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Posted on 03/06/2009 5:47:17 PM PST by LibWhacker
There are some things science needs to survive, and to thrive: eager, hardworking scientists; a grasp of reality and a desire to understand it; and an open and clear atmosphere to communicate and discuss results.
That last bit there seems to be having a problem. Communication is key to science; without it you are some nerd tinkering in your basement. With it, the world can learn about your work and build on it.
Recently, government-sponsored agencies like NIH have moved toward open access of scientific findings. That is, the results are published where anyone can see them, and in fact (for the NIH) after 12 months the papers must be publicly accessible. This is, in my opinion (and that of a lot of others, including a pile of Nobel laureates) a good thing. Astronomers, for example, almost always post their papers on Astro-ph, a place where journal-accepted papers can be accessed before they are published.
John Conyers (D-MI) apparently has a problem with this. He is pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals. This may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive. They can cost a fortune: The Astrophysical Journal costs over $2000/year, and they charge scientists to publish in them! So this bill would force scientists to spend money to publish, and force you to spend money to read them.
Why would Conyers do this? Interestingly, if you look at the bill sponsors, you find that they received twice as much money on average in donations from journal publishers than Congresscritters who don’t sponsor the bill — though to be fair, the total amount is not large. Still, Conyers got 4 times as much.
Interesting.
Ironically, this bill is called The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which is much like the Clean Air Clear Skies Act or the Patriot Act, in that it does exactly the opposite of what its name says. This bill is not fair, it puts a burden on scientists and keeps research from being publicly accessible as it should be. I myself rely on things like Astro-ph to do my reporting here; it could become illegal to post papers there for federally-sponsored scientists if this bill is passed.
You can read more about this at Financial Times, Earlham College, and at Lawrence Lessig’s blog.
I think I have some phone calls to make.
Is there anything good which the Democrats and Obama will leave intact?
Nice way to silence global warming critics too.
That Conyers is such a jacka**
Conyers is among the Top 5 jackasses in Congress. ...and that’s a tough list to make.
I’ve been wondering why Conyers would pull this crap...then I figured out.
It’s a covert plot to hide the fact that his wife is secretly the product of an evil scientist using cloning techniques to spawn a woman-bear-pig hybrid.
If you look closely, you can even see the bolts in Monica’s thick neck.
Anything the democrats label fair is something to suspect.
Four hundred years ago, Gallileo was forced to defend himself. That nasty little bit of history is called "The Inquisition."
Conyers is plainly corrupted by parties who would withhold information now that could save lives soon for the sake of Possible Profits down the line. What does that say about a person?
Yet how many blacks believe that blacks and Africans are secretly infected with diseases? And here is CONyers creating the very environment that would make such a thing possible.
The internet provides the cheapest, fastest, most worldwide reaching publishing machine. But for the a few crummy campaign bucks, this bastard congressman will write a law mandating publication using tree-killing, big carbon footprint, old-school print journals.
Top five? He gets the number one spot. After all, nobody has a wife quite like his...that’s gotta count for something.
How did this get past the “Unification Board”?
Anytime dems open their mouths—hell, anytime their brain cells flutter—well, you know it can’t be good.
Lectures on science from someone who couldn’t make through the freshmen year of ANY technical degree?
Give me a break.
The next thing you’ll be telling me is that the Obamaloon actually earned his law degree,
Not if they know about it!
that bastard!
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