(December 28, 2017 at 4:51 pm)alpha male Wrote: Few people read peer-reviewed journals. They're generally expensive, and frequently require quite a bit of education in the covered field just to understand the material. How many journals do you subscribe to? How frequently do you read more than an abstract - if even that? Do you actually get your science knowledge from popular sites and mass media?
I work in medicine, and regularly read abstracts when looking for information for correspondence I'm typing. Sometimes I speed-read the whole paper. There are also a few conditions where for my own interest I'm constantly on the lookout for new developments -- in particular, treatment of lymphedema and fibromyalgia.
It's comparatively easy for me to access journals without a personal subscription -- if I can't just pull them up on my browser at work, I can pop over to the local medical library and read them there. (In fact, many years ago, I had a temporary position where I regularly pulled journal articles that my boss needed for her own research. I know how to find these things.)
I only use "pop" science as a starting point. If I have no need to dig deeper I just use those articles as mental bookmarks so that I can track down the good stuff later. I have enough competence in the basic sciences to determine whether an article is a plausible new development, a rehash of something I was already aware of, or flat-out nonsense.
