Bio ethics: scientific communication and social reality

Abstract

What is the meaning of publishing indexed journals? This question has become more forceful and critical in Colombia, taking into account the policy established by Colciencias,1 through Publindex, an agency in charge of establishing the criteria and policies of the national indexing system of scientific journals, which focuses the concern for visibility and impact of publications, giving priority to citation indexes received by magazines, as well as to academics and researchers involved in the editorial process, either as authors, evaluators, or members of editorial or scientific committees. The “new” demands for a scientific journal to be indexed in

Colombia are another example of the lethargy of the scientific publishing proces- ses in our nation, carried out for more than 20 years. Publish today brings with it a series of demands ranging from the artisan to the most technological, but in Colombia, we have stayed in the craft, in the era of Gütemberg printing. Despite the prolific scientific literary production that has existed in our country in the last 20 years, we have three problems: one concerning the scientific quality of what is published; two, the contribution to social reality, and three, the ethical sense of scientific publication.