with wire fraud, because he illegally downloaded academic articles from JSTOR.
What is the way forward? Pre-prints? Researchgate? Have your say below.
A huge thank you to Alexandra Elbakyan and Rachel Atwood (@racatiwood) for giving up their time so generously on two occasions (due to Zoom failing the first time). We talked for a while longer, and whether you agree with what Alexandra's doing or not, her accomplishments are quite staggering.
Thank you also to translations25 (I don't know her actual name!) on Fiverr who did a great job translating the recording back for the subtitles. If there are any errors in the transcript that's from me editing it down incorrectly. If you want a Russian/English/Ukranian translator for a good price she's here: www.fiverr.com...
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More Medlife Crisis:
www.medlifecris...
/ medcrisis
watchnebula.co...
/ medcrisis
/ medlifecrisis
Current Sci-Hub addresses, but subject to change:
sci-hub.st
sci-hub.se
sci-hub.do
I was inspired to photoshop myself into Solvay by my friend Alex Lathbridge (Twitter @thermoflynamics) to whom I owe a lot. The Shining ending...I have no idea, I get a bit delirious after editing for hours.
References:
A few excellent articles by writers to whom I owe a lot of the basis of this video
Especially this one: Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? www.theguardia...
Scientific publishing is a rip-off. We fund the research - it should be free | George Monbiot www.theguardia...
These Five Companies Control More Than Half of Academic Publishing www.scienceale...
A really great deep dive into the open access movement and Alexandra’s work as well: Meet the pirate queen making academic papers free online www.theverge.c...
EDIT: Alexandra asked me to point out that some people are sharing urls in the comments to fake versions of sci-hub which may be dangerous websites or ineffective. Please be careful.
Current official urls are sci-hub.st, sci-hub.se, sci-hub.do.
I don't need to ask my viewers if they think the current model is wrong, so instead - what do you think is a way forward? Genuinely interested in your thoughts.
I love researchgate. If an article has a price through publisher you can ask the author for a free copy there.
All scientific literature should be free for anyone with access to the internet. That is a must
_Some_ *Universities need to fail.*
No bailout, no vasoline.
I thought about a system similar to Git hub, where the papers would be like repos, that could be cloned, commented on and maybe even updated with future references and linked to similar papers. All open to anyone to post, but somehow 'validate' the papers from established research professionals (these should also be open to open review and comments, but have something to differentiate from a engineer that published something on an experiment he did in his backyard).
The papers could be graded by reputation, number of citations and links to other papers, and maybe a 'upvote/downvote' system, where you had to pass a automatically generated comprehension test of the paper before grading it (and maybe votes from estabilished peers on the field are 'worth' more)
Virally flood as many papers as possible? How many thousands of people can they sue or even pursue at once? Civil uprising mindset removed... It's not an easy one without agreed governance. But who will govern and regulate the worldwide papers. This may be a international meeting of those that can govern to understand how to govern it. So global petitioning of each of the largest decision makers in the current world. Maybe now, given that science is the way forward for global normality, surely an argument for freedom of science is now 🤔
Scihub is godsend, especially if you are from a developing country.
Or on disability welfare
or just not currently working in academia
It’s a godsend even if you are from a developed country
YES
When I started physics a veteran created a mini-course about how to study and what tools you could use. He showed us scihub and said something among the lines "Three years from now, when you need to read a lot of papers in order to make your thesis, you'll thank me"
As a conservation biologist from Nepal where universities don't even have subscriptions of journals, Sci-hub is the only thing that's keeping science alive here.
There are good-quality open-access journals, you know
@@tzenophile You often need a certain paper for you research.
@@lubricustheslippery5028 And sometimes they are open access. Heard of Plan S? The point is, paper distribution should be totally legit and legal. Scientists themselves should and can make sure of this. There really is no excuse, ever since the Internet.
Let's help educate 3rd world countries they said. :) Hypocrit rats.
Exactly ..I Agree
Scientists in the future:
This scientific study is sponsored by *rAiD sHaDoW lEgEnDs*
Has been happening for decades, it's just not announced in youtube videos
Before your anaesthesia in an operation.. "Just a quick message from our *sPonSoR* RaID ShAdoW LegEnDS"
@@AleksandarIvanov69 Readies gun: Always has been///
Unironically this would be an improvement.
climate scientist been sponsored by exxon oil is the raid shadow legends of the scientific community
Imagine paying 40 dollars for a single paper when in your country this is basically 1/5 of a minimum wage. Thanks Alexandra, you're like one of those underground hero hackers from cyberpunk books
40 bucks? That's 9 hours of minimum wage in Poland
@@realdragon my country's currency isn't worth shit
@@realdragon A lot of 3rd world countries' minimum wage is far, far worse.
Just did the math, 40 bucks equals to 37 hours on minimal wage work in my country, and it's one of the "better" third world countries
@@jacobfromtheghetto4845 It's the same over here in Vietnam. The minimum wage is a bit less than a dollar so each paper would cost about a week of minimum wage work.
Imagine paying $30 for a paper only to find that it's pretty much useless because it lacks the detailed methodologies, lacks good referencing and was so poorly done. Thank goodness for Sci-hub, I was able to avoid paying that.
yeah, imagine 30 usd here is what a fast-food chain employee earns in 30 hours.
Had that exact problem with a book I thankfully sourced from the uni library. It was 300 pages of nothing that had no methodology, no research, no nothing, yet it was somehow recommended reading. Free sources of information are a godsend, because some publications simply aren't worth the paper they're printed on nor the grant abused to write them.
30 is pocket change where I'm from, if you earn it in one hour they look down on you. I'm quite positive hard science will never solve this, even if you get your source materials cheaper. there's one redeeming thing tho; for a group as ignorant as humanity we've already come quit far.
@@h00db01i I earn around 30 per day. That 30 is enough for me to buy groceries for 3 days.
@@ken90ny I can also buy groceries for three days with 30, more even if I eat only rice+veg. there is no balance, we (rich countries) are just bleeding you out best we can.
I cannot live without Sci-Hub, my deepest respect to Alexandra.
✌👏👏👏
Me too
👍
Me too
Me too!!!
If the money doesn't go to directly to the researchers it should be free. No exceptions.
Yeah it seems so strange that these seemingly parasitic industries have been allowed to exist. It seems to me that universities could make a switch to becoming their own publishers.
The companies that publish the paper's of the scientists won't be around if they can't make money
and even then it should be donation-based, I mean for ffs, the range of disposable income that people who really want to access this stuff (students or interested laymen to professors, firms and so on) is so severe, it's just not right asking everybody to cough up at the same amount of dosh.
@@INeedAttentionEXE I mean do you honestly think scientists won’t invest in some kind of publishing system if the money goes to them? There’s always ways around things when money is involved
@@kidkangaroo5213 definitely so! I forgot about that. There are definitely people out there that will do that and especially if they get results from different types of research.
I wouldn't have been able to publish my bachelor's thesis if it weren't for sci-hub. To hell with anyone who wants to profit off of knowledge in such a way. It's despicable. I hope Alexandra has monunents built of her. She's a literal hero.
Thats true!
Absolutely!
does your university not grant you access to jounals?
The real Robin Hood of our times. One of the real heros.
@@clf400 mine does, I have access to all Elsevier and NEJM papers, but there are lots of of papers from other magazines and editorials, you cannot have access to all scientific articles in the world, so Sci-hub is really a life saver
Excellent video. I just saw on twitter that a Paleoanthropologist has to pay $4200 to Wiley to make *his own paper* free to the public.
@Flamebuster32 no. There are something call impact factor. It measures the importance of tht journal as a whole. The higher the number, higher the prestige, the bragging rights, and make you reasume cute for future project fundings. So, that is a mafia....
"Privatise the gains, socialize the losses" Predatory Capitalism 101 😂
These organisations have successfully maneuvered to offload the expense of actual research to the public, but monetize the output of that research for themselves.
They can do that because these organizations control public policy by buying off bumblefcuk politicians to control said policy.
Any society with a decent backbone of critical thinking would know this a racket and fix it accordingly, yet here we are
Some are worse, Lancet global health asks $5000
Oh shit it's Joseph. You are doing god's work, keep it up!
@@paulj6805 how blasphemous.
i like how basically everyone agrees on this issue except the people in charge
alexandra is the chaotic good model we ought to follow
He was downloading them, which wasn't illegal. However, what they were trying to pin on him was that he was going to host or share the files, and his girlfriend didn't do him any favours when she was questioned by the authorities. Honestly, when it comes to the law, if someone doesn't like something you do, they'll figure out some angle to get you in trouble, and they got him through his girlfriend.
@@Taruby That explains why he was suspiciously hanged its becausse they had nothing on him >:(
imo chaotic good is the best alignment. Lawful good would be fine if the world wasn't so thoroughly populated with lawful evil characters right now. Chaotic good is the best medicine for lawful evil imo.
@@hedgeclipper418 Nerd :p
@@hedgeclipper418 Lawful good doesn't mean obeying the literal laws it means sticking to some internal moral code, that might align with laws but if the laws are unjust it won't, basically you decide to do good because of some internal moral system that requires you to do so. Chaotic good is when you do good not for any particular reason but just because you feel like it, it'll probably bring you into conflict with the law a lot more often but you also aren't gonna be starting a revolution that way. Lawful good characters are the ones who could start a revolution because they have some idea of what the world ought to be like and can convince others to follow it.
That lady deserves a Nobel for her contribution
She's really one of the greatest people ever
More likely to get arrest order. She already got a huge fine and ignoring it.
@@enterwind97 Not like Kazakhstan would extradite their own citizens.
@@gamingmarcus fine said!👍
yes
I'm gonna write Alexandra's name in my gratitude for my thesis
I wouldn't recommend that, the university might penalise you. Keep it a vague thanks
@@tombrown407 Why? If she sourced anything from her website, the college would know anyhow due to her citations right?
I haven't been to college because I'm disorganized and broke, so I'm not very informed...
Students should have freedom of information (even though this isn't a govt source), screw a college that penalizes its students like that. I don't know the criteria for what you can source in college papers, but that'd be really dumb.
@@doodoodoodle how does the uni find out you cited from sci hub ? In the bibliography you just at the doi at the end and the Publisher at the end of your reference
@@doodoodoodle so this is a bit late. Basically when you cite the paper you just mention the authors and the journals it was published in (with year, page edition, etc). Scihub provides paywalled papers for free. I am guessing the original poster wants to mention Alexandra in their acknowledgement, not the citations. Some universities may penalise them if they know that they used scihub as it is technically illegal.
Although from what I know, the professors mostly don't care or use scihub themselves, there are exceptions of course. Personally I actually learned about scihub from a professor and she also taught us exactly how to use it!
@@aromitamallik I'm often late as well, another reason college would be difficult for me. I am a master procrastinator >B^)
And that makes sense, thanks for your reply! I haven't been to the website myself so I'm a bit out of touch overall lol
The closest thing to college was the AP classes I took in highschool, I hated citations, and I honestly don't remember much (they're not that bad but I'm a numskull and rather rant than cite lols ;'^D)
The blocked spread of information isn't just tragic, it's literally slowing the progress of civilization.
That's why decentralized technologies should be researched. It is hard to block something if it is randomly spreaded among thousands of computers. But, sadly, such techologies have way lower popularity and quality than centralized ones. For example, try to search for decentralized TH-cam alternative. Lots of results will be scam, other will be slow and glitchy. But it is of course possible to make them great. Just no one cares. Because thinking is a hard thing.
One can say that's largely also true of copyrights and patents. I think the basic idea of copyrights and patents is good, but the length of time they apply for and the way patents in particular are used as a way to stifle competition and innovation is terrible. That's not a new problem either - the Wright Brothers patent wars stifled the early aviation industry and could have had disastrous long term consequences if the US Government hadn't stepped in to (mostly) resolve the issue due to WW I.
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360 The bible.
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360 that's where starlink comes in .
@@dru4670 yes, it will help a lot. But server with data in most cases will be still located in one physical place, which is a vulnerability.
When I lost my shit: my first article, after we paid for it to be published, was behind a paywall TO THE AUTHORS! My colleagues and I never received an author's copy. Many of my colleagues no longer worked in academia so they couldn't read it! I had to download it and send it to them, which was according to the publisher, illegal. Our own work was behind a paywall, after we paid for it! After we paid for it to be published! How is this legal? How? How? How?
capitalism that's how
@@minikipp8549 "capitalism"
that's a strange way to spell "chutzpah", must be SA english?
jesus Christ im sorry
@@channul4887 SA English?
wow you got literally shafted
One of my teachers said once: "the pdf will ACCIDENTALLY appear on the Drive folder, DO NOT download it, it has everything you need for this course, I repeat DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT".
We had the same. Our professor 'accidentally' sent us his book PDF, which the publishers had the rights to but charged ridiculous prices. He said DO NOT DOWNLOAD it, I didn't send it ;)))))))
If the author *wants* you to *pirate* their book, maybe the publisher kinda *deserve* it
@@aysepersona4194 Please notify people to keep updating the URLs into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis!
Sci-Hub, Library_Genesis and others need to migrate between Generic top-level domains from time to time (.st .se .tw and others).
#WikiLetters (Finally into wikidata www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98053916 ) supports the quality-checking of science, and WL aims to bring2everyone@everywhere the virtual-gears between the pages mentioned above of wikipedia and sources of science.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or if you wish to make a nice demonstration of how WikiLetters works via youtube or vimeo, we very much appreciate.
WL aims for #RealOpencience without bribing the bureaucracy of the system.
Thank you very much!
I like your teacher
My professor did something similar hehe. She said: "I can have the book because they gave me the pdf to teach. And it is in my pendrive, which is on this computer on my desk... Oh my, I had an instant urge to drink coffee, I will be back in 10 minutes."
RIP Aaron Swartz. his death should have been a wake-up call for how wrong restricting education + information is, yet when money is involved, seeing casualties has become normal. we live in such a sick world, and people like him and Alexandra were trying to mend it. it's so messed up that they're being punished for it, like isn't it the point of society to strive to make the world a better place? or is that just what we're sold/told so we wouldn't question the corruption that is at the root of everything...
Yes we are being brainwashed to be good, obidient and never question things.
These include even the students of universities.
....
The world is run by criminals and plethora of crooks.
Watch interviews, documentaries covering psychopaths, sociopaths or narsisists. Mind boggling
This Aaron Swartz apparently committed suicide by hanging.
I am not buying this crap.
he didn't end himself
he knew too much about powerful people
@@2MinuteHockey no, he absolutely killed himself. I knew him in real life. More importantly, I have heard this from literally all of his loved ones. He suffered from very deep depression and despair as the cops threw insane threats at him, including veiled threats to hurt his friends and family. There's no conspiracy here, just a human tragedy.
This is so high quality it should be behind a paywall. But really, contents like these are the reason I go to youtube, I hope the algorithms are in your favor.
Praise be the Algorithm for recommending this to me
"The Algorithm" prefers controversial and/or anger provoking matter. Source: computer scientist Jaron Lanier.
This sure falls into this category,
so this time it works in our favour.
“If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.”
Citation needed ;)
@@Elesario Citation not possible, op is now behind a paywall.
This contradicts everything about America's laws today
That is a morally reprehensible argument. Psychopaths feel laws are all unjust, and it is very likely almost all criminals do. "If a law is unjust, a man is right to devote his life to changing it."
@@PrimeMatt Although I understand where this sentiment is coming from, I still struggle to agree with your solution. Justice, unlike science, is subjective and is should preferably be agreed upon by consensus, not the whims of any certain individual. In my mind, when I do have a say in the making of the laws that govern me, I cannot demand others follow the laws that suite me, while I myself disregard the ones that don't. If a law been enacted after public discourse, and after I, and other like minded individuals, have been given a fair chance to express our concern and to sway the opinion of both the public and lawmakers, yet we ultimately failed, I have no other option but to concede temporary defeat, and obey them, until they are amended or repelled to my satisfaction, through continued struggle. If you truly have no saying in the laws that govern you, like living under an autocratic regime, or being a member of a legally marginalized group, then power to you, no taxes without representation. In my opinion, democracy as a system is not broken, it's just that we, the general public, mostly refuse to use the tools it provides us, leaving only the rich and powerful choose for us without much resistance.
Sci-hub is basically the reason why I even finished my thesis
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Yes of course
"Nothing is happening because I have been completely ignoring this issue for the time being. " spoken like a true scientist
Researcher here. I had a paper published recently, which the team paid to make open access forever. The cost was astronomical! The science journal system is totally broken.
Edit: While I appreciate preprints, they can cause problems because they are not peer reviewed (although I know peer review is also riddled with problems).
Edit edit: Totally agree that 'publish or perish' must die.
In 2013 PloS paid $830,216 to their CEOs (they had two), $304K to the CFO ...
Open access is basically a scam; how does it come that Sci-hub can mantain milions of papers on their servers only with donation money while fighting the censorship, yet "Esteemed Journals" has to charge 1500-3000 USD per PAPER?
[A day or so later edit]: I see that some commentators were confused by me calling "Open Access" a scam. My bad, so, by the power bestowed upon me by the mighty "Edit" button, please allow me to clarify: Open Access in academia often simply mean that the author pay a very large sum, otherwise their article goes behind a paywall. This system in promoted by the same sharks our beloved doctor was talking of in this video.
@@alexandruianosi8469 well, she's not "fighting the censorship", she's ignoring it XD
@@Daniel-yy3ty By censorship I meant the fact that every now and then Sci-hub has to move their domain name to obscure TLDs.
@@alexandruianosi8469 oh, that... Fair enough
*Yes it should be free. ALL knowledge deserves to be free. Yes, scientists and educators need funding, but it's not like journals nowadays are paying them anyway*
What if one holds some knowledge they don't want to share because of personal or other reasons?
People will always try to hide some knowledge from others - be it ability to make fire that you wanna spread amongst your tribe and don't let your rival tribe get their hands on, or knowledge and intricacies of producing nuclear weapons. And people will always hate each other, as it's in nature and required for progress.
If you can come up with a society with no hatred in any form - you can enjoy free information for everyone.
Though I completely agree that it's annoying to have paywalls everywhere, but seems that it's just how it works at this period of time. Or one of the major domains at least
@@fUtal1mistake Why shift the goalpoast? "All knowledge should be free" refers to the price of science and any other knowledge that is already meant to be published by the author. No one talked about every information (note: difference between information and knowledge) being available for everyone. Of course PRIVACY should exist, that is not a question anyone has asked. But if I WANT to SHARE something that I've worked on, that should be possible without either half the world not being able to afford it or me having to take the expenses.
You're right that it is how it works right now, because capitalism has made it a crucial part of itself that it's logic and laws spread into every part of society. But in what way does that mean you cannot change it? If no one tries, it will just be like this forever
@@fUtal1mistake Sure hating your rival tribe and not telling them about your fire making skills is beneficial for you in the short term. Until another tribe arrives and allies with your rivals against you and wipes you out.
@@fUtal1mistake wtf re you talking about? Do you really think that paying 40 dolars for an important article will stop some bad people from reading it? Thats not the point..
another point. If the government with my small percentage of taxes funds the research. That research Should be open to perusal by everyone. Selling it to some group and They make you pay again to read it is Foul man. Just Foul.
The story about how rich parasites are halting the progress of the whole humanity. Classic.
Yet if you realise there must be something wrong with how we structure the economy you're called a communist, curious 🤔
Indeed. Greedy people hold the progress.
I'm a biotechnology student in Iran and bc of sanctions we can't even pay as long as the publisher is abroad! My deepest gratitude to Alexandra and sci-hub!also every time her GIF pops up I wave too😂😂
You can use a VPN and use a foreign server
Hahahaha, I wave as well!
@@starboycstreet6230 No bro....the only way is to launder money to publishers😂. VPN can't help
@@starboycstreet6230 wouldn't that be illegal if he's caught?
@@juliocanche7822 Oh no! A university student read a study without paying... the world has come to an end.
Omg the girl waving at me on Sci-hub actually exist!
Ha ha I love her!! It puts a smile on my face when I see her wave and I wave back! Amidst annoying reading sessions hahah!!
lmao
Same thought 😂
@@nancydeborah7918 Maybe she looks cute, but she is actually a pro Stalin and Mao- commie. I can say that for sure since I know Russian and can read her posts in Internet.
@@RWKIN probably... I do not know russian nor do I follow here on the internet... But that site actually helps alot of students from countries and universities like mine where quality of education is a huge gamble! Not defending or opposing her political views as I don't know enough to comment about that!
Alexandra is going to heaven cause she has made my whole student life easier. I certainly would not be able to pay 100 to 200$ in order to get my sources for ONE research paper or essay and my university could not care less. YES, knowledge should be free, especially for the people inside a field of science...
Clearly she should rename the website to the library of Alexandra
@andreea Are you saying that universities pay for access but don’t share it with their own students?
@@anonimushbosh Generally it is to costly to pay for all the papers, so uni's only have some and if you study something abit out of the norm you are f'ed :/
@Filip Nikolic Hopefully not!
@@timothywilliams8530 That'd be amazing! I'd be down with naming it after her.
As a scientist i say: yes, of course! Publishing institutions like Elsevier used to be completely free and... "somehow".... they've managed to exist as they do now. It is an extreme rabble to push scientists into payment for their own work, especially that they use public money to perform research. As such, this money should return to the public exactly in the form of 100% free science.
Oh wow....now that just _feels_ unethical all over. Public money taken and then the data published behind paywalls
short answer: YES. long live Alexandra and sci-hub
As a uni student, fk yes
Yes
Long live!!
I love sci-hub
just to give my own opinion, academic journals are extremely expensive for third world nations. One could argue about the morality in western nations with decent wages but for people living anywhere else the subscriptions could range from weekly to monthly expenses for a student at least (and that's not even factoring in what is not available on a certain journal website)
I live in El Salvador (latin america)and here our own teachers promote scihub because it is impossible to study and reference articles without it
@@bryanmanuelsalguero4729 And my programming professors all demonize non-OpenSource massively employed software!
Even 20 years ago I could have spent my entire research budget on a couple of journal subscriptions. These days if your institution doesn't have the journal you want in their "package" it's often completely impossible to get it at all. One subscription, to some random researchers... they're not interested in such piffling details.
Please notify people to keep updating the URLs into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis!
Sci-Hub, Library_Genesis and others need to migrate between Generic top-level domains from time to time (.st .se .tw and others).
#WikiLetters (Finally into wikidata www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98053916) supports the quality-checking of science, and WL aims to bring2everyone@everywhere the virtual-gears between the pages mentioned above of wikipedia and sources of science.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or if you wish to make a nice demonstration of how WikiLetters works via youtube or vimeo, we very much appreciate.
WL aims for #RealOpencience without bribing the bureaucracy of the system.
Thank you very much!
Amen. It's a fucking month's salary in India sometimes, don't know what I could've done without Scihub (scraping through hundreds of seedy torrent sites doesn't sound very appealing)
Your micro advertisement pitching is unmatched. Chapeau.
"Illegal is not always wrong" if only the masses could understand this too!
I owe my post grad to scihub, it's a saviour, won runner-up in best paper and topped exam due to it . We would be lost without it. I feel Alexandra elbakyan should be awarded noble prize for science. I don't feel any other person has brought greater impact in science for everyone than her.
This is so true! I think Elsevier should be the company getting sued by the public.
noble prize :)
@@ChiragN24 All publishing companies should be sued and taken away the right to sell other people works.
Yes. It should be FREE when it's ALREADY BEEN PAID FOR.
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
- Frederick Douglass
Which is why you need to be at least a millionaire to afford a decent education heh
Millionaires are pretty dumb individuals. Monetary wealth doesn't measure intelligence, it measures greed, ruthlessness, cunning and the ability to take advantage of and step over everybody else. The renowned schools of the rich are there not to educate but to make connections that will be useful for the future business.
Watching this video now after getting my first paper back from peer review, the dichotomy between "seems fine" and "this is the worst paper I've ever read" hits close to home
I can firmly declare that at certain point in my life i have earned more on a monthly level as a street musician than as a PhD student (with publications and a patent application) at one of the most renowned medical research institutes in Europe. Not because you earn millions by playing on the streets, but because PhD, Post Doc and PI wages in academia are shamefully low considering the amount of work and working hours (weekends included) that are invested into it. Being pushed to publish so you can get a 1-2 year grant to cover your wage is a very real thing. Safe contracts in academia are a rarity, and yet the public perception is that being in the ivory tower of academia makes you filthy rich.
That's one of my major points against conspiracy theorists- medical researchers, biochem professors, all those sorts of people, became researchers rather than going to work directly for Big Pharma because they like being right more than they like money. There's no paying off the guy who worked for 15 years at sub-minimum wage before he got a decent contract to get him to lie to the public or keep something hidden when he could publish the Article of the Century about the topic instead!
Please notify people to keep updating the URLs into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis!
Sci-Hub, Library_Genesis and others need to migrate between Generic top-level domains from time to time (.st .se .tw and others).
#WikiLetters (Finally into wikidata www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98053916 ) supports the quality-checking of science, and WL aims to bring2everyone@everywhere the virtual-gears between the pages mentioned above of wikipedia and sources of science.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or if you wish to make a nice demonstration of how WikiLetters works via youtube or vimeo, we very much appreciate.
WL aims for #RealOpencience without bribing the bureaucracy of the system.
Thank you very much!
@UCUUSDD2je7FQAGYTcJ9WNhg indeed. I was at Karolinska, we need 4 publications to finish a PhD, but your mentor can decide if you are allowed to use a certain publication for your thesis or not. On average people end up needing 6-8 of those. Or at least this was back in my days. At KI you also need to defend your thesis, your experimental design and hypotheses at the beginning of your PhD. Only then you are considered a registered PhD student at KI. It can take up to a year of work for this to happen, and the salary prior to defense is öower than the social help. Afterwards it gets better but it is still very tight for living in Stockholm as the rents are high and very little housing is available. I know Netherlands is different but still not immune from the insecurities. (let alone if you're a woman who wants a family)
@@Stereochemistry In Belgium we get an above national average wage though and I believe it is the same regardless of the field you're doing your research in. In my case (structural engineering) we need at least 2 peer-reviewed publications or 1 and a patent submission. So I'm actually pretty fortunate that I'm able to do this kind of work.
@@porschepanamera92 so happy to read this!! This is how it should be. Unfortunately it is quite the opposite in at least a few other countries in Europe. Italy being one of them, for example. Greece, too. Berlin/Germany depends a bit on the grants you land but you're definitely not above the average wage as a PhD student. North Germany we're talking around 1400-1900 euro/month depending on the city, south Germany it's more like 2000-2400 eur/month but living costs in Bavaria for example are much higher than in Berlin. Still, you're also above the utter misery you get in Italy (1132, 71 euro a month since 2019, it used to be 800 eur in 2007 when i first applied snd then got raised to 1000 euro 2 years later. Mind you, Northern Italy is pretty pricey, especially Milan and the surrounding area where renting a mini appartement can easily cost you 700 euro. So i wish the rest of the EU looks up more to Belgium!
I found sci-hub more user-friendly than logging in via our university subscription.
I passed med school thanks to sci-hub.
Watching your video, I realised it's time for a donation.
Who knew Sci-hub was illegal. 🤷🏿♂️😅☕.
It is highly likely that Elsevier's owner will use medication or a technology developed by researchers who used sci-hub in the process. I mean even people who have access to papers via university subscription use sci-hub when they are off campus or at home.
Not only off campus, there was a study done on traffic to sci-hub and they found that there was a significant amount of downloads from large universities with subscriptions to journals.
One suggestion (I don't remember if they actually did interviews etc., but it was at least suggested) was that it was much easier for students to always open everything in sci-hub, or that they just got used to do it. Might also help that sci-hub actually has a usable user interface.
@@satoshiwasareptiloid3777 yeah, i read some paper mentioned that most people use sci hub not because they have no access, but it's just so easy and time saver, especially if you have the sci hub extension
Probably your university hasn't access to all possible journals, or your faculty atleast.
my uni let's me log in on any device off campus and see papers but still they aren't subscribed to everything always so i use sci-hub sometimes
@@satoshiwasareptiloid3777 can confirm that i am often just too lazy to check which licenses my university has over multiple different sources and sites when i can just open it all in sci-hub.
actually a complaint some professors had is that because of sci-hub we students forget how to do our "actual legal research" via the official way but why invest so much time just to check if the paper is even what you need??
Is there a gofundme out there dedicated to getting Alexandra the best Goddamn lawyers team that exists so she can fight with these big companies? Cause I'd join that as quickly as possible
@@JustxStupid That's the most beautiful thing I've heard all day
They can’t touch her so why hire lawyers. She’s in the perfect position to do what she’s doing and get away with it, otherwise her name and face would not be known. Love it. Essentially giving the middle finger to publishing companies.
@@dionagona8205 fuck yeah, sticking it to man and knowing they can't do anything about it
@@JustxStupidBut she is in Kazakhstan right now? It doesn't contradict your thesis tho, nobody really cares about piracy and copyright in CIS countries.
@@JustxStupid Im not sure what you mean by "nazi Ukraine", but just in case: Ukraine is neither nazi nor part of Russia
Alexandra means defender of mankind. She is doing just that.
Please notify people to keep updating the URLs into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis!
Sci-Hub, Library_Genesis and others need to migrate between Generic top-level domains from time to time (.st .se .tw and others).
#WikiLetters (Finally into wikidata www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98053916 ) supports the quality-checking of science, and WL aims to bring2everyone@everywhere the virtual-gears between the pages mentioned above of wikipedia and sources of science.
We ask you to make a nice demonstration of how WikiLetters works via youtube or vimeo, we very much appreciate.
This is an example ( th-cam.com/video/FRT22L9wc5E/w-d-xo.html ), from which you can generate a better version on your own channel.
WL aims for #RealOpencience without bribing the bureaucracy of the system.
A.S. rip. And Alexa, we will not forget your masterpiece!!!
Thank you very much!
@@fernandoandutta Or just download Telegram, and add @SciHub bot to your contacts, and instead of searching, you just enter the DOI of the article in the chat box
Someone give this girl an award or something, what she has done is of incomprehensible value and justified.
She worthy of nobel prices
She deserves a nobel prize.
And instead they're suing her 😟
The role of Maxwell in all of this was a revelation to me. I never knew anything about that, and I’ve been necessarily accessing scientific literature for some 40 years now, and paying for it myself in recent decades (although as little as possible at around 30 quid a time). Another thing that gets me is there is no expiry date on charging for articles. I recently wanted the full text of a paper published in 1920 as the abstract contained a very elegant statement of the problem … but I just couldn’t justify buying it to myself, as it was unlikely to add much of real relevance. Things must change …
if only you knew how deep the rabbit hole goes
Are the articles not on sci-hub? If they are, I don't understand why you'd pay for them.
Honestly, yeah, I hate the scam of scientific journal prices. They literally get content for FREE. The costs for the research are all covered by outside sources. Peer reviewers don’t get paid either. If not free, at least the costs should be much lower to better reflect the costs of creating the journals, basically the the printing costs, no the cost of the content.
The printing costs are likely covered by the adverts in journals... or some journals at least.
Printing? More like the cost of maintaining a website
Honestly they could charge 10¢ for each paper instead of the usual $30, and still make some profit.
@@hliask903 It's a complete rip-off rn.
Same applies to arts publishing, actually.
When I was at the uni, we had a seminar in scientific writing. When we asked if we could use Wikipedia as a source. The professor rejected the idea, saying that Wikipedia's open-edit model makes its articles untrustworthy. To illustrate the point, he went to a random article and tried to edit it. The edit got reversed by an anti-vandal bot before he could even Ctrl+F5 the browser.
In a way he is correct, just not for the reasons he believed in...
Wikipedia shouldn’t be used as a source
@@tonikansanoja1202 Let's be clear here, Wikipedia is not a reliable source (as aptly stated in a wiki article of the same name), but going out of the way to vandalize Wikipedia to prove this point should always be frowned upon. The saboteurs don't get to judge the wholeness of the things they broke.
@@tonikansanoja1202 But it's a good starting point and you should check the sources for the sections you're interested in.
I once discussed with my professor why Wikipedia isn't a good source, and we came to the following conclusions:
1. When quoting wikipedia, you should always quote a specific version of the page, not just date, but just go into edit history and quote the url of the last edit.
2. You should credit all the editors who edited the page as authors of the quoted source.
3. And here comes the main issue with quoting wikipedia - you can't verify the credentials of the authors. Unless they use a cryptographic signature or something, there's no way of linking the editor account with a real person. While on one hand it means you can't check if they're a known expert in the field, or just some hobbyist, or even someone with no credentials at all, the worst part is that they risk (almost) nothing by publishing untrue information. Whereas if an author is known, they risk their reputation, possibly their job, or may even face legal action, if they publish BS, a wikipedia editor risks at best losing privileges if they had any special rights granted e.g. for being a long time editor.
This talk was a breath of fresh air. You'll find many of us scientists agreeing with you.
The whole of scientific tradition and history would herald Alexandra as a hero. The Giants from which the shoulders we stand on would look down on Elselvier
Long term, having a single person legally responsible for the open access repository is doomed. Alexandra is a hero, no question, but as recent events have shown, it's time to move to a decentralized system where there are thousands of mirrors and hundreds of entry points, so publishers have nothing useful to attack.
Love Alexandra Elbakyan, but never forget Aaron Swartz. He was, even, less lucky
I was going to say this, he died trying to make scientific publications free for everybody.
And Aaron was persecuted relentlessly by the US intelligence agencies. So the tentacles of these companies reach quite far.
They should be free to the public if one tax dollar is used in the research.
@@josephbeatty4421 So should you pay road tolls if the road was built with public money? And if one tax dollar? Really? I spend 2 years working on some art or production but get a 1% grant but then I'm not allowed to charge anyone to buy my artwork or see my show ?
@@mfascino to make it worse: the current people behind Reddit are scrubbing his involvement with him from Reddit.
I sent her an email asking her if she needed any assistance with Dev work. She actually responded. She's truly serving the community.
Having access to most research through my university I learned that most of the papers you look up aren't what you're looking for and often the procedures are either described poorly or just straight up can't be replicated. If I had to pay 30$ for every piece of disappointment I read, I'd be broke within months.
Months?? Whoa take look at this guy, spreading around with his cash! :-P
@@sockaccount8116 Nah that's just because I'm lazy :)
My university only gives people access to journals when they're on campus for some bizarre reason, so (since I can't really travel there at the minute) it's safe to say Sci-Hub is the only reason I'm not failing my Master's degree. I definitely couldn't afford all the sources I use - it'd be something like £600 per essay, and I have to write a lot of essays.
@@gaildahlas Access to journals is only granted to computers on a university network - every student or employee has VPN access to a university IP so working remotely isn't an issue.
I find it hard to imagine your uni doesn't have a working VPN access, especially with many employees being forced to work from home. Try asking your uni's IT service, they probably have a similar option.
@@Isolanporzellator Y'know, it would make a lot of sense if we did have something like that set up. I only started this year and everything's been in a fair bit of crisis, so they haven't told us new students anything about it at all. I guess it just got overlooked?
Thanks for the advice though - I'm off to email the IT service and hopefully make things easier for myself.
The waving girl is a lifesaver. Ma'am, you have no idea how i appreciate your work
I am doing my phd, and sci-hub is the miracle of god. Knowledge should be free for everyone
I'm only doing my final project for highschool but it's a godsend
Well, when you finish your PhD and write any work, I hope you won't object to people stealing your work...
@@jacklewis100 ...stealing would be plagiarism, not this
@@fionadreesbach3685 Not if I'm reselling it, even stating you as author.
@@jacklewis100 sci-hub gives it for free and the authors don't get paid by any journals. Did you even watch the video?
The explanation how it all started is hilarious. It's literally how a stereotypical poor, altruistic, nerd scientist didn't think ahead to understand how the stereotypical greedy businessman will exploit the scientist and get rich.
It's more like, things changed, and the business model didn't change with it, it just kept making more money. Journals used to cost money because there was actual work put into them by editors and other scientists and they had to go to print, all of that cost money which is why the business model exists. Then someone got spicy and decided to to take that into digital rights, put zero work in, plaster whatever up, and gate everything behind DRM charging a base fee for every paper.
If there was a properly maintained, searchable, service that regularly vetted works, and actually, you know, put work in. Then charged a small subscription fee to access, I think a lot of people would be okay with that.
@@tybera1114 Sweet child, you are proving the op's point. And also, pretty blind to the issue, but clearly on a point at which you just need to push a little bit further to reach clarity instead of justifications for something broken since inception!
@@magical571 where exactly did I justify the business practice in my post? I think it's pretty clear I find it muddling and exploitative with today's technology.
@@tybera1114 so let me get this straight, back then authors used to get payed by these research papers?
"...a stereotypical poor, altruistic, nerd scientist" who was wined, dined, and - the part they left out - plied with drugs of choice and prostitutes, most likely expensive toys of his choice, and his association was paid big money - until he agreed to publish in the "greedy businessman's" journal. Nerds are neither stupid nor altruistic: they're fallible humans.
My deepest gratitude to Alexandra Elbakyan, the person voice out our hardship as a scientist. Most of my professors did not get any form of royalty from those BS publications. 100% goes to them and nothing for us. She is making our life easier. Thank you so much Alexandra! Much love to you from Malaysia!
holy shit that's literally the smoothest sponsorship i've ever seen. bravo.
Scihub is my religion and Alexandra Elbakyan my goddess
@@Flaakk Sources?
@@Flaakk I just realized you're presumably trolling. Great job btw
@@Flaakk Just asking, because I have never heard anything of the sort, and I have been in the topic for quite some time. Even if this is true, it doesn't change that Sci-Hub is incredibly useful to me. It is also very simple: Paste doi, download paper.
John Smith Documentation, please.
@@Flaakk I haven't seen any mention of worshipping Stalin last time I've been there. Feel free to correct me though.
publishing companies: we got journals
comrade alexandra: OUR journals
much respect. especially for creating the website in 3 days.
Sci-Hub should be called Humanity-Hub
The last shelter of Humanity
Putting knowledge behind huge paywalls is so detrimental for the advancement of science and societies, specially since it hurts most those who live in developing countries that cannot afford to put the research out or have access to new information.
Fantastic video!
Alexandra: I just refused to pay the 15 million dollars.
Me: 😎😎😎😎😎
LOL! I love it!
Although I would assert that it's not so much a refusal to pay since that seems to at least partially imply (or perhaps suggest) that she is withholding payment as an act of defiance (as if she had the money to pay). Refusal also indicates (at least to me) a certain level of formal/legal acknowledgement; as well as a 'response' from her, or notification that she's refusing to pay. And yet, all of those aspects of refusal are absent from her actual behavior/actions.
Whereas her verbal explanatory response here is that she simply ignores it. So, basically until someone comes along to physically stop her in some manner from doing this, she will keep doing what she's doing and keep the site going.
And good for her!
👏Savage 👏Queen👏
Казах
@@DJJonPattrsn22
I think she might have the backing
of Mr Putin.
Rob a man of everything, and he will no longer be in your power.
The most BS part is that the money go to the CEO of the journals and not the editors or writers/researchers. get rid of the middleman. Its like a parasite sucking the system dry.
Here's an idea: co-op research journal.
Problem is that Senior researchers support this system, believe in reputation and impact factors of "serious journals" and young researchers need to enter this system if they want to stay in academia.
Wow! I did not know that from watching the video. Except I did.
@@sigurdtheblue Wow! My comment wasn't intended to inform you. It was a statement relating to the video. Go be a asshole somewhere else.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 to help you, yes you are might be correct. I have seen some proofs from the researchers themselvss that the profits do not send to them
FYI if anyone is ever looking for just a hand full of papers, email the author and they will usually gladly send you a copy
Yesss, this is very helpful to know
Author also has no access here 🙋🏾♀️
Kaushila Thilakasiri They could send you the unformatted accepted copy or the uncorrected proof copy. Also, the journal usually gives a free PDF copy that can be shared with colleagues or used as lecture material.
@baby bean true 😅. One benefit of emailing the author is that you can ask follow up questions and get clarification on specifics, which has proved especially useful when I’ve been required to realize their theoretical model in my practical code. Few or no peer reviewers are going to not only replicate the study, but then go build some critical infrastructures on that theory.
@@IndigoIndustrial why should I opt for an “unformatted copy” of my own work when there is sci-hub which is an option only banned by current law which will o day change like the law of slavery being legal one time in the world.
You nailed this one! As a PhD geologist, but retired from industry I no longer have easy (or maybe any) access to scientific publications. It’s especially annoying because research is often funded at least in part by public money (some tiny portion of my taxes).
the aaron schwartz incident will always makes me sad and will also makes my blood boil.
12:25 I got goosebumps and felt really uncomfortable when I heard the end of the poor Aaron Swartz, when at the end I heard "he hanged himself". The system is really broken :(.
This documentary about Aaron Swartz is excellent (and very sad) ---> th-cam.com/video/9vz06QO3UkQ/w-d-xo.html
Me too
What is really upsetting & frightening to me is that with just a little bit of investigation it becomes apparent that so many of our systems (throughout civilization, on virtually every level & topic) are broken; and in some way spoiled or sabotaged by greed!
People devise more & more obtuse and clever ways to disguise greed, or come up with some kind of seemingly viable & reasonable justification for it.
Mártir
me too :((
WOW, Love how a Russian-Kazakhstanian woman changes the scientific world! Greetings from an Uzbek!
First time to ever hit "like" on a video - I'm 34 years old, watched countless hours of youtube and enjoyed a lot of it but nothing ever inspired me to actually click "like" when told to click like and subscribe. Medlife Crisis, thank you for making this video, doing the interview and promoting others' work on this topic, shedding light on this issue - it's a stain on science, on humanity's inheritance from our brightest minds, who work so hard to contribute their effort to the common good. Our greatest heroes, yourself included. Thank you.
Just wait till you find out that the 10th edition of your college textbook is just the same as the 9th and the 8th and they just keep switching the same stuff around.
Don't you just download it illegally?
Irony of the system: Every University paying million dollars to access same research published by their own researchers
Can't anyone make Wikipedia for research
Unfortunately Wikipedia is prone to edits by the public which makes it not reliable. However the references it has is something that I often use.
@@ken90ny I already mentioned "Wikipedia for research" it is not like normal Wikipedia page
@@abhaymaurya6784 more a pirate bay of research
@@ken90ny A mayor step in the right direction would be for universities to be the ones to grant one the editing privilege. When you get a degree you get a personified account showing your degrees. Maybe have restrictions in place based on the degrees one holds. Also a backlog of prior versions of the articles and a mechanism for depriving one of the editing privileges.
Universities from countries that have serious fake degree problems should of course be excluded.
It is on :), and will definitely grow at large steps when people start to spread the word en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group
I just hope more studies with negative results can be made available. There have to be people wasting time and money on studies that return negative results, which have actually already been done over and over again, and the next people to do the study don't know about it because negative results don't get published
How would you even know that an experiment genuinely doesn't work and that it wasn't just an error on the side of experimenter? Stuff being tried over and over again because you don't know it's been tried already is one thing but I could just as easily imagine a scenario where someone doesn't follow through on a good idea because someone else falsely reported that it doesn't work.
To make it worse, how would you even begin to set the bar for what to include? There is an infinite amount of chemical reactions or biological experiments that don't work, some more obvious than others. Do I get to publish all my failed attempts at turning lead into gold?
@@JackFou I believe the answer to your first question is "to make the experiment and results publically available and then see if they can be replicated". As to the rest... I am referring to plenty of research that is done in universities that doesn't get published because the results are boring or inconclusive. It's all data. Maybe if the alchemists had had a centralised data base of failed experiments that had been tried and replicated they would have abandoned the quest to turn lead into gold much more quickly.
@@JackFou research journals already have their own standards for bad procedure and there are plenty of screening tests that can be applied to papers and are already being used in things such as meta-analysis. What you are talking about is something science has already considered and maybe it could go further and be better. But the issue is good solid science is being refused by research journals because the results aren’t exciting enough e.g. non-significant results or negative results, this is a known issue as that has been demonstrated through research and is regularly spoken about by academics and in universities.
@@JackFou False negatives are possible, but false positives are going to be a lot more common. This is in part because most possible ideas are false, and in part because scientists are able and strongly encouraged to interpret their data in ways that give positive results.
As for publishing your failed alchemical experiments, I honestly can't see any good reason why you shouldn't.
@@OptimalOwl Have you ever worked as an experimental scientist?
Whether an experiment works is not a yes/no dichotomy. Experimental parameters are a problem with many dimensions and small variations can have large effects on the outcome.
The issue with null results is that you need to be very careful about what you can conclude from it. WHY didn't the expected or desired result materialize? Is it something that's inherently not possible? Is the study design flawed? Is it an issue with the data? Is the entire premise wrong?
There could be a million reasons why something didn't work.
Information about failed experiments could be useful for reference, to see whether other people struggled with the same issues when you're running into errors.
However, simply taking negative results at face value and concluding that x doesn't work and therefore we don't need to waste more time and resources studying it, would be the wrong way to go about it.
During my BA, I was adamant on pirating everything I could exactly because researchers and even our most graduate professors weren't paid a dime for their work. The only person I know profited something from publishing articles was the Chairman of the University Publishing House lol
Alexandra has singlehandedly changed the world by herself..insane
That's a tautology.
"If you want common knowledge to be true then you must first let true knowledge be common"
Google Scholar returns 47 results for "thank alexandra elbakyan." These include articles published in Elsevier's _NeuroImage,_ Springer Nature's _Science Reports,_ World Scientific's _Modern Physics Letters A,_ and other high profile, high price journals.
Oh well... time to access them anyway...
The irony 🤣
Oof
It sounds like those researchers used sci-hub, but ultimately for publication they couldnt get out of the whole system.
Google scholar was hard to use , let’s say it was not user friendly for me .
The same thing applies to scholarly research in archaeology. I've been trying to research a particular subject on early medieval Britain. There are some excellent published works, but when you need to read 30 of them at 30 quid a time....
I didn't know about sci-hub. Got kicked out of university when I got sick and lost all access to all the "good stuff" on sites like Wiley. On my wish list since then has been things like "a Tesla, a house in the country, a girlfriend, access to wiley, a cb radio and a kayak". Thanks to this video, and years of hard work, I now only have the Tesla and cb radio left. Thank you! 🧐
I had no idea that scientific journals were such a racket. That's just evil.
It is a disaster. In my university sometimes you have to pay to publish the journal to the website such as elsevier to be published. Only god knows if the papers are worth tobe published. Because usually they lack detail, maybe just 20-30% papers on same topic give you the thing youre looking for.
Yep they take money from scientists to even get their paper considered for publishing and then takes money from the reader to read them
oh yes
I live in Syria, a place where we cannot pay via credit cards due to restrictions from many countries in the world and we can't access many websites, let alone download some article, so Sci-hub is our go to. Thank you Alexandra. Thank you for helping me with my Msc degree and to understand many problems I've had and resolving them.
And thank you for discussing this issue.
And the world claim they are helping you with those restrictions.
I took a year of psychology and got to help my professor in one of those publish or perish situations. Seeing first-handfirsthand what his life was like, and how awfully stressed out he was, disencouraged me from following that path. I really, really hope this can change for the better. I hope its not like in old Greece where only the richest could have time (or resources) to think.
Well I think there's something we can borrow from the old Greeks here. They justified the existence of scientists and philosophers and such as a necessary "leisure class"
Maybe we should see scientists that way today. Competent people that should be left 100% to their own devices. As long as they prove they're actually active and have the skills, they should be left alone. Go home early to think? Let them. Take 10 years for one specific study? Sure.
If we change our expectations from scientists having to be actively publishing, into them having to be at leisure, living out and acting on their curiosity, it will all be better. Good scientists are obsessed with knowledge, they will never be inactive, even if they look like they are.
That's what I think right now.
I believe my comment has been deleted.
I was suggesting that perhaps the way to start solving the problem is to borrow something from these old Greeks that I think they got right.
They justified the existence of scientists and philosophers as a necessary "leisure class".
It was expected that they would look as if they aren't doing much (especially in a world where the norm was to work in manual labor), but that once in a while they'll come out with amazing thoughts and books.
Perhaps we shouldn't expect scientists to publish several times a year. Perhaps we should let them be. If they go home early to think, let them. If they think some study is going nowhere, let them drop it.
In this view, you'd give grants to scientists not due to a specific idea or the perceived impact of a specific grant proposal, but due to their reputation as being prolific and capable.
The way a Greek King would support science is by looking for the best ones, giving them a load of cash, a laboratory, a blank check on materials, give their "disciples" some more, and leave them alone for the next decade. In return, they'll offer you (the King) advice by their own initiative, and perhaps some knowledge that'll prove useful to the nation.
The career of a scientist here then would be to pair themselves early on with one such reputable scientist and get a name of their own. After recognition from peers as a good reviewer, good thinker or good researcher, these scientists shall get their own personal funding. And once they get it, *you do not meddle.*
Publish or perish is the industrial revolution intruding in science. We have to go back for now and rethink this. Science was NEVER expected to give real results. Science is NOT Technology, and it should never be seen like that, and the world has been all the worse these last decades since we decided to mix them.
Technology is in truth closer to carpentry than it is to science. It takes from knowledge of how things are, and does something practical with it. Science is about the search of truths regarding the Universe, it's pie-in-the-sky by nature, it is not meant to be grounded in practicality, but its discoveries shall nourish every other lower field, including technology and carpentry. A pragmatic scientist is an awful scientist, and likely not worthy of the name at all. Yet today, if a scientist ought to survive at all, he has to be pragmatic.
The 21st century is technocratic, and science is suffering the most for it.
Nice homage to Aaron* and Alexandra!
* I literally broke up in tears when I heard of his demise.
Please notify people to keep updating the URLs into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis!
Sci-Hub, Library_Genesis and others need to migrate between Generic top-level domains from time to time (.st .se .tw and others).
#WikiLetters (Finally into wikidata www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98053916 ) supports the quality-checking of science, and WL aims to bring2everyone@everywhere the virtual-gears between the pages mentioned above of wikipedia and sources of science.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or if you wish to make a nice demonstration of how WikiLetters works via youtube or vimeo, we very much appreciate.
WL aims for #RealOpencience without bribing the bureaucracy of the system.
Thank you very much!
My native language is Russian, I speak English fluently, and listening to your interview with Alexandra was a very weird experience. My brain kinda cracked. :DD
I am not native to English nor Russian, but I speak both, and I had a bit of ego self-stroking (if you know what I mean) when I realized I was just listening the interview in 2 different foreign languages, without any subtitles :-P
+
I have a feeling that there was an interpreter involved. I think you can hear a part of a phrase spoken by a third person once
@@user-rcghjewqw Indeed. But no secret is made of it. You can see the translator at 11:26. He also thanks them in the description (along with the author of the subtitles).
"Dan Allan
1 month ago
@Konstantin Kivi Indeed. But no secret is made of it. You can see the translator at 11:26. He also thanks them in the description (along with the author of the subtitles). "
The translator even has a name....Rachel.
Elsevier: if you think knowledge should be free, go to wikipedia.
Scientist: Great!. Pay me.
Elsevier: Shocked Picachu face
Elsevier doesn't have that much great magazines anyways
Holy shit.
I love how much you commit to the bit, filming "outtakes" of you reading your script and then pretending to be distracted by being called to see a patient. it would almost convince me you were a real doctor if I didn't know any better
Thankfully, Alexandra lives in Kazakhstan. She would already have been shut off, if she lived in the West.
God bless you, Alexandra!
It is all of humanity that should be suing these corporations not them suing us.
The disgusting fact is even though studying at Nottingham University at the time there were articles I still could not access. and you had to apply through the library service to get those on 'science'.
This was in part responsible for lowering my grade to a 'third' degree in genetics, the other was the poor speed of computing; referencing is a pain in the as-.
Now working as a production operative and no free money to throw away at sporadic scientific e-papers, an opportunity to access free information is the only way I can keep in touch with my prior Vocation.
Information should be free and its correct interpretation is vital. There is too much misinformation on the internet, and hiding the results of research has real-world consequences; such as in medicine where patient well-being is impaired by restricting access to data that may suggest or implicate a particular form of treatment.
Another irritation despite being advertised in magazine format, those journal publications are never sold in the supermarket, the most scientific magazines there; new scientist, 'science focus' and national geographic are second or third-hand information, open to journalist interpretation bias and confined by area of interest.
No-wonder the general public erroneously believe scientists to be secretive or nefarious. Public resistance to GM technology is such a consequence.
Please notify people to keep updating the URLs into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis!
Sci-Hub, Library_Genesis and others need to migrate between Generic top-level domains from time to time (.st .se .tw and others).
#WikiLetters (Finally into wikidata www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98053916 ) supports the quality-checking of science, and WL aims to bring2everyone@everywhere the virtual-gears between the pages mentioned above of wikipedia and sources of science.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or if you wish to make a nice demonstration of how WikiLetters works via youtube or vimeo, we very much appreciate.
WL aims for #RealOpencience without bribing the bureaucracy of the system.
Thank you very much!
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Yep, people being fixated on "organic" and being afraid of GMO is a huge problem.
@@GameFuMaster this is sooo true man, as an aspiring genetic scientist, this has almost made me change my career
Um hey, I'm an aspiring geneticist, don't know when you completed your degree, but do you have any idea of which are some good/best universities to kickstart a career in this field.
I searched as best as I could online, but this seems to be a niche, with very little or no information, I've eventually realized that the only way to know things about what's going on in this industry, is to ask other people who are in this field.
Now, I know that random strangers on the internet asking about your profession is least of your concern and many would just refuse to answer, but I don't have any other option, I just have to keep trying in hopes.
I can't even seem to find a online community/forum dedicated to this.
Because of this (lack of information/misinformation) many of my peers just end up switching careers, this would create ---> lack of researchers ----> lack of research ----> very slow progress in the field, now after this, it can go in many different paths, I won't go into those.
Faulty research, and conspiracy theories are easily accessible, while if I want to be scientifically literate I'll have to shell money, that's a problem
Simultaneous policy change in Europe and the United States would be necessary to push those journals out either by the government or by universities, the rest of the world would likely follow if a big enough chunk of the scientific community went that way
I never used school or paid for things. A lot of information is free and libraries have a lot of information available.
If you're from a place where libraries aren't reliable that is a big problem, but besides that, you don't need to pay to be proficient in a topic in science. The problem arises when you are proficient and want to dive deeper and follow along with the current progression.
Here's the thing mate, I'm in Indonesia, and public services like libraries are difficult to come by, I try to be scientifically literate, if I have a question I go to Google scholars, but half the time it's behind a pay wall
Smartphone sci library is an option in my area. Refrigerator not available.
@@neonraytracer8846 Think about young people in many developing countries who have huge curiosity and motivation towards science, their ambition in science are blocked by pay wall.
Knowledge for them is a luxurious commodity, and being smart is a miracle to the chosen one.
I do support Scihub. I am willing to deliver my own research for free to those who really want to study my research. I am willing to show the weakness of my studies to the future researchers. The only thing I sincerely ask from them is to use my studies and make a better research paper than mine and keep promoting the knowledge of Science.
My brother who is a biophysicist, told me that when he was in school he was told to reach out to the authors of the papers directly and most of the time they were happy to send him the paper for free since they made no money off the sales of the research papers anyway.
I have a couple of journals, and I'd happily send over my papers if anyone emailed me haha
And authors are actually happy the more people read and cite their papers
Like professors in my university, post their works' abstract on social media and willing to send them for any student who needs
Newer fields in Engineering that arose in the internet era have realised this and completely by-passed the paid publishing model.
For example, Artificial intelligence and Machine learning (a sub-field of computer science) is a popular field these days and almost all top conferences (NeurIPS and ICML) and journals (JMLR) in this field are completely free to publish and read.
One more major example is openreview.net. Some top conferences (ICLR) have chosen to use this peer-review system, by which not only anonymous assigned peer-reviewers, but also the general population can comment on submissions.
Not all sub-fields of computer science and engineering have escaped the paid publishing model though, IEEE and ACM still have a stranglehold on most other sub-fields. But AI and ML have shown the way forward and it's possible to exist without paid publishing.
However, I have received rude shocks when interacting with other researchers whose unpublished works are not nearly as polished as engineering articles, simply because the authors are not used to editing and formatting their own work. So this is a small change that scientists need to make: write well-formatted and edited papers without help from publishers.
Computer science does usually have an advantage when it comes to the papers though... It usually does't take groups of people to check them..
oof good to hear about the good systems, kinda depressing it's in the field that has a 20% chance of wiping us out, but good systems
In CS and mathematics many author just post the pre-print to arXiv (while waiting for publishing). Almost all important paper already in there, so it's faster and far more accesible to the public.
This is exactly what I was talking about,
internet really is like the invention of wheel/ discovery of fire 2.0.
And I'm so glad to be born and alive at it's birth, future generations will look upon how we make it to be
Don’t think they “realized this”, rather, they’re purposefully making those studies more accessible so it grows quicker as a field. Other fields have had time to grow and are now “good enough” in terms of knowledge so we smack ways to slow it down(for reasons, usually fueled by greed).
Alexandra is a complete badass. "Yeah I owe $15 million but I haven't paid anything yet". I have a feeling they'd have to throw her in jail before she even considered paying. Research should benefit the public that it's meant for, not some huge oligopoly
And the fact that researchers don't even benefit from it is beyond my understanding, my professor was a huge supporter of us using Sci-hub for our research because scientists don't really get any benefit from it, in fact the only one getting paid is the journal itself.
Funny enough she is probably benefiting from the fact that everyone in her part of the world hates the US, so her country does not care about companies from the US.
She's the next Julian Assange
Pero la gran oligopoly que mencionas, es en mayoría personas que si necesitamos beneficiarnos de investigaciones confiables que no podemos pagar, no todo el mundo tiene las mismas oportunidades.
The crowd of people (your oligopoly) that indeed don't need to use Sci-Hub, waste their time on facebook, twitter, youtube. Don't worry about them, they don't get benefits of Sci-Hub and don't support it too.
@@danieljensen2626 it is not hate. It is independency. Rare and valuable thing in the modern world. It is also a proof that the world should never ever spin around one country.
I support you...
I have personally felt this loophole in research during my masters. There are so many students in india who are capable of getting into research.
I mean this is as clear cut of an example as can be, for illegal doesn't always means unethical!
I don't mind the pops at science journalists - lord knows there's enough of the bad stuff out there, but do bear in mind that if you want to be a good science journalist... you can't afford to read the research either. And academic PR departments are usually _woeful_. And search algorithms can't tell the difference between good science journalism and bad science journalism, but because the good stuff takes longer to prepare - if you want to read the research, you have to contact the researcher and get them to email the paper, and what if there are multiple angles you need to check? - the bad stuff is up and being found in droves before the good stuff appears, only to be ignored and the good journalist sacked for not doing the traffic. Tl;dr, not only does the academic scientific publishing model strangle science, it takes a good long poo on the corpse of science journalism while it's at it. Elsevier delenda est.
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Hey, you just gave me an idea, I'm 6 min into vid,
As the video states the scientists who publish don't get any money, right?
Then why not just contact the particular researcher and pay them say, $5 to read it, you save $25 and they get $5 in place of nothing, oh wait.....better yet.... why not create a website like Wikipedia but for research journals, where other scientists publish their own papers and read others' for free
And the middle man, would use Wikipedia's model to exist
wait if everything said in this video is correct, I.e. neither the reviewer nor the publisher gets paid, then how does the middle man even exist, can someone enlighten me?
Why don't current researchers just hop onto the platform where they can publish and read for free?
I mean that's exactly how TH-cam started and look where we are now.
If we had to pay to post/watch stuff, TH-cam would've been dead a long time ago.
I'm pretty sure I'm missing something, that this isn't already done/attempted/exists, so what is the problem?
@@alexander-jl6cs Typically the author can put an almost-finished (draft) on their own site for free download; and contacting the author you get a free copy (now PDF, historically on paper you had say 50paper copies of anything you wrote). They're happy someone reads, and get zero for any reader that actually pays. But the whole funding of publications is a large and deep problem, not something you can solve in a 30min discussion let alone have a new thought about.
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Another way to access a lot of papers is simply emailing the lead author and asking for a copy. Their email address is usually listed along with the abstract on journal sites.
I find it's more likely to work if you briefly explain why you're interested, of course. As an amateur researcher into a few tangentially related subjects this is an absolute lifesaver for me. It also has had the unexpected side effect of opening communication with paper authors who are often delighted that someone outside their field is interested in their work.
Great video by the way. Thank you for the excellent work you do!
As someone that is extremely interested in educating themselves I believe knowledge should be free.
It's the only cure for ignorance.
EDIT: Also I am poor
I just want to add standards to this idea. As an engineer I am expected to design and build to the safest standard. The problem is that we have to pay for these standards. To design a power station, we may need access to over 100 standards. I understand the need to have free access to knowledge but what about free access to safety!!!
I'm an engineer and I'll admit I've never thought of this (though I work with unmanned systems, so safety isn't so much an issue), but I 100% agree. Civil/mechanical engineering, manufacturing, etc. professions absolutely *SHOULD* have free access to safety standards.
I think that's a great way to put it, that's exactly what he was pointing out was the legitimate argument for this, that you could cunt on the paywalled content being safe-- even though you can't. So in truth there really shouldn't be any pay walls for a normal person or scientist to access this information, even if it has safety standards.
@Heloise O'Byrne a standard is often dozens of pages of exact specifications. Think a ISO or DIN standard. Almost every single standard document is paywalled.
In a capitalistic society, nothing is free heh
knowledge is safety.
everyone can make bombs nowadays. doesn't mean they do or are willing to do. it's only the horshit paranoiac asshats tell to not lose their sweet power and control over others.
Good lord, my supervisor professor had suggested sci-hub to me while writing my thesis...and I had felt guilty for using it..thank you
Never feel guilty about breaking the law if the law is unjust
I am a PhD student. I have to publish every article open access, but the university pays only for red and yellow isi journals and only 800euros. We are now trying to publish an article and the tax is 2200euros. We are luck we still have some money left on a project. But not enough to publish enough for all the PhD students. Moreover, we don't have acces to articles paied by the university.
Wow. In my country I pay my university to be able work in it. University takes money from the researchers, not the other way.
There are some students that have to pay their fees, luckily I have my fees covered by the state. But I don't have bursary.
@@acid5-nitroizoftalic987 thank you for clarifying. In what country do you study?
@@sodinc Romania
Thank you for this video! Highlighting one of the biggest issues with access to science. As a member of the general public who just wants to understand the science behind certain topics further. Paywalls make it difficult.