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A comment on Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible. Parent comment

Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by anologwintermut on Friday May 10, 2013 @01:39AM (#5684813)
What do paywalls possible have to do with the reproducibility of results? Anyone who has access to a lab capable of even attempting to reproduce such research is either 1) at an institution that has access to those journals or 2) can use google to find the papers anyway. Hopefully both.

The fact that tax-payer funded research is put behind paywalls is a travesty , but it seems wrong to claim it actually hinders researchers from doing anything given.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by kanzure on Friday May 10, 2013 @03:17AM (#5685039) 

    > What do paywalls possible have to do with the reproducibility
    > of results? Anyone who has access to a lab
Actually, there's no institution subscribed to every journal. There are, in fact, many papers inaccessible to even the most funded labs. Spotty coverage.
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Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by anologwintermut on Friday May 10, 2013 @12:23PM (#5687071)
No, no institution subscribes to every journal. However, see point 2. Given the title and author, how many of those paper's can't you find with google / google scholar(or emailing the author).

Paywalls for publicly funded research our wrong, but the cases when it prevents people at research institutions from doing research seem to be tiny.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by trentlott on Friday May 10, 2013 @11:01AM (#5686525)
I'm published in a highly-ranked journal that our university doesn't have access to.

Sorta funny.

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Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by anologwintermut on Friday May 10, 2013 @12:30PM (#5687123)
Can you find the paper online by searching for it?
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Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by return0 on Friday May 10, 2013 @03:16AM (#5685037)
If they were open, you would have an online service that could automatically point contradicting studies, and even make suggestions.
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Re:Just 11% of 53 cancer research papers were reproducible by anologwintermut on Friday May 10, 2013 @12:28PM (#5687099)
Even if they are closed, you can link to the papers (unless the DMCA metastasized again). Granted, someone can't make an automatic tool to find such studies, but that would be hard anyway and presumably the authors are aware of the study they are refuting and could tag them.

Now, people trying to make policy decisions could not read or evaluate the studies. If we assume they are capable of doing so in the first place( i.e. their not Lamar smith), then we have an actual argument for getting rid of paywalls. I still think the best one is its a waste of money and a tax on universities/ grants.

[ Parent | on HN ]