How does scientific communication work? Where is this knowledge located? In the heads of individual scientists? In journal articles? Monographs? Books? Textbooks? Newspaper articles? Blog posts? Twitter exchanges?
Where and when did scientific journals arise?
What was the role of the Royal Society and the Invisible College?
France had Académie des sciences, Germans had Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften.
How does scientific publication work? Can you recognize both the big and the smaller players? How does the economics affect the publication of work? Does the political clout of published work depend on the economics of the publisher?
What is the history of “peer review”?
The abysmal row that has broken out about IIT and pseudoscience is described in this Nature article. Note: Nature also published the controversial letter, and should not be presumed to have any kind of neutral standpoint here.
Interdisciplinary Challenges 