Academics and wanna-be academics produce vast quantities of dubious research every year, so does it matter what is done with it?

In today’s Martin Center article, David Randall of NAS makes a good case that archiving of research, even if it might be junk, is worthwhile.

He writes:”

It matters because — I mentioned before the irreproducibility crisis of modern science. That’s the combination of groupthink, publication bias, discarding of negative results, and culpably negligent use of statistical analysis that has led to modern science research comprising what may be a majority of false research findings. There’s a great deal that needs to be done to fix the irreproducibility crisis, but you can’t even begin if you haven’t properly archived every bit of research in a field — or, indeed, if you lack the capacity to provide proper archiving for research.

And that’s not all. Proper archiving also helps to combat the problem of politicization. Randall explains:

Digital archiving also must face the challenge posed by high-tech censorship. Amazon can now delete a “problematic” word or argument from your Kindle book without alerting you. A book company can alter the latest edition of a book; a scientific journal can change or withdraw an article — any digital object can be manipulated or removed by high-tech gatekeepers without alerting the public. Perhaps the greatest challenge in the field of digital archiving is to distribute fixed digital objects so broadly that they cannot be censored by private or governmental actors and to provide every individual a quick and secure means of assessing whether a given digital object remains unaltered — and a means of locating the unaltered original. This is a task necessary for the preservation of liberty, and it is, fundamentally, a task of digital archiving.

I think he makes a convincing case.