Open Access and cultural difference between life sciences and physics

Nature published a piece by Declan Butler that targets PLoS. Many people have criticized it and I don’t have much to add to them. What I found interesting was this comment by Razib of Gene Expression blog.

Razib wrote:

“But at the end of the day: what's good for science? It seems that the Open Access controversy is mostly focused around the life sciences. Is physics dead in the water because of arXiv?"

What I think interesting is the difference between arXiv and PLoS. From what I have read, Harold Varmus was inspired by the success of arXiv in physics to start an Open Access system in biology. However, his initial proposal of an Open Access system in life sciences in the form of E-biomed was met by strong opposition. Varmus eventually founded PLoS instead. PLoS publishes a group of journals that are committed to Open Access. It was a welcome addition to the Open Access movement, but it doesn’t have quite the scale and scope of arXiv. When I first read about it when it was founded, I thought it was a product of a big compromise that lost some of the things that made arXiv useful. (I can't claim to I know that much about arXiv, however.)

Why shouldn’t something comparable to arXiv work in life sciences when it’s working in physics? I don’t have a good grasp of the nature of the negative responses to Varmus’ initial proposal, but it seems some were protests by the publishers and some were concerns about lack of peer-reviews. However, it is not as if publishers play no role in publication of physics papers. And even when we read peer-reviewed papers, it’s not as if we should accept them at face values; we need to read each paper critically to judge its merit. I don’t see anything inherent in life sciences that makes something like arXiv not workable.

But I do think that there is a cultural difference between life scientists and physicists in their attitudes towards publications. Having seen both fields (although I am a lot more familiar with life sciences than physics), my impression is that life scientists care a lot more about in which journals their papers are published. They especially love to have their papers published in top journals like Nature, Science, and Cell. It’s not that physicists don’t care about journals; they will be happy to have their papers published in Physical Review Letters. But it seems to me that physicists don’t have as strong incentives to publish in prestigious journals.

Just to demonstrate my point, let me show lists of ten highly cited papers in biology and physics.

Ten highly cited papers in biology (http://sciencewatch.com/ana/hot/bio/08mayjun-bio/)

1. E. Bettelli, et al., "Reciprocal developmental pathways for the generation of pathogenic effector TH17 and regulatory T cells," Nature, 441(7090): 235-8, 11 May 2006.
2. R. Redon, et al., "Global variation in copy number in the human genome," Nature, 444(7118): 444-54, 23 November 2006.
3. M. Veldhoen, et al., "TGFß in the context of an inflammatory cytokine milieu supports de novo differentiation of IL-17-producing T cells," Immunity, 24(2): 179-89, February 2006.
4. The ENCODE Project Consortium (E. Birney, et al.), "Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project," Nature, 447(7146): 799-816, 14 June 2007.
5. P.R. Mangan, et al., "Transforming growth factor-ß induces development of the TH17 lineage," Nature, 441(7090): 231-4, 11 May 2006.
6. S.F.A. Grant, et al., "Variant of transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) gene confers risk of type 2 diabetes," Nature Genetics, 38(3): 320-3, March 2006.
7. T.I. Lee, et al., "Control of developmental regulators by polycomb in human embryonic stem cells," Cell, 125(2): 301-3, 21 April 2006.
8. D.L. Barber, et al., "Restoring function in exhausted CD8 T cells during chronic viral infection," Nature, 439(7077): 682-7, 9 February 2006.
9. M. Neumann, et al., "Ubiquinated TDP-43 in frontotemporal lobar degeneration and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," Science, 314(5796): 130-3, 6 October 2006.
10. C.L. Day, et al., "PD-1 expression on HIV-specific T cells in associated with T-cell exhaustion and disease progression," Nature, 443(7109): 350-4, 21 September 2006.

Ten highly cited papers in physics (http://sciencewatch.com/ana/hot/phy/08mayjun-phy/)

1. D.N. Spergel, et al., "Three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observations: Implications for cosmology," Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 170(2): 377-408, June 2007.
2. M.F. Skrutskie, et al., "The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS)," Astronom. J., 131(2): 1163-83, February 2006.
3. P. Astier, et al., "The Supernova Legacy Survey: measurement of Om, O?, and w from the first year data set," Astron. & Astrophys., 447(1): 31-48, February 2006.
4. J.K. Adelman-McCarthy, et al., "The Fourth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey," Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 162(1): 38-48, January 2006.
5. B. Zhang, et al., "Physical processes shaping gamma-ray burst X-ray afterglow light curves: Theoretical implications from the Swift X-ray telescope observations," Astrophys. J., 642(1): 354-70, 1 May 2006.
6. D.J. Croton, et al., "The many lives of active galactic nuclei: cooling flows, black holes and the luminosities and colours of galaxies," Month. Not. Royal Astr. Soc., 365(1): 11-28, 1 January 2006.
7. M. Tegmark, et al., "Cosmological constraints from the SDSS luminous red galaxies," Phys. Rev. D, 74(12): 123507, December 2006.
8. R.G. Bower, et al., "Breaking the hierarchy of galaxy formation," Month. Not. Royal Astr. Soc., 370(2): 645-55, 1 August 2006.
9. L. Page, et al., "Three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observations: Polarization analysis," Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 170(2): 335-76, June 2007.
10. N.M.R. Peres, F. Guinea, A.H. Castro Neto, "Electronic properties of disordered two-dimensional carbon," Phys. Rev. B, 73(12): 125411, March 2006.

Of the 10 hot papers in biology, 6 were published in Nature, 1 in Immunity (a sister journal of Cell, specialized in immunology), 1 in Nature Genetics (a sister journal of Nature, specialized in genetics), 1 in Cell, and 1 in Science. 8 of the 10 papers were published in the top three journals of Nature, Science, and Cell. In contrast, all of the hot physics papers were published in journals specialized in subfields of physics, such as astronomy/astrophysics (Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., Astronom. J., Astrophys. J., Month. Not. Royal Astr. Soc.), particle physics, gravitation, and cosmology (Phys. Rev. D), and condensed matter physics (Phys. Rev. B.). Some of the hot papers in physics were results of large projects, such as WMAP, that were guaranteed to have high impacts. I think Nature and Science would not mind publishing such papers. But the researchers chose to publish the papers in more specialized journals.

For whatever reason, life scientists appear to have very strong incentives to publish papers in highly regarded papers. As a result, securing publications in highly regarded journals has higher priority than to make their ideas and data quickly and freely accessible. They won’t be very interested in Open Access if it conflicts with publications in highly regarded journals. From this point of view, it seems that the role of PLoS is to provide highly regarded journals that are also Open Access. It is somewhat ironic that, because of its nature, PLoS is in a more direct competition than arXiv with the traditional publishers such as Nature Publishing Group.