The hottest Academic Publishing Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Technology Topics

The one science reform we can all agree on, but we're too cowardly to do

Experimental History • 59806 implied HN points • 03 Mar 26
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. For-profit scientific publishers extract large sums from publicly funded research by paywalling papers and charging institutions and authors to publish or read work the public already paid for.
  2. Many ‘open access’ rules let publishers just shift costs onto authors through huge article-processing fees, so the profit-skimming continues unless for-profit publishers are cut out entirely.
  3. This is a collective-action problem that only governments and big funders can solve; banning for-profit journals from handling grant-funded work would save money and create room for nonprofit, more honest publishing models.

Education Links, 3/9/2026

In My Tribe • 273 implied HN points • 09 Mar 26
🚌 Education Academic Publishing
  1. Sustained success comes from focused fascination rather than vague "follow your passion" advice — true curiosity is what you can stick with longer than your competitors without burning out.
  2. Graduate students who identify as more "woke" report much higher interest in politics and engage in political discussion with peers far more often than less "woke" students.
  3. The academic publishing system is rent-seeking because taxpayers fund research but then pay to access it; putting papers in the public domain and making peer review transparent would eliminate that double payment.

Experiments that never see the light of day

Briefly Bio • 19 implied HN points • 31 Oct 24
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Many experiments go unpublished because they're too small or inconclusive. Even if they don't seem important, they really help build bigger discoveries.
  2. It's important for scientists to share these lesser-known experiments. Sharing can help the whole field of science progress faster.
  3. Open science encourages collaboration. Scientists and companies should talk to each other about new ways to share research.

Juicy Research Ideas and How to Find them?

AI Research & Strategy • 297 implied HN points • 01 Sep 24
🕹 Technology Academic Publishing
  1. People often find AI research ideas by reading papers, talking to experts, or browsing online platforms like Twitter and GitHub. These are effective ways to spark inspiration.
  2. There are various strategies for generating AI research ideas, such as inventing new tasks, improving existing methods, or exploring gaps in current research. Each approach can lead to publishing valuable findings.
  3. Building better AI research assistants can involve encoding these idea-generation strategies into their programming. This could make them more effective in supporting researchers.

We Must be Doing Something Right

Unsafe Science • 119 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🚌 Education Academic Publishing
  1. AI can be used to spot propaganda disguised as academic scholarship, doing in minutes what can take humans days and making large-scale checks possible.
  2. Some academic work is ideologically driven and can selectively cite or spin evidence, so claims (like widespread hiring bias) sometimes don’t match the actual data.
  3. Exposing propaganda often triggers hostile reactions from its defenders, which can signal the exposure is hitting a nerve, and automating the work with AI would make such critique faster and broader.
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Peer Review 2027

Never Met a Science • 122 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Forbidding researchers from using LLMs is unstable and impractical because detection is unreliable and incentives to defect are strong, so allow and encourage AI use for concrete, practical research tasks.
  2. Peer review must be strengthened: shift resources toward human evaluation so people remain responsible for judgement and "taste," with reviewers held to different standards and supported by tools (including LLMs for checks).
  3. Institutional reforms and data are needed to manage higher submission volumes: introduce frictions like submission fees or caps where appropriate and build metascientific data streams to monitor uptake and adapt policies.

Peer Review of Microaggression Scholarship is an Unmitigated Disaster

Unsafe Science • 79 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Many microaggression studies rely on correlational, nonexperimental data but still claim causal relationships between racism, microaggressions, and outcomes.
  2. Concluding that microaggressions cause negative health or mental-health impacts from simple correlations is not justified without stronger causal evidence.
  3. Peer review has often failed to catch these methodological flaws, allowing unsupported causal claims to persist in the literature.

Back and Forth on the Value of Replication

The Good Science Project • 48 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Replicating studies early usually gives much bigger returns because it can stop entire lines of follow-on work from chasing a wrong result, though some older papers that still drive current research can also be worth replicating.
  2. Citation counts are an imperfect measure of influence, and once a paper's findings are deeply embedded across many follow-on studies, a single replication may not undo that influence—so sometimes it's higher impact to replicate key descendant papers instead of only the original.
  3. The impact of replication can be increased by changing incentives and communication: funders and journals can publicize replication results, link them to original papers, and adjust funding or citation expectations to make replications matter more.

My Research on Gender Dysphoria Was Censored. But I Won’t Be.

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 8778 implied HN points • 10 Jul 23
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. The retraction of a scientific article on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria sparked controversy and highlighted the influence of activist movements in academia.
  2. The authors faced accusations of violating editorial policies around consent, which they refuted by claiming to have followed ethical research practices.
  3. Despite the retraction, the authors plan to continue studying the controversial topic of ROGD, emphasizing the importance of scientific inquiry and resisting censorship.

Should We Care About Replication?

Economic Forces • 6 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Replication matters because it helps catch fraud and honest mistakes, but it doesn't have to be literal — redoing analyses with different data, larger samples, or better measures can serve the same purpose.
  2. A fall in published comments doesn't mean debate stopped; many critiques now happen in peer review and long appendices, and academic hierarchies and publication norms also shape what gets publicly challenged.
  3. Frontier empirical work is noisy and many surprising results won't generalize, so basic price theory and simple models are essential for asking better questions, judging results, and prioritizing what to replicate.

Thanks to STAT for putting me on the STATUS list

Science Forever • 159 implied HN points • 28 Feb 24
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Holden Thorp was named by STAT News to the STATUS list of top 50 leaders in the life sciences for his work in research integrity.
  2. Thorp has challenged the stigma around corrections and retractions in scientific publishing, advocating for increasing public trust in the scientific enterprise.
  3. Recognition also goes to the team at Science, including Valda Vinson, Lauren Kmec, Meagan Phelan, and Lisa Chong, for their contributions to research policies and Thorp's work.

Debunking the SCMP report that shaved 36 bln HKD off Baidu

Pekingnology • 188 implied HN points • 15 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Academic Publishing
  1. The SCMP report falsely claimed a link between Baidu and the Chinese military, resulting in a significant financial impact on Baidu.
  2. The Chinese journal paper discussed theoretical ideas, not real 'military AI' experiments, and lacked academic rigor in its approach.
  3. The paper's experiments were basic simulated scenarios, not real tests, and did not provide actionable insights or findings for military application.

eLife's Suppression of Science

A Biologist's Guide to Life • 51 implied HN points • 23 Feb 24
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Peer review in the scientific community can be flawed, biased, and influenced by power dynamics, leading to the suppression of scientific findings.
  2. Scientific papers can face unfair rejection based on personal biases, conflicts of interest, and editorial decisions.
  3. The current scientific publishing system may hinder the open discussion and publication of research that challenges established beliefs or powerful stakeholders in the field.

Have We Been Fooled by PrimeWorld?

Holodoxa • 39 implied HN points • 21 Jul 22
🔬 Science Academic Publishing
  1. Critically looking at flashy but weak academic research is essential to avoid misguided social initiatives based on unreliable findings
  2. Popular media and journalistic venues often promote non-replicable science as easy solutions to complex problems, leading to wasteful institutional investments in ineffective programs
  3. Emphasizing rigorous scientific methods and exploring alternative solutions beyond 'quick fixes' is crucial in addressing social issues and avoiding costly yet ineffective interventions