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Crystal Leonard's picture

In my opinion, the scientific

In my opinion, the scientific community claims that scientists publish their findings in scholarly journals so that their data is accessible to anyone who wants to question it, including the public. However, in reality, these journals are written for scientists exclusively. First, most of these journals require a subscription, so they are automatically not available to the general public. Then, even if a non-scientist were to buy a subscription, they most likely would not be able to understand anything in the journal. This is because the general public has not gone to graduate school to gain the necessary background information required to understand the articles. Scientists write these articles with other scientists as the intended audience. I think it is okay for there to be a venue by which scientists communicate exclusively with other scientists, as long as there is also a way for non-scientists to get reliable, accurate information. As of right now, there isn't really much besides Scientific American and the New York Times science section, and even these aren't perfect.

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