I have a hard time seeing how anything but a teeny tiny fraction of scientific results would ever be amenable to such an automatic checking. And I am a mathematician -- in principle this should be easiest in mathematics, since at least we have well defined axioms and in principle one could derive everything from those axioms. In practice, this seems completely unfeasible for most mathematics, at least currently.
I'm guessing you're not alone, I would go so far as to say that validation software would offend most authors - the same way code validation tools hurt programmers' feelings.
"But I'm right and the tool is wrong! The tool doesn't understand the complexity/brilliance of my work!" And sometimes you're going to be right with that assertion. Other times, however, it will push you and your reviewers towards better quality.
I find it fascinating that the entire article is in fact about this issue, the copyright thing is purely incidental.
Comments
I have a hard time seeing how anything but a teeny tiny fraction of scientific results would ever be amenable to such an automatic checking. And I am a mathematician -- in principle this should be easiest in mathematics, since at least we have well defined axioms and in principle one could derive everything from those axioms. In practice, this seems completely unfeasible for most mathematics, at least currently.
I'm guessing you're not alone, I would go so far as to say that validation software would offend most authors - the same way code validation tools hurt programmers' feelings.
"But I'm right and the tool is wrong! The tool doesn't understand the complexity/brilliance of my work!" And sometimes you're going to be right with that assertion. Other times, however, it will push you and your reviewers towards better quality.
I find it fascinating that the entire article is in fact about this issue, the copyright thing is purely incidental.