Derek Lowe asks “Why Isn’t There an ArXiv For Chemistry?” Where indeed. A few years ago I went to a talk given by Michael Eisen and asked him about why the biological sciences didn’t have an ArXiv, and one of his explanations was that intellectual property was more of a concern in this area (e.g., pharmaceutical funded research). That sounds plausible enough to me. But the existence of ArXiv still should serve as a starting point for people outside of the physical and mathematical sciences in terms of the possibilities. Much of the discussion around Joe Pickrell’s post ‘Why publish science in peer-reviewed journals?’ seemed to operate in a world where ArXiv didn’t exist. And it’s not just ArXiv, SSRN makes it easy to get papers in social science. We have the technology, and we see the possibilities. There are obstacles, but let’s not pretend as if we don’t have a model for some success.
Where is the ArXiv for X?