Science’s Pirate Queen
To me, Alexandra Elbakyan is kind of like a Martin Luther of science. That is, she enables the lay public to read and interpret science rather than awaiting the interpretation and approval of academics from high-status institutions. That may be a ‘sacrilege’ view here, given the audience of HN. And, in a way, I do feel somewhat nervous of people making decisions based on papers they read without understanding of the philosophy and practice of science. Yet, it’s unavoidable and already being done through popular journalism.<p>With sci-hub (and with some reference books obtained via libgen), science becomes accessible to everyone with basic scientific literacy - a surprising large number of people. I see these two tools together as enablers of a new generation of scientists. For instance, recently I have seen many of my collegues and friends sending me direct links to research papers. That’s crazy and would have never happened just a few years ago. These tools will drive the democratization of science. Just as I now see the religious kids at the coffee shop discussing their scripture, I hope to soon see science kids there discussing classic science papers - doing it not for economic or career reasons, but simply to understand and discover.<p>To me, that’s not an economic issue but one of morality.