Tag Archives: Marcia McNutt

Credibility slips according to US survey on public perceptions of scientists

Figure 1. Perceptions of scientists’ credibility. [downloaded from https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/annenberg-survey-finds-public-perceptions-of-scientists-credibility-slips/]

A June 26, 2024 news item on ScienceDaily describes the research, which resulted in the graphic you see in the above,

New analyses from the Annenberg Public Policy Center find that public perceptions of scientists’ credibility — measured as their competence, trustworthiness, and the extent to which they are perceived to share an individual’s values — remain high, but their perceived competence and trustworthiness eroded somewhat between 2023 and 2024. The research also found that public perceptions of scientists working in artificial intelligence (AI) differ from those of scientists as a whole.

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A June 26, 2024 Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania news release (also on EurekAlert and also received by email), which originated the news item, describes a series of surveys, how the information was gathered, and offers more detail about he results, Note 1: All links removed; Note 2: You can find links and citations for papers mentioned in the news release at the end of this posting.

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From 2018-2022, the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania relied on national cross-sectional surveys to monitor perceptions of science and scientists. In 2023-24, APPC moved to a nationally representative empaneled sample to make it possible to observe changes in individual perceptions.

The February 2024 findings, released today to coincide with the address by National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt on “The State of the Science,” come from an analysis of responses from an empaneled national probability sample of U.S. adults surveyed in February 2023 (n=1,638 respondents), November 2023 (n=1,538), and February 2024 (n=1,555).

Drawing on the 2022 cross-sectional data, in an article titled “Factors Assessing Science’s Self-Presentation model and their effect on conservatives’ and liberals’ support for funding science,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (September 2023), Annenberg-affiliated researchers Yotam Ophir (State University of New York at Buffalo and an APPC distinguished research fellow), Dror Walter (Georgia State University and an APPC distinguished research fellow), and Patrick E. Jamieson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center isolated factors that underlie perceptions of scientists (Factors Assessing Science’s Self-Presentation, or FASS). These factors predict public support for increased funding of science and support for federal funding of basic research.

The five factors in FASS are whether science and scientists are perceived to be credible and prudent, and whether they are perceived to overcome bias, correct error (self-correcting), and whether their work benefits people like the respondent and the country as a whole (beneficial). In a 2024 publication titled “The Politicization of Climate Science: Media Consumption, Perceptions of Science and Scientists, and Support for Policy” (May 26, 2024) in the Journal of Health Communication, the same team showed that these five factors mediate the relationship between exposure to media sources such as Fox News and outcomes such as belief in anthropogenic climate change, perception of the threat it poses, and support for climate-friendly policies such as a carbon tax.

Speaking about the FASS model, Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and director of the survey, said that “because our 13 core questions reliably reduce to five factors with significant predictive power, the ASK survey’s core questions make it possible to isolate both stability and changes in public perception of science and scientists across time.” (See the appendix for the list of questions.)

The new research finds that while scientists are held in high regard, two of the three dimensions that make up credibility – perceptions of competence and trustworthiness – showed a small but statistically significant drop from 2023 to 2024, as did both measures of beneficial. The 2024 survey data also indicate that the public considers AI scientists less credible than scientists in general, with notably fewer people saying that AI scientists are competent and trustworthy and “share my values” than scientists generally.

“Although confidence in science remains high overall, the survey reveals concerns about AI science,” Jamieson said. “The finding is unsurprising. Generative AI is an emerging area of science filled with both great promise and great potential peril.”

The data are based on Annenberg Science Knowledge (ASK) waves of the Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) surveys conducted in 2023 and 2024. The findings labeled 2023 are based on a February 2023 survey, and the findings labeled 2024 are based on combined ASAPH survey half-samples surveyed in November 2023 and February 2024.

For further details, download the toplines and a series of figures that accompany this summary.

Perceptions of scientists overall

In the FASS model, perceptions of scientists’ credibility are assessed through perceptions of whether scientists are competent, trustworthy, and “share my values.” The first two of those values slipped in the most recent survey. In 2024, 70% of those surveyed strongly or somewhat agree that scientists are competent (down from 77% in 2023) and 59% strongly or somewhat agree that scientists are trustworthy (down from 67% in 2023). (See figure 1 [see the first item in this post], and figs. 2-4 for other findings.)

The survey also found that in 2024, fewer people felt that scientists’ findings benefit “the country as a whole” and “benefit people like me.” In 2024, 66% strongly or somewhat agreed that findings benefit the country as a whole (down from 75% in 2023). Belief that scientists’ findings “benefit people like me,” also declined, to 60% from 68%. Taken together those two questions make up the beneficial factor of FASS. (See fig. 5.)

The findings follow sustained attacks on climate and Covid-19-related science and, more recently, public concerns about the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence.

Comparing perceptions of scientists in general with climate and AI scientists

Credibility: When asked about three factors underlying scientists’ credibility, AI scientists have lower credibility in all three values. (See fig. 6.)

Competent: 70% strongly/somewhat agree that scientists are competent, but only 62% for climate scientists and 49% for AI scientists.

Trustworthy: 59% agree scientists are trustworthy, 54% agree for climate scientists, 28% for AI scientists.

Share my values: A higher number (38%) agree that climate scientists share my values than for scientists in general (36%) and AI scientists (15%). More people disagree with this for AI scientists (35%) than for the others.

Prudence: Asked whether they agree or disagree that science by various groups of scientists “creates unintended consequences and replaces older problems with new ones,” over half of those surveyed (59%) agree that AI scientists create unintended consequences and just 9% disagree. (See fig. 7.)

Overcoming bias: Just 42% of those surveyed agree that scientists “are able to overcome human and political biases,” but only 21% feel that way about AI scientists. In fact, 41% disagree that AI scientists are able to overcome human political biases. In another area, just 23% agree that AI scientists provide unbiased conclusions in their area of inquiry and 38% disagree. (See fig. 8.)

Self-correction: Self-correction, or “organized skepticism expressed in expectations sustaining a culture of critique,” as the FASS paper puts it, is considered by some as a “hallmark of science.” AI scientists are seen as less likely than scientists or climate scientists to take action to prevent fraud; take responsibility for mistakes; or to have mistakes that are caught by peer review. (See fig. 9.)

Benefits: Asked about the benefits from scientists’ findings, 60% agree that scientists’ “findings benefit people like me,” though just 44% agree for climate scientists and 35% for AI scientists. Asked about whether findings benefit the country as a whole, 66% agree for scientists, 50% for climate scientists and 41% for AI scientists. (See fig. 10.)

Your best interest: The survey also asked respondents how much trust they have in scientists to act in the best interest of people like you. (This specific trust measure is not a part of the FASS battery.) Respondents have less trust in AI scientists than in others: 41% have a great deal/a lot of trust in medical scientists; 39% in climate scientists; 36% in scientists; and 12% in AI scientists. (See fig. 11.)

The data from ASK surveys have been used to date in four peer-reviewed papers:

Using 2019 ASK data: Jamieson, K. H., McNutt, M., Kiermer, V., & Sever, R. (2019). Signaling the trustworthiness of science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39), 19231-19236.

Using 2022 ASK data: Ophir, Y., Walter, D., Jamieson, P. E., & Jamieson, K. H. (2023). Factors Assessing Science’s Self-Presentation model and their effect on conservatives’ and liberals’ support for funding science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(38), e2213838120.

Using 2024 ASK data: Lupia, A., Allison, D. B., Jamieson, K. H., Heimberg, J., Skipper, M., & Wolf, S. M. (2024). Trends in US public confidence in science and opportunities for progress. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(11), e2319488121.

Using Nov 2023 and Feb 2024 ASK data: Ophir, Y., Walter, D., Jamieson, P. E., & Jamieson, K. H. (2024). The politicization of climate science: Media consumption, perceptions of science and scientists, and support for policy. Journal of Health Communication, 29(sup1): 18-27.

APPC’s ASAPH survey

The survey data come from the 17^th and 18^th waves of a nationally representative panel of U.S. adults, first empaneled in April 2021, conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center by SSRS, an independent market research company. These waves of the Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) knowledge survey were fielded February 22-28, 2023, November 14-20, 2023, and February 6-12, 2024, and have margins of sampling error (MOE) of ± 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. In November 2023, half of the sample was asked about “scientists” and the other half “climate scientists.” In February 2024, those initially asked about “scientists” were asked about “scientists studying AI” and the other half “scientists.” This provided two half samples addressing specific areas of study, while all panelists were asked about “scientists” generally. All figures are rounded to the nearest whole number and may not add to 100%. Combined subcategories may not add to totals in the topline and text due to rounding.

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The policy center has been tracking the American public’s knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding vaccination, Covid-19, flu, maternal health, climate change, and other consequential health issues through this survey panel for over three years. In addition to Jamieson, the APPC team includes Shawn Patterson Jr., who analyzed the data; Patrick E. Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute, who developed the questions; and Ken Winneg, managing director of survey research, who supervised the fielding of the survey.

Here are links to and citations for the papers listed above in the June 26, 2024 news release,

Using 2019 ASK data: Signaling the trustworthiness of science by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Marcia McNutt, Veronique Kiermer, and Richard Sever.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 116 (39), 19231-19236 September 23, 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1913039116

Using 2022 ASK data Factors Assessing Science’s Self-Presentation model and their effect on conservatives’ and liberals’ support for funding science by Yotam Ophir, Dror Walter, Patrick E. Jamieson, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 120 (38), e2213838120 September 11, 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2213838120

Using 2024 ASK data: Trends in US public confidence in science and opportunities for progress by Arthur Lupia, David B. Allison, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Jennifer Heimberg, Magdalena Skipper, and Susan M. Wolf.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 121 (11), e2319488121 March 4, 2024 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2319488121

Using Nov 2023 and Feb 2024 ASK data: The politicization of climate science: Media consumption, perceptions of science and scientists, and support for policy by by Yotam Ophir, Dror Walter, Patrick E. Jamieson & Kathleen Hall Jamieson.. Journal of Health Communication, 29 (sup1): 18-27 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2024.2357571 Published online: 26 May 2024

The 2019 paper ‘Signaling …’ has been featured here before in a September 30, 2019 posting, “Do you believe in science?” In addition to some of my comments, I embedded Adam Lambert’s version of Cher’s song ‘Do You Believe in Love?’ where you’ll see Cher brush away a few tears as she listens to her dance hit made love ballad.

The 2024 paper ‘Trends ..’ has also been featured here, albeit briefly, in an April 8, 2024 posting, “Trust in science remains high but public questions scientists’ adherence to science’s norms.”

Do you believe in science?

As for believing in science

A September 26, 2019 Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania news release (received via email) announces some research into science, communication, belief, and trust,

Public confidence in science has remained high and stable for years. But recent decades have seen incidents of scientific fraud and misconduct, failure to replicate key findings, and growth in the number of retractions – all of which may affect trust in science.
In an article published this week in PNAS, a group of leaders in science research, scholarship, and communication propose that to sustain a high level of trust in science, scientists must more effectively signal to each other and to the public that their work respects the norms of science.
The authors offer a variety of ways in which researchers and journals can communicate this – among them, greater transparency regarding data and methods; ways to certify the integrity of evidence; the disclosure of competing or relevant interests by authors; and wider adoption of tools such as checklists and badges to signal that studies have met accepted scientific standards.
“This absence [of clear signals] is problematic,” write the researchers, including Kathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and director of its Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). “Without clear signals, other scientists have difficulties ascertaining confidence in the work, and the press, policy makers, and the public at large may base trust decisions on inappropriate grounds, such as deeply held and irrational biases, nonscientific beliefs, and misdirection by conflicted stakeholders or malicious actors.”
In addition to Jamieson, “Signaling the trustworthiness of science,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, was written by Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences; Veronique Kiermer, executive editor, Public Library of Science (PLOS); and Richard Sever, assistant director, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and co-founder, bioRxiv. The order of authorship was determined by a coin toss.
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The American public and trust in science
The authors write that “science is trustworthy in part because it honors its norms.” These norms include a reliance on statistics; having conclusions that are supported by data; disinterestedness, as seen through the disclosure of potential competing interests; validation by peer review; and ethical treatment of research subjects and animals.
Adherence to these norms increases not just the reliability of the scientific findings, but the likelihood that the public will perceive science itself as reliable. The article cites a 2019 survey of 1,253 U.S. adults conducted by APPC, which found that in deciding whether to believe a scientific finding, 68% of those surveyed said it matters whether the scientists make their data and methods available and are completely transparent about their methods. In addition, 63% said it matters whether the scientists involved in the study disclose the individuals and organizations that funded their work, and 55% said it mattered whether the study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal (Fig. 1). For further details, see the article.
Communicating norms
To support trust in science, the authors suggest that scientists need to communicate practices that reinforce the norms, among them:
Have scientists explain the evidence and process by which they came to reconsider and change their views on a scientific issue;
Have journals add links back and forward to retractions and expressions of editorial concern to more clearly indicate unreliability, and to studies that replicate findings to emphasize reliability;
Adopt nuanced signaling language that more clearly explains the process now often called “retraction,” using terms such as “voluntary withdrawal” and “withdrawal for cause” or “editorial withdrawal.” Similarly, replace “conflict of interest” with a more neutral, broadened term such as “relevant interest.”
The authors also call for steps to show that individual studies adhere to these norms, such as:
A more refined and standardized series of checklists should be used by journals to show how they protect evidence-gathering and -reporting, including more detailed information about each author’s contributions to a manuscript;
Badges such as those used by the Center for Open Science should be more widely adopted to show, for instance, whether scientists on a study have preregistered their hypothesis and met standards for open data and open materials.
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The recommendations were developed following an April 2018 conference called “Signals of Trust in Science Communication” which was convened by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory at the Banbury Center and organized by McNutt, Sever, and Jamieson.
“Science enjoys a relatively high level of public trust,” the authors write. “To sustain this valued commodity, in our increasingly polarized age, scientists and the custodians of science would do well to signal to other researchers and to the public and policy makers the ways in which they are safeguarding science’s norms and improving the practices that protect its integrity as a way of knowing.
“Embedding signals of trust in the reporting of individual studies can help researchers build their peers’ confidence in their work,” they continue. “Publishing platforms that rigorously apply these signals of trust can increase their standing as trustworthy vehicles. But beyond this peer-to-peer communication, the research community and its institutions also can signal to the public and policy makers that the scientific community itself actively protects the trustworthiness of its work.”

Comments about confidence and trust

I like the recommendations about more openness and clarity in science communication.

Here are my caveats. (1) This research and the recommendations seem more oriented to the science community and very serious science hobbyists. Most people (regardless of that survey, which I’d like to look at) outside the range I’ve described are unlikely to hear of these changes let alone express any interest or appreciation. (2) It’s also a little difficult to identify which sciences are included. E.g., what about the social sciences? (3) I don’t like this recommendation: ” replace ‘conflict of interest’ with a more neutral, broadened term such as ‘relevant interest’.” An author who is being funded by a pharmaceutical company doesn’t have just a ‘relevant interest’.

Interestingly, there’s a May 24, 2019 paper (link and citation to follow), ‘Health Misinformation and the Power of Narrative Messaging in the Public Sphere‘ covering some of the same ground about science, trust, and communication but with a primary focus on misinformation, health, narrative, and social media. The folks being considered here are the ‘general public’ not the specialized audiences envisioned by the authors of the first paer,

… The power of social media and the impact of narrative are prevalent and strong, so there is an imperative to strategically draw on their advantages to counter some of their more problematic applications. For example, research has shown that narratives presenting the ramifications of not vaccinating – specifically children’s suffering from preventable illness – can have a real impact on intention to vaccinate [Shelby and Ernst, 2013; Capurro, Greenberg, Dubé and Driedger, 2018]. Additionally, clear and definitive statements with a narrative component, made by respected and trusted voices will prove highly useful, and also provide dependable resources upon which journalists can rely.
Opinion editorials offer another useful pathway for narrative communication – indeed, recent research has found them to have an influence on public perception [Coppock, Ekins, and Kirby, 2018]. That said, science writing could also benefit from narrative style, if applied in a manner that does not compromise the truthfulness and comprehensiveness of the content [Perrault, 2013]. We shouldn’t use narratives to fight anecdote with anecdote. Rather, narratives can serve as a vehicle to communicate science and relevant science-informed policy in a more engaging and digestible manner. The spread of misinformation causes real harm. Unfortunately, countering this noise is growing increasingly more complex and challenging. It will require the use of a host of science communication tools and strategies, including the creative use of narratives.

This paper appears to be a roundup of documents supporting the authors’ perspectives with no critique of their own ideas/perspectives offered. The journal has placed the paper is a section known as ‘Critical Commentaries’.

The approaches offered by the authors of these two papers are compatible with each other. As in all aspects of communication, much depends on your audience. And, a member of an expert audience can be a member of the general public in an area where (s)he has no particular expertise.

The papers

Here’s a link to and a citation for the first paper mentioned here,

Signaling the trustworthiness of science by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Marcia McNutt, Veronique Kiermer, and Richard Sever. PNAS September 24, 2019 116 (39) 19231-19236; First published online: September 23, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1913039116

Here’s a link and a citation for the second paper mentioned here,

Health Misinformation and the Power of Narrative Messaging in the Public Sphere by Timothy Caulfield, Alessandro R. Marcon, Blake Murdoch, Jasmine M. Brown, Sarah Tinker Perrault, Jonathan Jerry, Jeremy Snyder, Samantha J. Anthony, Stephanie Brooks, Zubin Master, Ubaka Ogbogu, Joshua Greenberg, Amy Zarzeczny, Robyn Hyde-Lay. Canadian Journal of Bioethics, Vol 2 No 2 (2019): Open Issue Published May 24, 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1060911ar

The first article appears to be open access while the second is definitely open access.

Believe

Quite the performance, eh? Adam Lambert turned the song into a ballad and even brought Cher to tears. I wonder what it would be like to hear it with the lyric changed to, ‘Do you believe in science?’

Science (magazine) investigates Sci-Hub (a pirate site for scientific papers)

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Sci-Hub, a pirate website for scientific papers, and its progenitor, Alexandra Elbakyan, have generated a couple of articles and an editorial in Science magazine’s latest issue (April 28, 2016?). An April 29, 2016 article by Bob Yirka for phys.org describes one of the articles (Note: Links have been removed),

A correspondent for the Science family of journals has published an investigative piece in Science on Sci-Hub, a website that illegally publishes scholarly literature, i.e. research papers. In his article, John Bohannon describes how he made contact with Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of what is now the world’s largest site for pirated scholarly articles, data she gave him, and commentary on what was revealed. Bohannon has also published another piece focused exclusively on Elbakyan, describing her as a frustrated science student. Marcia McNutt, Editor-in-Chief of the Science Family also weighs in on her “love-hate” relationship with Sci-Hub, and explains in detail why she believes the site is likely to cause problems for scholarly publishing heading into the future.

An April 28, 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) news release provides some detail about the number of downloads from the Sci-Hub site,

In this investigative news piece from Science, contributing correspondent John Bohannon dives into data from Sci-Hub, the world’s largest pirate website for scholarly literature. For the first time, basic questions about Sci-Hub’s millions of users can be answered: Where are they and what are they reading? Bohannon’s statistical analysis is based on server log data supplied by Alexandra Elbakyan herself, the neuroscientist who created Sci-Hub in 2011. After establishing contact with her through an encrypted chat system, Bohannon and Elbakyan worked together to create a data set for public release: 28 million Sci-Hub download requests going back to 1 September 2015, including the digital object identifier (DOI) for every paper and the clustered locations of users based on their Internet Protocol address. In his story, Bohannon reveals that Sci-Hub usage is highest in China with 4.4 million download requests over the 6-month period, followed by India and Iran. But Sci-Hub users are not limited to the developing world, he reports; the U.S. is the fifth largest downloader and some of the most intense Sci-Hub activity seems to be happening on US and European university campuses, supporting the claim that many users could be accessing the papers through their libraries, but turn to Sci-Hub for convenience.

Bohanon’s piece appears to be open access. Here’s a link and a citation,

Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone by John Bohannon. Science (2016). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf5664 Published April 28, 2016.

Comments

The analysis of the data is fascinating but I’m not sure why this is being billed as an ‘investigative’ piece. Generally speaking I would expect an investigative piece to unearth new information which has likely been hidden. At the very least, I would expect some juicy inside information (i.e., gossip).

Bohannon certainly had no difficulty getting information (from the April 28, 2016 Science article),

For someone denounced as a criminal by powerful corporations and scholarly societies, Elbakyan was surprisingly forthcoming and transparent. After establishing contact through an encrypted chat system, she worked with me over the course of several weeks to create a data set for public release: every download event over the 6-month period starting 1 September 2015, including the digital object identifier (DOI) for every paper. To protect the privacy of Sci-Hub users, we agreed that she would first aggregate users’ geographic locations to the nearest city using data from Google Maps; no identifying internet protocol (IP) addresses were given to me. (The data set and details on how it was analyzed are freely accessible)

Why would it be surprising that someone who has made a point of freeing scientific research and making it accessible also makes the data from her Sci-Hub site freely available? The action certainly seems consistent with her raison d’être.

Bohannon steers away from making any serious criticisms of the current publishing régimes although he does mention a few bones of contention while laying them to rest, more or less. This is no great surprise since he’s writing for one of the ‘big three’, a journal that could be described as having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. (For those who are unaware, there are three journal considered the most prestigious or high impact for scientific studies: Nature, Cell, and Science.)

Characterizing Elbakyan as a ‘frustrated’ student in an April 28, 2016 profile by John Bohannon (The frustrated science student behind Sci-Hub) seems a bit dismissive. Sci-Hub may have been borne of frustration but it is an extraordinary accomplishment.

The piece has resulted in at least one very irate librarian, John Dupuis, from an April 29, 2016 posting on his Confessions of a Science Librarian blog,

Overall, the articles are pretty good descriptions of the Sci-Hub phenomenon and relatively even-handed [emphasis mine], especially coming from one of the big society publishers like AAAS.

There was one bit in the main article, Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone, that really stuck in my craw. Basically, Sci-Hub — and all that article piracy — is librarians’ fault.

And for all the researchers at Western universities who use Sci-Hub instead, the anonymous publisher lays the blame on librarians for not making their online systems easier to use and educating their researchers. “I don’t think the issue is access—it’s the perception that access is difficult,” he says.

Fortunately it was countered, in the true “give both sides of the story” style of mainstream journalism, by another quote, this time from a librarian.

“I don’t agree,” says Ivy Anderson, the director of collections for the California Digital Library in Oakland, which provides journal access to the 240,000 researchers of the University of California system. The authentication systems that university researchers must use to read subscription journals from off campus, and even sometimes on campus with personal computers, “are there to enforce publisher restrictions,” she says.

But of course, I couldn’t let it go. Anderson’s response is perfectly fine but somehow there just wasn’t enough rage and exasperation in it. So I stewed about it over night and tweeted up a tweetstorm of rage this morning, with the idea that if the rant was well-received I would capture the text as part of a blog post.

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As you may have guessed by my previous comments, I didn’t find the article quite as even-handed as Dupuis did. As for the offence to librarians, I did notice but it seems in line with the rest of the piece which dismisses, downplays, and offloads a few serious criticisms while ignoring how significant issues (problematic peer review process, charging exorbitant rates for access to publicly funded research, failure to adequately tag published papers that are under review after serious concerns are raised, failure to respond in a timely fashion when serious concerns are raised about a published paper, positive publication bias, …) have spawned the open access movement and also Sci-Hub. When you consider that governments rely on bibliometric data such as number of papers published and number of papers published in high impact journals (such as one of the ‘big three’), it’s clear there’s a great deal at stake.

Other Sci-Hub pieces here

My last piece about Sci-Hub was a February 25, 2016 posting titled,’ Using copyright to shut down easy access to scientific research‘ featuring some of the discussion around Elsevier and its legal suite against Sci-Hub.

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts