What is Decentralized Science (DeSci)?
DeSci is a scientific research method that applies decentralized technology and will completely change traditional science (TradSci). Instead of relying on centralized institutions and intermediaries, DeSci adopts decentralized means to achieve knowledge creation and dissemination. In essence, DeSci aims to expand access to scientific data, promote a more transparent peer review process, and encourage international cooperation among researchers.
DeSci uses Web3 technology to solve the core problems of TradSci. First of all, the most important problem that Web3 solves is the problem of fund allocation. DeSci can completely change the allocation of research funds through mechanisms such as secondary donations and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), thereby promoting a more equitable distribution of resources.
Among other things, DeSci leverages blockchain-based research repositories to expand access to resources. This ensures that scientific data and publications are stored transparently in decentralized ledgers, making them easily accessible to more people. Smart contracts can manage data access and generally ensure that data is distributed fairly and securely. DeSci can introduce incentives for reproducibility, such as token rewards and reputation mechanisms. Smart contracts can promote a transparent and verifiable peer review process, encouraging researchers to conduct reproducible scientific work. This generally improves the reliability of scientific discoveries.
The emergence of decentralized science has mainly solved the problem of scientific research funding. It can provide financial support for some key research projects and effectively help the effective development of projects. At the same time, on-chain smart contracts can also make the use of funds more transparent and traceable, preventing many cases of fund abuse. At the same time, if the peer review process is also combined with web3 smart contracts, it will also prevent more problems such as acquaintance review and reduce the influence of academic circles on the review process. As an aside, in fact, this idea can also be used in many charitable causes. Decentralized charity makes every well-intentioned donation have practical use. This may be a very important value of web3 technology.
Commercial interests of literature data vendors
In fact, everyone in the academic world has the need to download scientific literature, because in order to understand the research progress in the industry, it is necessary to constantly read the latest published literature. At present, there are many categories of academic literature. In the field of academic and research, the literature mainly includes:
Academic paper: A publication of research findings by researchers that is published in a journal, usually after being peer-reviewed.
Conference paper: Research work presented at an academic conference, usually preliminary results of emerging research.
Books and Monographs: Comprehensive works that explore a field in depth.
Technical report: usually published by research institutions or companies, describing the detailed process and results of technical research.
Patent documents: describe the technical details and legal protection of new inventions.
Dissertation: A research report written by graduate and doctoral students to obtain their degree.
In general, academic papers are the most recognized type of literature in the academic community and can demonstrate the highest level of research results. Academic papers are usually classified according to subject areas. The following are some common classifications:
SCI (Science Citation Index): covers high-impact journals in the fields of natural science and engineering technology. Major disciplines include physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, materials science, engineering, etc.
SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index): covers journals in the field of social sciences. Major disciplines include psychology, sociology, economics, education, political science, anthropology, etc.
AHCI (Arts & Humanities Citation Index): covers journals in the arts and humanities. Major subjects include literature, history, philosophy, art, music, religious studies, etc.
EI (Engineering Index) or EI Compendex: focuses on literature in the field of engineering. Major disciplines include electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, computer science, etc.
PubMed: Focuses on literature in the fields of biomedicine and life sciences. Major disciplines include medicine, pharmacy, biotechnology, public health, etc.
Scopus: A literature database covering a wide range of disciplines, including natural sciences, social sciences, life sciences, health sciences, engineering, arts and humanities, etc.
Document data vendors acquire document copyrights through cooperation with publishers, build up huge database resources, and provide users with retrieval and access services through professional processing such as document digitization, index construction, and metadata collation. The core of their profitability lies in the formation of an industry oligopoly and the possession of a large number of exclusive copyrights. In addition, the rigid demand for document resources in academic research and the high threshold for database construction (including capital, technology, and time investment) give them strong bargaining power. Through subscription-based charging models, packaged sales strategies, and differentiated pricing, as well as value-added services such as citation analysis and academic evaluation, these data vendors (such as Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, etc.) are able to obtain high profits. Although this business model ensures the professional management and convenient access to document resources, it has also triggered continuous discussions in the academic community about open access.
For ordinary academic researchers, obtaining the required literature often faces great financial pressure. The download price of a single document usually ranges from US$30 to US$50, and some important papers are even more expensive. If there is no database access permission provided by the institution (such as library subscriptions of universities or research institutes), researchers must purchase it at their own expense, which is a considerable expense for academic research that requires a lot of reading of literature. Taking a doctoral student's daily research as an example, if he needs to read 10 new documents per week, at US$35 per article, the monthly literature fee alone will cost about US$1,400, which is an unbearable cost burden for most researchers (of course, many school libraries will pay such a fee). This is why many independent researchers or scholars from small institutions often need to obtain literature through various informal channels, or seek help from peers in academic social networks.
The emergence of Sci-Hub is a radical resistance and innovative solution to the unfair status quo of the academic publishing ecosystem. This is actually the story of Sci-Hub and its founder Alexandra Asanovna Elbakin (hereinafter referred to as Sister A) that I want to share with you today.
This is about equal rights to knowledge
@ringo_ring was born on November 6, 1988 in Almaty, Soviet Union, and was raised by a single mother. She claims to be of Armenian, Slavic and Asian descent. From an early age, she developed a keen interest in science, biology and evolution, and documented her personal experiences in detail on her blog.
At the age of 12, Sister A began to learn programming and mastered HTML to make web pages. She then learned PHP, Delphi and assembly language. She completed her university studies in Astana and received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the Kazakh National University of Science and Technology in 2009, majoring in information security. During this period, she also became a hacker.
After graduating from university, A moved to Moscow and started working in information security. In 2010, she went to the University of Freiburg in Germany to participate in a project on brain-computer interface and became interested in transhumanism. In the same year, she participated in the summer exchange program at Georgia Institute of Technology, with the research topic of "Neuroscience and Consciousness".
In 2011, A returned to Kazakhstan to pursue graduate studies. During her graduate studies, she found that the cost of obtaining many academic papers was too high, especially those research papers blocked by paywalls. In order to help herself and other researchers access these important academic resources, she decided to create a platform (Sci-hub) to bypass publishers' paywalls. In 2019, she received a master's degree and was once suspected of being a Russian spy by American agencies. In 2020, she lived in Moscow and began to pursue a doctorate in Theory of Knowledge at the Center for Philosophical Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The gears of fate had already started turning, and Sci-Hub was born.
Sci-Hub is known as a shadow library that uses different methods to provide millions of academic papers and works without considering copyright issues. The site has users all over the world, and in September 2019, the site owner claimed that Sci-Hub handles about 400,000 requests per day. By February 2021, Sci-Hub's homepage showed that it stored more than 85 million papers.
“Her goal is to remove barriers to the spread of scientific knowledge in society and to bridge the digital divide for society.”
The emergence of Sci-Hub has sparked widespread discussion and controversy. On the positive side, Sci-Hub provides many researchers and students who cannot afford high subscription fees with access to academic resources, especially in developing countries, promotes the dissemination and sharing of scientific knowledge, and challenges the business model of the traditional academic publishing industry, promoting calls for open access solutions. However, the negative aspects include that its practice of bypassing publishers' paywalls involves copyright and legal issues, which may affect academic integrity, and its operating model lacks sustainability.
Overall, Sci-Hub has played an important role in promoting open access to academic resources and promoting the dissemination of knowledge, but its practices have also sparked legal and ethical controversies, prompting the academic community to rethink the future of publishing and the fairness of knowledge access. (Science) magazine called Sci-Hub "respectable altruism or a large criminal organization, depending on which side you are on." Because she provided a large number of automatic free download services for academic papers that should have been paid for, she was sued by the publisher Elsevier in a US court and was ordered to pay a fine of $15 million. In order to avoid the risk of extradition, Sister A had to hide everywhere.
Sci-Hub not only changed Ms. A's fate, but also shook the foundation of the entire scientific community. She paid a huge personal price for her ideal: she changed from a neuroscience researcher to a full-time "digital rebel" who maintains Sci-Hub. She faced constant legal threats and was unable to freely enter and exit multiple countries, but she still insisted on her beliefs. Her choice was like a stone thrown into a calm lake, which aroused deep thinking in the scientific community about the fairness of knowledge access.
Sci-Hub is like a key to open the treasure house of knowledge. It not only accelerates the global scientific research process, but also lights up the light of hope for researchers in countless resource-poor areas. Despite the constant controversy, this "academic revolution" initiated by a brave girl is promoting the transformation of the academic publishing model and interpreting the lofty ideal that "knowledge should belong to all mankind." Like many actions that have changed the world in history, it may be in a legal gray area, but it illuminates the way to a more open and equal scientific future.
When defending Sci-Hub, Ms. A deeply questioned whether the publisher's business practices were in line with the ethics and the spirit of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She firmly believed that operating Sci-Hub was a moral obligation and that the law should not be an obstacle to the spread of knowledge. She once said passionately: "If all Americans obeyed the evil laws, they would still be ruled by the queen today, and slavery would continue to exist."
Sci-Hub’s current operational difficulties
Sci-Hub relies on user donations to operate, and Ms. A avoids third-party involvement in the operation of the website to enhance its security. She personally wrote the PHP code for the website and set up and maintains Sci-Hub's servers. Although some judicial authorities have ordered the confiscation of Sci-Hub's domain name, forcing it to face legal pressure, she has always insisted on changing the URL and IP address to continue to operate the platform.
How Web3 affects Sci-Hub
The Desci concept is very popular recently, and the on-chain meme has received a lot of funding. So Peking University PhD brother A University @0xAA_Science realized that sci-hub was a good narrative in the early stage, so he pumped $scihub launched by others and rushed to get 22% of the chips. This was a simple investment behavior at the beginning, but the story that followed made everything different (I feel like it can be put on Wikipedia)
Considering that he has a lot of chips and Sci-Hub itself relies on donations for operation and maintenance, A immediately contacted A and expressed his intention to donate. Although there were some minor problems in the process, they were quickly resolved. After that, he explained that SciHub opened the Solana donation channel, and A would give 20% of the total chips to the SciHub Foundation according to a certain plan, and give the tokens he bought with real money to the operator of the scihub website.
The whole process of communication, community building, and donations was done in one go. It is true that A-Da has achieved such an achievement because of his extraordinary qualities. In fact, before the details of the donation came out, I still had doubts about Ms. A, because many projects would also want to donate to Vitalik Buterin, but Vitalik Buterin usually sells directly, which would mostly bring a lot of selling pressure to the project. But A-Da took this into consideration, adopted the method of donation in installments, and reached a selling agreement with Ms. A, ensuring the interests of both the community and Ms. A. This is really a killer! I also really admire A-Da's clear logic, which turned a story of meme wealth that might have been just one person into a story of meme culture affecting web2 and even the academic circle, and the pattern was suddenly raised to a much higher level. Moreover, in this process, sci-hub was known to more people, the community became stronger, the market value was higher, and the meme culture had a real and visible support. This is a win-win situation, which is why I admire A-Da so much.
In fact, as a PhD student, I am deeply aware of the huge gap between me and University A, but I think it is a good thing to see the gap, because it allows me to know what kind of people are better and more worthy of learning, and it will also promote my development in a better direction. This is why I should get in touch with more outstanding people and learn from them, because they can let me know that there is another way to live life. Sometimes it is more important to look up and see the road than to bury your head in hard work.
