Methodically, the author explains the mechanisms of operation of the research, its financing methods, production and scientific publication as well as the excesses of this system dictates of big publishing journals, exacerbating the sacrosanct principle of Darwinian competition, race to publish, amplification volunteers fraud or "involuntary". This is exactly what the researchers live day to day, a huge waste of time and money to a productivity decline. Worse, the system tends to inhibit creativity and the "real" new discoveries. Laurent Ségalat written in a simple, accurate, concise and synthetic. The images used to understand the mechanism are very well chosen. The book is very accessible to the general public. The reader will understand that from the perspective of the researcher, this system is an aberration and that the point of view of the taxpayer, that is a scandal. But of course, from the perspective of publishers, it's a godsend! So why does it continue? Why do researchers (who have all been about the same analysis as the author) do they not unite? What policies do they not reforming the system or rather they promote? The author does not give many answers and solutions but at least has the merit of the problem.
And again, it is limited to certain aspects. He does not speak of the cost of publications that are totally the responsibility of the authors. Seen from the outside, it ''s amazing: the authors give the scientific article written for the magazine, assign their copyright to the journal and pay for the article to be published; the scientific assessment work is done voluntarily by other researchers; Finally, the article became the property of the journal is only available to subscribers readers. It did not assess how this system may eventually dull the enthusiasm and passion of the researchers for their job, but difficult to quantify real thing. He did not speak of the evaluation commission, the AERES, which adds a layer of reporting, expenditure of time and money for very poor performance without bringing anything to the overall efficiency of the research, quite the contrary. Finally, it only touched the problem of conflicts of interest and corrupt practices and greedy of the "Big pharma". There is therefore considerable scope to write a second volume!
