It's a surprising and unfortunate fact that the majority of the world's research, mostly conducted with public funding, is kept behind paywalls run by a tiny number of publishing corporations. But perhaps it doesn't have to be this way.

I’m sympathetic to Horgan’s claim that there’s something rotten in the state of science, I can get on board with the idea that our scientific luminaries are a bunch of asses and buffoons, and I’m even open to the possibility that large swaths of supposed scientific activity have basically become interpretative dance.

it). So many academics propose something in one paper, then the opposite in another paper, without penalty to themselves from having been wrong in the first paper since there is a need only for consistency within a single paper, not across one’s career.

Many argue that having this kind of information behind a paywall is bad for society, and even the institutions who pay these large subscriptions are getting sick of them.