Fascinating quotation

[Joseph Esposito <espositoj@gmail.com>]

The following appeared in yesterday's Wall St. Journal:

"But Dr. Zerhouni has been skeptical of the publishers' arguments about
lost business.. .In a recent interview, Dr. Zerhouni said it's rare for a
journal to have more than 30% to 40% of its content generated by
NIH-sponsored work, so that only a portion of the articles would be
expected to be made public. "If you offered to show one-third of the
Olympics, six months later on tape, would people not watch the Olympics?"
he asks."

The answer to this is obviously yes, as Dr. Zerhouni himself knows,
assuming he, like most of the rest of us, sometimes declines to purchase
the hardcover and waits for the paperback or forgoes a subscription to HBO
and waits to see "The Sopranos" on DVD or believes that the pain of
parking and the cost of the babysitter make it worthwhile to skip the
feature release and see "A Beautiful Mind" as part of his Netflix
subscription.  Comparing scientific literature to the Olympics, which is
advertising-supported and ostensibly "free" to the viewer, is willfully
misleading.

Joe Esposito