Tyler Cowen - Volokh Conspiracy - Internet Publishing by Academia

Sunday, October 05, 2003 posted by Tyler Cowen, 7:53 PM, at The Volokh Conspiracy:
"Why not publish everything on the Internet? I've been thinking lately about why my discipline, economics, doesn't publish everything on the Internet, with subsequent commentary on the Internet as well. Some people, such as Brad DeLong, think this scenario is in the cards, only a matter of time. Many parts of physics already operate this way. So why don't all fields?"

Cowen then posts five possible reasons why much of academia avoids open publication of articles on the internet, which may all have an element of truth to them.

WHY DO ESTABLISHED SO-CALLED SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS THUS FAR LARGELY AVOID INTERNET PUBLICATION?

There is another, less benevolent, answer I would propose, which I would suggest accounts for part of mainstream academic reluctance to join the web openly, especially the peer-review journals:

Physics uses the internet because physics is a naturally-closed high-level mathematically-oriented and specialized field. The physicists need not worry too much about opening themselves up through internet publication. It is a rare erudite layman or even highly profiled academic from another field who can evaluate a physicist's work, even at the most rudimentary level of this profession.

Not so in many other disciplines, however.

Whereas an engineer can not build a motor and claim that it works - without also having proven that the motor actually runs - the same is not true for all sciences, especially the "soft disciplines".

Many academic disciplines, particularly the humanities, operate according to an antiquated system of so-called "science" whereby publications - and the theories in them - are accepted or rejected as the result of the political clout of the so-called "acknowledged" mainstream authorities in their fields, often operating through crony (peer-review) journals, which do not publish anything that rocks "their" mainstream boat, following the theory that what is "generally accepted" to be true by the mainstream, is true. We cite here to the landmark decision in Daubert where that view is rejected in modern law.

OPEN INTERNET PUBLICATION IS NOT IN THE MAINSTREAM INTEREST

If the mainstream started publishing to the internet, many humanities would come under scrutiny by highly profiled intellects and/or highly intelligent people from other fields who would start asking the humanities to prove that their theoretical motors actually run. Alas, I would predict that many of these motors do NOT run.

Questionable fields in my opinion, from the standpoint of the test of "probative evidence" and from the standpoint of the tenets in Henri Poincare's Science and Method and Science and Hypothesis - are, just to name some that are quite familiar to me:
Archaeology, Old Testament Studies and the History of the Ancient Near East, Egyptology, Historical Linguistics and the History of Astronomy prior to the Greeks.

Some fundamental mainstream precepts in these disciplines are nothing more than educated guesses based in part on wishful thinking. And yet we permit possibly erroneous views of ancient history to form our views of e.g. the Middle East. After all, the full-page map at page 233 in Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, shows the Pharaohs of Egypt to have ruled the area we today call Israel and Palestine - clear up to Ugarit - at the time of Pharaoh Thutmosis I, which is ca. 1500 B.C. There is no record of this territory having been lost by pharaohs after Thutmosis until the rule of Ramses III, at whose time a Syrian migdol was buit in Egypt , indicating Syrian influence. So if Egypt ruled this land in 1500 BC, which seems to be unquestioned in Egyptological circles, who does this territory belong to really? and is ancient Ugarit - the northernmost border in 1500 B.C. for the Pharaonic sphere of influence on Shaw's map - in fact the historical border between the Pharaonic rulers/Hebrews - see below- and the ancient Syrians (ancient Mittani viz. Naharin)?

HOW RELIABLE IS MAINSTREAM SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND THEORY?

Here is what Cosma Shalizi, DARPA Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Complex Systems writes about mainstream scientific method and theory:

"Philosophy of science these days seems largely concerned with questions of method, justification and reliability --- what do scientists do (and are they all doing the same thing? are they doing what they think they're doing?), and does it work, and if so why, and what exactly does it produce? There are other issues, too, like, do scientific theories really tell us about the world, or just give us tools for making predictions (and is there a difference there?). The whole reductionism---emergence squabble falls under this discipline, too. But (so far as an outsider can judge), method is where most of the debate is these days.
Of course, most scientists proceed in serene indifference to debates in methodology, and indeed all other aspects of the philosophy of science. What Medawar wrote thirty years ago and more is still true today:
'If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem to be able to get on very well without it. Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned?' "

DO THE SAME WEAKNESSES APPLY TO LAW?

Some of the points raised above seem to reflect similar questions about the law asked by Mr. Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, in his article
"Chaos and the Court," 91 Colum. L. Rev. 110 (1991).

THESE WEAKNESSES SURELY APPLY TO ARCHAEOLOGY

In any case, take a look e.g. at my postings about numerous and hardly believable recent archaeological blunders and oddities at:

1. Fake Jesus chalk ossuary shown to 100,000 visitors at the Royal Ontario Museum as if it were genuine.
2. Mummy alleged by a British archaeologist to be Nofretete actually a man?, with a wonderful follow up in Al-Ahram, Egypt by Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Director of the Giza Pyramids.
3. What the Guardian calls blundering archaeologists regarding supposedly ancient rock drawings in Britain
4. What the Washington Post writes about archaeology and the doubt of the existence of the Queen of Sheba, and I suppose in the same breath, the doubt of Hebrew history (the identity of the archaeologist here is interesting).
5. We need not go into the situation in Iraq here, but also that arena is not conducive to establishing confidence in Archaeology.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Open publication of materials in this field would open the academics in those fields to long-term public controversy and often derision - such as that visible above - until they got their scientific standards of evidentiary proof up to snuff. Much of the mainstream account of man's history is based on hearsay, superstition, mythology and witchdoctor-like historical perception - probative evidence is often lacking to establish key landmarks, especially those assigned to chronology.

THE EXAMPLE OF HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In this vein, I repeat here again my long-standing open challenge to ANY scholar worldwide for ONE piece of probative evidence for the current chronological dating of Biblical Moses, a Moses alleged by Artapanus (see David Rohl, A Test of Time) - the only probative written historical source - to have been born in the reign of Pharaoh Chaneferre [as his grandson], which, by present Pharaonic chronology, and without trying to move the Egyptian chronology forward, as Rohl erroneously then does try, would place the birth of Moses ca. 1700 BC - as a grandson of the pharaoh [so who were the pharaohs then? if not the progeny of the Jews], with all of the changes in our view of world history that this date would engender. My challenge has stood for years - there have been no takers, which is understandable, they would be ripped to shreds under cross-examination by even an average counsel.

WHAT ABOUT ECONOMICS

As for economics, what advantage would ranking mainsream economists (as opposed to economics per se) gain by publishing to the internet, except to water-down their power base? Established capacities in the field are unlikely to do it, as they gain nothing by it, so it will be up to the newer generations to move forward.

We see this development in blogging, which is not populated by a lot of aging tenured professors, but rather by dynamic newbies who see the future - and that future belongs to them.

THE NEW FORCES IN ACADEMICS ARE AT THE FOREFRONT OF BLOGGING

Let us close with a somewhat different view of academics, as posted by Eugene Volokh, 10:31 AM, October 6, 2003, under the title:

"Profbloggers: Why are there so many of the leading bloggers academics? A few thoughts:

1. The observation bias explanation: Even if the blogging impulse is as common (or rare) among academics as among others, academics are more likely to become relatively prominent. First, we have a credential that makes people notice us more (whether rightly or wrongly). Second, we do actually tend to know quite a bit about certain fields, which brings in readers, readers who stay even when we write outside our field of expertise. So it looks to you like there are a lot of blogger academics, because you judge their number based on what you see, and you disproportionately see the more prominent blogs. (Special twist: You are reading a mostly academic-written blog, which probably reveals that you tend to like academic blogs. People who don't read InstaPundit, this blog, and various other academic blogs probably perceive academic blogs as rarer than you or I do.)

2. The job description explanation: You're getting what you're paying for. University professorships are a way that society subsidizes intellectuals (through tax money, through charitable contributions, through social conventions that give research universities special prestige as validators of undergraduate quality, and so on), by giving them lots of free time to think and write about whatever they like. Why would society want to do a silly thing like that? Because, the theory goes, intellectuals who are hired as professors will create intellectual public goods -- things that people will ultimately benefit from, but which are hard to make money on. A classic, and especially valuable, example is basic research. Another is popularization of technical ideas for laypeople, for instance when a professor is used as a (free) resource by journalists, or when a professor bypasses the middleman and blogs instead.

Maybe if micropayments became really cheap and easy, such popularizers and opinionistas could get paid directly (Andrew Sullivan is trying to do that on the opinion journalism front), and not have to rely either on book sales or newspaper columns (which have their limitations, in terms of timeliness, format, and subject matter) or on an academic job. But for now, we profbloggers are paid through the "give academics enough to live on, and see what goodies they'll come up with" system. It's not obvious that blogging is the optimal use of our time (or even part of the basket of uses for our time). On the other hand, it's not obvious that it's not, since the other rival candidates (e.g., writing law review articles) have their own drawbacks (e.g., limited audiences and limited relevance).

3. The academic selection bias explanation: Professors went into the academy because they like to spread their ideas, and because they like to talk. Blogging is a good way of doing that.

I'm sure there are plenty of other explanations, too, but these are just the ones that struck me at this moment as being likely the most relevant."

PRESTIGE AND LARGER AUDIENCES?

And that is surely true, although I think there are a 4th and 5th (and maybe 6th) primary reason:

4. Prestige: Blogs provide an academic with the means to quickly and effectively propogate his or her ideas and to bypass the antiquated peer-review process, and - in case the peer-review process is viewed as an alternative down the road - blogging can serve as a means to create, develop and refine new ideas, all of which can now or later lead to an image increase.

5. Larger audiences (Volokh mentions this point as an aside): Quite apart from the "job description" point of view, your average academic, whatever his professorial credentials, has a relatively small audience. This is not a good situation for someone who thinks he has something valuable to say. Some profs today may even teach less than the lecturers or adjuncts, who may be the ones with the greatest student (i.e. audience) contact in classes. For example, in semesters where I have taught Anglo-American Law, Legal Research and Legal Writing at the University of Trier Law School as a Lecturer, I have had ca. 200 students per semester and ca. 20 student assistants - few professors can match those numbers. As every academic knows, teaching reaches larger audiences, but does not move careers. Research reaches much smaller audiences, but these small audiences are the "right" ones in terms of career advancement. Research is of course thus preferred in academia and is done in the last analysis for the so-called peers, a handfull of people, and to what effect? You show me a professor with 50 peer-review publications and his career will move forward, regardless of the merit of the publications. An average book by a professor sells, let us guess, 250 copies (?), and most of these go to the various libraries or to the peer-review journals as review copies. Who else reads this stuff? In other words, the young profs who are now blogging may subconsciously - and probably correctly - see a greater immediate possibility of influencing the world through blogs - while at the same time also establishing an expert image among peers of their own age - than through articles on dusty shelves, where they may be rewarded for their expertise - in the days when they turn 60. Blogging seems the more alive thing to do and I do not think it will go away - rather - it will increase. If I were a chairman of a department, I would have everyone on the faculty blogging under the motto: "so, you think your ideas are good? - let's see who reads them and what they say about them. Let us not write only for the library shelf."

6. Practically seen, blogs as communicative tools seem to be tailor-made for education and learning, so it may be no accident that they attract academia. Indeed, education is an area where blogs are really taking off.

In any case, my prediction is that in the immediate future, more disciplines, and especially the "soft sciences", will ultimately publish peer-review type journals to the internet, but will do so chiefly behind closed doors, i.e. on protected websites and only to a select audience of "subscribing" cronies (academic subscriptions are a nice way to keep the market closed). Anything else might otherwise prove to be contra-productive for many members of the mainstream, whose work then would be subjectable to intense, immediate broad and "strict scrutiny". This would run contra to the maxim of "publish or perish", which presumes that peer-review publication means honor and prestige, regardless of content. The key thing is - publish. You need not be read or agreed to, to become an authority - you merely have to get your articles into the right journals. And to do that, you have to write the right things - as determined by the reviewers. Those of you who have run the gauntlet know what this entails. By contrast, consider, do the older, established "good old boys" of academia really want to publish to the internet and be the focus of possible public criticism, with the accompanying possible loss of the very image plusses which are sought to be gained? No. So, it is up to the younger generations - as it always is for progress. And do not be too angry with those in established positions - Elizabeth is STILL the Queen of England and the Pope is still the Pope. People hang on to their established positions as long as they can. That is the rule of much of the world.