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The cash cows, AKA Elsevier et al, need to do more to stem the flow of BS. The problem is the proliferation of well crafted, but fake, papers has grown enormously over the past 25 years as the cows rely on free paper editors - who are swamped by this duty = time for paid scientists to winnow the chaff. Sadly the cows are a greedy lot. Only way out is fully open. Back in the day when Nobel was born, the journals and authors circulated as near free resources, with authors mailing free copies on request, and now emailing them (often this is interdicted by the cows) and journal fees being modest - covering production costs. Nobel would be (IMHO) royally pissed at the present state. So I suggest the Nobel Committee introduce a policy that only openly published papers would be read and considered by the committee - This would put a tiger among the pigeons(Cows) and change things - say, after Jan 1 2024?



As one who published primarily in the 1970s and 1980s [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5DdrMc8AAAAJ&hl=en] I can confirm that I mailed reprints of my requested papers to whomever requested them, for free.

Note: I paid for the reprints and the postage, often expensive foreign rates.


Ok, but how many citations/yr and reprints/yr did you get? The volume of literature has scaled exponentially since.




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