it's over bros

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      My research ethics class on Tuesday tried to drill into us that actually it’s good and right to not tell your student about a solution to their problem because you learned about the solution by peer reviewing a paper, and their right to confidentiality overrules the waste of time, labor, resources, and even animal lives.

      I was literally the only one who said “Maybe this confidentiality thing is actually bullshit and we should just share the info?” And everyone acted like I was fucking insane.

      • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That's insane. If someone's student were working on a problem I'd written about, I'd want the peer reviewer to share at least some of my thoughts with them. I suspect that it comes from the insane paranoia about getting "scooped" that all academics are forced to have in virtue of hiring/promotions/tenure being tied to publications, and publications being tied to "novelty." The way the system is organized is actively hostile to collective problem solving and knowledge sharing.

        • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Me too!!! Make it so we don’t survive based on publications and “being first.” There should be exactly 0 expectation of confidentiality when it comes to research, the whole fucking point is for this shit to be public knowledge so other people can base their own research on the foundation you’ve added to.

      • Omega_Haxors [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Fascism runs deep in the academic field of science, from Women and POC having their research stolen from them, to data being flat out fabricated for political gain.

        Imagine what kind of a future we could have if we could root out all that white supremacy and capitalist rentseeking.

      • QuillcrestFalconer [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        You can recommend a paper without peer reviewing it, that argument makes no fucking sense or am I missing something?

        • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          In this hypothetical the paper hadn’t been published yet. The professor in the story reviews a shitty paper, gives feedback, and then her student comes to her saying she’s having an issue that would be solved by the exact thing used in the reviewed paper, and the questions were all variations of “Is it okay for the professor to share this information?” And making it very clear that the “correct” answer was a resounding no, which is insanity.

    • SocialistActionCan [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      100% I wrote a booklet on the topic, which covers both the failures of for-profit publishing and a list of demand for academics and the public to organize around! https://socialistcanada.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/booklet-for-public-ownership-and-democratic-control-of-scientific-publishing-v4-1-1.pdf