Late Night Thoughts

Last night I went to bed and fell asleep listening to a podcast that Paul recommended. I didn't stay awake for long but I remember that the interviewer seemed skeptical about some of the ideas of open research.

I guess it's natural to be skeptical when something is radically different to what we are used to. I wonder what Newton would have said if someone would have told him to publish or perish and that there are plenty of good journals that publish articles within a year of submission (including the review process). It took Newton almost 22 years to publish his findings, and that was not so unusual back in 1687.

Using those two data points (22 years in 1687 and 1 year in 2008) a simple linear model would suggest that a submit-publish cycle might take less than 3 months in 2020. While I can't see how that linear model is a good fit I could easily see how pushing a publication out within 3 months could be achieved with tools similar to what we know as blogs today.

Furthermore, looking at historic data it's also not too hard to see that unlike some might expect we will see fewer disputes with respect to who discovered what first.

Btw, tonight I'll try to stay awake as long as possible with this podcast about earworms.