The perils of pre-prints: Nature publishes explicit defense of the gate-keeper model of scientific publishing

Nature posted yesterday a cautionary piece about the dire perils of pre-prints. Tom Sheldon, of the Science Media Centre, whose goal is to “renew public trust in science”, warns that “pre-prints could promote confusion and distortion” in the minds of science journalists, and therefore in the minds of the public who rely on them for…

Light summer holiday post: Archaeology, complexity, and armageddon

Since I am on vacation, I have been catching up on some light reading, like Vannevar Bush’s 1949 Modern Arms and Free Men. I have also been reading an unhealthy amount of news. This has led me to reflect a bit more on how the main lessons of complexity theory for archaeology work out in…