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One way the general public is kept scientifically illiterate is from locking up scientific journal articles behind subscription walls. When peer-reviewed scien

• hughprime 17y ago
  Of all the people who currently believe in wacky pseudoscience, how many do you think would be convinced otherwise if only they had free access to original scientific papers?
  • skolor 17y ago
    None, they're mostly a lost cause. On the other hand, the locking down of actual research makes it that much easier to make wild claims: Turns out there is a cure for Cancer. They did a paper in XXXXXX about it, called "BioFlavin shows recession of cancer cells in multi-celluar automotons". Being able to easily check up on that would make the argument a lot less convincing as a "Cure for Cancer". As an anecdote, there was recently a discussion at my workplace about alternative cars, specifically alternative storage mediums. Due to some quoting of a research paper done that had shown some amount of energy could be stored in water, and be returned to electrical energy at a later point, everyone was eventually convinced that Big Oil just stifled the story. If that paper was readily available (and probably read "very small amounts of energy can be stored in water"), we all could have taken a look at it.