PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access: excerpts from article in Nature Magazine

From: Renato Matheus <rfmatheus_at_YAHOO.COM.BR>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:51:06 -0800

Mr. Peter Banks, <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

first of all, thank you for your collaboration in this debate. I am sure
that new ideas can be boosted with different viewpoints and perspectives.

 

This includes different knowledge areas, problems, interests and
motivation.

 

Considering your argument, it is, of course, difficult for a homemaker to
be able to read AJM.

 

But let's try some Gedanken Experiments?

Scenario 1) What about if that homemaker has gotten cancer? It is
possible that her daughter or her husband were graduated in other area
than medicine. Is it possible to them, even a low probability, to get
valuable information for her treatment by reading American Journal of
Physiology?

 

Scenario 2) What about a Statistician that would want to know if her or
his interests in Markov Chain Monte Carlo could have some application in
medicine? Is it possible for him or her to learn something or have new
ideas just by reading specialized journals?

 

Scenario 3) What about a student of Medicine? What kinds of benefits he
or she could have from the full access to the most important journals? OA
could help students from poor countries in such enterprise?

 

What do you think about that?

 

I guess that you can have good points to defend profitable journals.

 

But I am sure that is very difficulty to claim against the free access to
scientific information...

 

Regards,

 

Renato Fabiano
Received on Mon Jan 29 2007 - 21:19:43 GMT