Online articles lead to rapid scientific consensus, forgotten ideas

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080718-online-articles-lead-to-rapid-scientific-consensus-forgotten-ideas.html

by asp742 • 18 years ago

12 7 18 years ago

boredguy8• 18 years ago

This is not particularly surprising. When the transaction cost to read an article is lower, there's less "need" to use the work you've uncovered. By analogy, Walter Murch says in his book, "In the Blink of an Eye" that film editors need to avoid "seeing around the edge of the frame" - when the editor knows the hard work that went into getting a particular shot to work, the 'sweat investment', it's harder to discard that shot because it feels like a waste -- even if that's not the best shot to use. Similarly, my investment into getting an article means I'm more likely to use it the harder it was to obtain. By decreasing that cost, writers can be more 'objective' about what's actually useful.

Second, because I can easily get a different article, if the one I have doesn't say quite what I need, I can find something else.

scott_s2• 18 years ago

This is an interesting counter-point to another submission from today: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=249346

Anon84• 18 years ago

Not really. They complement each other. The one you showed claims (rightly so) that openness is a fundamental requisite for the progress of science. This one, shows how that openness results in more hits on the best papers on a given subject.

Think of it this way... even if you have easy access to 100x more papers than before, the number of citations that you put in your paper is still the same. This means that the you will try to pick the best references from the set you have available, which, in turn, will result in some particularly good papers being cited more often than they would otherwise.

scott_s2• 18 years ago

No, you're right, I just submitted the above before I finished reading this thread's article - I thought it was going in the opposite direction.

brfox• 18 years ago

Why, when I click that link, do I have to click "back" 4 times in order to get back to HN? (Firefox 2, winxp)

Are they being rude by doing a bunch of redirects (and making it harder for me to leave) or is there something else going on?

pchristensen• 18 years ago

I have the same setup, only one backup system.

giardini• 18 years ago

Leading to more herding and informational cascades (http://www.info-cascades.info/) wherein individuals cease to follow their own thoughts and instead rush to verify what they have heard through (in this case) the academic grapevine.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb also addresses this topic in some depth in his book "The black Swan" (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp...).

Online articles lead to rapid scientific consensus, forgotten ideas

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