Comment. The plaintiffs complain the site might "modify the beliefs of public school science students so they will be more willing to accept evolutionary theory as true." I can't tell whether they object that the site is persuasive (and might influence those who read it) or that it is open access (and might be read by students and teachers). OA seems to be at least part of the problem, since they are not (yet) suing the authors of priced journal articles, monographs, and textbooks on evolution. The plaintiffs clearly object that the web site is federally-funded, as if they believed in the separation of church and state. But this is profoundly confused and for at least three reasons: (1) the web site is not religious and does not violate the separation of church and state; (2) the plaintiffs are the ones who would like to breach the wall of separation between church and state, in public schools, and (3) the plaintiffs would like to erect a new wall of separation between science and state. This lawsuit is a threat to science of any kind, OA and non-OA. While I believe the court will throw it out, throwing it out is not enough. If the Berkeley scientists and NSF don't counter-sue for frivolous litigation and collect damages, then other fundamentalists will be inclined to sue other scientists, if only to chill scientific publication by putting its authors and publishers to the trouble, time, expense, and risk of defending themselves in court.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
