[Fis] Scientific Communication and Publishing

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Mark and Colleagues,

Thanks for the well crafted work. Actually you have presented us a 
tightly linked work along perspectives of philosophical, historical, and 
present day criticisms stances. For my taste, Sections 1 and 2 are a 
matter of opinion, of philosophical orientation, closer in this case to 
critical stances. Speech social-construction, status function, scarcity 
declaration, communication definition, information-uncertainty sciences, 
etc. Some of these topics are or have been subject to hot debate in this 
list, so I decline entering--anyhow, my personal impression is that such 
kind of oriented approach although formally consistent, leave aside 
important aspects of the phenomenon. But it is good that you have made 
the consistent scheme.

Historically, the parallel between publication in that transitional 
period of the "scientific revolution" and our times of "information 
revolution" is well developed. Just to enlarge the panorama, I recommend 
/Information Ages/. Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution. 
Michael E. Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman. (2000). The publication 
practices around the "papiri era", culminating in the Alexandrian 
Library, and the "codices era", around the monastic system first and 
later around the university system are the two big precedents. The 
underlying phenomenon in all eras revolves around the "sharing of 
knowledge", a genuine cognitive instinct that is channeled in different 
ways by existing social orders and available technical resources. Not 
much different from the artistic pulsion--and often closely interlinked 
(paradigmatic Leonardo da Vinci).

In our times, there is a famous sentence by premier Zhou Enlai "It is 
too early to say"... However personally I share most of the concerns 
raised by Mark, adding a pessimistic note on the impact that the new 
techs are having in the "creative engine" of science. Although multiple 
new fields have been open thanks to the computer upheaval (precision 
medicine, omic revolution, nanosciences, social physics, social 
neurosceince, social networks, big data everywhere, etc etc), the 
amazing bounty has been accompanied by new problems. On the one side a 
new aristocracy related to big sceince projects and techno-utopian 
goals, more and more distanced of the common researcher, plus an 
enormous increase of computer-mediated bureaucratization. Besides, the 
really easy communication tools and the multiplicity of channels have 
derived in an unselected overflow that impacts negatively on the slow 
reflection needed in science: rushing from screen to screen, no time to 
think. Something similar is happening in technically mediated social 
relationships--terrible for instance in adolescents. If we are going 
toward a symbiosis man-machine, the prospects are not fascinating.

Well, these are comments from a late baby boomer, hardly adapted to the 
new order...
Best greetings to all
--Pedro




I El 26/09/2016 a las 9:55, Mark Johnson escribió:
> Dear FIS Colleagues, To kick-start the discussion on scientific 
> publishing, I have prepared a short (hopefully provocative) video. It 
> can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bh3vqM98-U (if 
> anyone's interested, the software I used for producing it is
> called 'Videoscribe')
>
> I have also produced a paper which is attached.
>
> I hope you find these interesting and stimulating!
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis


-- 
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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