We all know that the advancement of science is dependent on the accessibility of information. Today, many claim that the best way to address this is for authors to publish in open access journals, otherwise their peers will not be able to review the published information. I believe this is a false hypothesis - most scientific information is available if you know where to go or whom to ask. Rather, I propose that the real culprits to inaccessibility of information are the authors themselves.
I know this is a controversial statement to make, but let me explain. In general, authors fulfill their ethical mandate to communicate their work. However, when publishing, good intentions do not necessarily guarantee reproducibility or transparency of research. Information accessibility suffers due to four basic issues: 1) methods are considered an afterthought when publishing; 2) important information about the methodology is often omitted – intentional or not; 3) only results fitting the authors’ hypothesis are being published; and 4) rarely are negative results published or discussed. In subsequent blogs, I will explain my ideas on these topics.
In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts. Please comment with other ideas on who or what is killing scientific progress.