[what_is_orcas]

Yes and no. They're "interesting lines of research" except when they're in your field, then they're foundations or anchor points for your work, past, present, and future.

I'm not going to disagree that a lot gets lost in translation between academic article and the lay-person who hears a story on the nightly news, but I don't think gatekeeping academic research is the answer, but rather more emphasis on critical thinking and critical reading.

[gus_massa]

I guess it depend on the area, but (for me, in my area) published results are just a stating point.

When reading a paper the first question are: Does it even makes sense? (mostly yes, it depends on the journal) Is it overhyped? (definitively yes) Is it interesting after removing the overhype? (sometimes yes) Can we reproduce the result with our tools? (I hope so) Can we combine the result with our previous results? (I hope so) Is the combination interesting? (I hope so) Interesting enough to assign it to a graduate student, to drop whatever we are doing or something in between? (mostly something in between)

If we try to reproduce the result and fail miserably or if the methods are too unclear, we will jut forget about the paper and work in another topic. Perhaps contact the authors if we know them or the result very promising.

I think we never take a result at face value, except perhaps for the list of citations that appear in the introduction about recent related work.

[lapcat]

> I don't think gatekeeping academic research is the answer

Not sure what you mean by this? The journals are inherently gatekeeping academic research via peer review. But the suggestion isn't that the journals be locked away, merely that journals are not a great way for the public to interact with academia. Many academicians do write for the public and are eager to do so, but in different forms than journal articles.