A few weeks ago, Popular Science Magazine announced that it was no longer allowing commenting at the end of its online articles. Its editors cited an inability to monitor the comments for misinformation, as well as for tone, and a fear that comments can compromise the science.
This comes at a time when some scientists are pushing for more commenting opportunities at the end of scientific papers published online.
These two divergent efforts - removing commenting vs adding commenting - reflect the larger effort in the scientific community to evaluate and publish scientific studies in a way that adjusts to the strengths and weaknesses of the internet age.
Can scientific standards be maintained in an online world?
Do online comments on scientific studies promote scientific inquiry, or are they mostly opportunities to promote politicized agendas?
Does open-access publishing benefit science?
Join host David Onek to explore these questions and more.
Guests:
Jonathan Dugan, Ph.D. - Director of PLOS Labs, an open-access science publisher.
Robert Tibshirani, Ph.D. - Professor in the Department of Health Research and Policy and Department of Statistics at Stanford University.
Peter Aldhous, Ph.D - Freelance journalist, contributor to MATTER and Medium, teacher at the Science Communication Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.