Our present system of scientific communication depends almost entirely on [literature with] three basic characteristics: it is fragmentary, derivative, and edited. These characteristics are, however, quite essential. The invention of a mechanism for the systematic publication of fragments of scientific work may well have been the key event in the history of modern science.... A typical scientific paper has never pretended to be more than another little piece in a larger jigsaw--not significant in itself but as an element in a grander scheme. This technique, of soliciting many modest contributions to the store of human knowledge, has been the secret of Western science since the seventeenth century, for it achieves a corporate, collective power that is far greater than one individual can exert.... [Published] papers are not meant to be final statements of indisputable truths; each is merely a tiny tentative step forward, through the jungles of ignorance. - John Ziman, Nature, October 1969 |