Commentary: Open access publishing: too much oxygen?

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Abstract
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” This assertion of the US founding fathers betokened their zeal for human equality and rights. But such an attitude can betoken intellectual arrogance. It was, for example, self evident to paediatricians in the 1950s that it would be beneficial to give premature babies 100% oxygen without proper trial. But 100% oxygen caused blindness, and the balance of benefit to harm was unfavourable. In their survey of the attitudes of a small sample of scientists to open access1 Schroter and colleagues don't actually trumpet its self evident benefits, but their call for evidence refers to the author pays model, not open access publishing itself, although open …