Great Expectations For Scientific Publication: How Digital Publishing Is Helping Science | The Next Regeneration

"I recently came across a rant that lamented the advent of digital publishing, open access publishing and self-publishing in science. The rant was published in the Huffington Post as a 'digital' blog post (ah, the irony), entitled '50 Shades of Grey in Scientific Publication: How Digital Publishing Is Harming Science'. It was reminiscent of the rants that might have been uttered by calligraphers who were upset about the emergence of Gutenberg’s printing press or concerns of European aristocrats in the wake of the French Revolution about whether commoners could ever govern a country. Normally I ignore rants, but this one was written by Dr. Douglas Fields, an outstanding neuroscientist and an excellent writer, who also serves as the Chief of the Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. It is very difficult to understand how someone who is such an eminent scientist and has an extensive experience with scientific publishing would make so many bizarre statements about open access publishing. My initial reaction was that Dr. Fields wrote it as a satirical piece, mocking the opponents of open access publishing by listing phobias and biases of interest groups that are trying to prevent free public access to the results of scientific research. Upon further reading, I realized that perhaps Dr. Fields did consider the statements in his article to be a valid critique of open access publishing and that it therefore warrants a response to point out the errors. Dr. Björn Brembs has already written one excellent response, but I think the topic is rather important and would benefit from additional responses. My problem is figuring out how to respond to a rant that is rife with so many inaccurate statements and fallacies. I will first summarize three key flaws in Dr. Fields’ reasoning and then move on to giving specific examples... 1. Conflating digital publishing, open access publishing and self-publishing ...  2. Open access publishing and rigorous peer review ... 3. Open access publishing and corporate interests ... "