Oink. Oink.

The research community seems to have settled into the annoying and frankly despicable practice of charging the public outrageous sums of money to see recent research articles. An example would be Royal Society Publishing charging $40 for the right to read Enhanced Perception in Savant Syndrome electronically for a period not to exceed 30 days. (Or if you are into buying in bulk, the entire Autism and Talent issue can be had for a mere $202.) My, my, what a bargain.

I know of no research journal that is not directly and/or indirectly supported nearly in its entirety by public funds. That is, it is the hard-working taxpayers—many of them parents of autistic individuals or autistic individuals themselves—who ultimately foot the bill and make most of these research enterprises possible. The entire research community, including (and most especially) the research journals, are essentially pigs feeding at the public trough, a circumstance I could overlook as being harmless enough if it were not for the fact so many of the pigs are territorial about the leftover crumbs.