Beyond peer-reviewed publishing

The scientists are expected to reach beyond peer-reviewed publishing. “Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone,” believed Albert Einstein. The call for scientists to do a better job of communicating both the meaning and the nature of their work is getting louder. Yet far too many scientists are reluctant to engage with people outside their own community. Many scientists think this responsibility doesn’t come under the purview of their ‘job’. What one writes, should get into the head of the reader, and that is where the problem arises, because it is very difficult to anticipate another person’s state of knowledge. What matters are ideas, regardless of which people or what discipline originates them. For ideas to fully develop, feedback is important, because the ideas are refined, exchanged, accumulated, and improved by a community of thinkers. We therefore need to communicate with each other, to develop trust that is so essential for the ideas to grow. Meeting of different kinds of minds, not necessarily of similar minds, is essential for the ideas to grow.