I thought this week I’d take a look at how the world of academia is presented to the general public, and whether it is sufficiently accessible.
First and foremost is access to the information in general. As anyone familiar with the file drawer problem is aware, only a very small number of papers on a given topic are published, and as such there is a staggering amount of research that is never seen by academics. If this causes such an accessability issue to us, then the general public are naturally at an even greater disadvantage. At present, this small minority of published papers is not freely disseminated, instead being consigned to pricey journals and members-only websites. It is unreasonable for us to assume that a layman will invest the neccessary time and funs into purchasing the relevant journal, and so his access to the information published within is essentially non-existant.
Obviously, it is impractical to freely publish absolutely everything and make it available for nothing. However, there ouhgt to be some thought given towards disseminating the information freely, or cheaply, at some point. Even if it was just releasing the articles after a set amount of time on the internet for free, it would be hugely preferable to the curent system.
How can we expect people to make informed decisions on highly sensitive topics such as global warming or stem cell research if they lack the opportunity to learn about the matter at hand?