Is there a risk that these types of articles may damage trust in science? Yes, i think there probably is. People obviously don't understand the full difference between a preprint and a published paper. But what we really need to be working on is this idea that science is not this done and dusted certain process, as it's often portrayed to be. It's all about uncertainty. And so an ideal world, wi'll just help in whatever articles we're writing,. will help to kind of push that message... rather than this kind of fairy tale version.
In this first episode of Nature's Take, we get four of Nature's staff around microphones to get their expert take on preprints. These pre-peer-review open access articles have spiked in number over recent years and have cemented themselves as an integral part of scientific publishing. But this has not been without its issues.
In this discussion we cover a lot of ground. Amongst other things, we ask whether preprints could help democratise science or contribute to a loss of trust in scientists. We pick apart the relationship between preprints and peer-reviewed journals and tackle some common misconceptions. We ask how preprints have been used by different fields and how the pandemic has changed the game. And as we look to the future, we ask how preprints fit into the discussion around open access and even if they could do away with journals all together.
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