Sometimes I wonder if the Pythagoreans had the right idea.

Yes, I've written about how "science" is inherently public. I've written that "science" is distinguished from merely rational knowledge by the in-principle ability to reproduce scientific experiments for yourself, to know without relying on authority. I've said that "science" should be defined as the publicly accessible knowledge of humankind. I've even suggested that future generations will regard all papers not published in an open-access journal as non-science, i.e., it can't be part of the public knowledge of humankind if you make people pay to read it.

But that's only one vision of the future. In another vision, the knowledge we now call "science" is taken out of the public domain—the books and journals hidden away, guarded by mystic cults of gurus wearing robes, requiring fearsome initiation rituals for access—so that more people will actually study it.

I mean, right now, people can study science but they don't.

"Scarcity", it's called in social psychology. What appears to be in limited supply, is more highly valued. And this effect is especially strong with information—we're much more likely to try to obtain information that we believe is secret, and to value it more when we do obtain it.

With science, I think, people assume that if the information is freely available, it must not be important. So instead people join cults that have the sense to keep their Great Truths secret. The Great Truth may actually be gibberish, but it's more satisfying than coherent science, because it's secret.

Science is the great Purloined Letter of our times, left out in the open and ignored.

Sure, scientific openness helps the scientific elite. They've already been through the initiation rituals. But for the rest of the planet, science is kept secret a hundred times more effectively by making it freely available, than if its books were guarded in vaults and you had to walk over hot coals to get access. (This being a fearsome trial indeed, since the great secrets of insulation are only available to Physicist-Initiates of the Third Level.)

If scientific knowledge were hidden in ancient vaults (rather than hidden in inconvenient pay-for-access journals), at least then people would try to get into the vaults. They'd be desperate to learn...

Anonymous27

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