

Online articles lead to rapid scientific consensus, forgotten ideas - asp742
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080718-online-articles-lead-to-rapid-scientific-consensus-forgotten-ideas.html

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boredguy8
This is not particularly surprising. When the transaction cost to read an
article is lower, there's less "need" to use the work you've uncovered. By
analogy, Walter Murch says in his book, "In the Blink of an Eye" that film
editors need to avoid "seeing around the edge of the frame" - when the editor
knows the hard work that went into getting a particular shot to work, the
'sweat investment', it's harder to discard that shot because it feels like a
waste -- even if that's not the best shot to use. Similarly, my investment
into getting an article means I'm more likely to use it the harder it was to
obtain. By decreasing that cost, writers can be more 'objective' about what's
actually useful.

Second, because I can easily get a different article, if the one I have
doesn't say quite what I need, I can find something else.

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giardini
Leading to more herding and informational cascades (<http://www.info-
cascades.info/>) wherein individuals cease to follow their own thoughts and
instead rush to verify what they have heard through (in this case) the
academic grapevine.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb also addresses this topic in some depth in his book "The
black Swan" ([http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-
Improbable/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-
Improbable/dp/1400063515)).

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scott_s
This is an interesting counter-point to another submission from today:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=249346>

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Anon84
Not really. They complement each other. The one you showed claims (rightly so)
that openness is a fundamental requisite for the progress of science. This
one, shows how that openness results in more hits on the best papers on a
given subject.

Think of it this way... even if you have easy access to 100x more papers than
before, the number of citations that you put in your paper is still the same.
This means that the you will try to pick the best references from the set you
have available, which, in turn, will result in some particularly good papers
being cited more often than they would otherwise.

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scott_s
No, you're right, I just submitted the above before I finished reading this
thread's article - I thought it was going in the opposite direction.

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brfox
Why, when I click that link, do I have to click "back" 4 times in order to get
back to HN? (Firefox 2, winxp)

Are they being rude by doing a bunch of redirects (and making it harder for me
to leave) or is there something else going on?

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pchristensen
I have the same setup, only one backup system.

