Other problems involving the size and complexity of many research operations are also challenging and weakening the research-education system. Any additional challenges, including limitations on free communication, would compound an already difficult problem, making it yet harder to attract the best people to university research and making it harder for those who are attracted to maintain first-rate research programs. Such communication enables critical new findings or new theories to be readily and systematically subjected to the scrutiny of ethers and thereby verified or debunked. Such communications also serve to stimulate creativity, both because scientists compete keenly for the respect of their peers by attempting to be first in publishing the answers to difficult problems and because communication can inspire new lines of investigation. Finally, free communication helps to build the necessary willingness to confront any idea, no matter how eccentric, and to assess it on its merits.
Scientific communication occurs in many different ways.
Moreover, because no one country has a monopoly on scientific talent in any field, communication among research workers at the frontiers of science is international in character. Over 2,000 such journals are widely distributed and universally read and cited by scientists. The international nature of science is reflected in the fact that in recent years only about 37 percent of the articles in these journals have been by U.S. authors. In fact, papers by U.S. scientists account for only 21 percent of the papers in chemistry and 30 percent of the papers in physics. Moreover, an analysis of the citations of articles in these journals shows that U.S. researchers make frequent use of foreign research results and, in fact, have increased their reliance on foreign results in recent years.