Is science copyrightable?

I have been jolted into wondering whether scientific publications are actually protectable by copyright. I’m almost certainly wrong, but here’s my little journey. I found Tim O’Reilly (et al.): Publishing Digital Fair Use 23:26 03/11/2007, Peter Brantley, Planet SciFoo:

Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review.

PMR: and he goes on the explain how a major publisher was ignorant of the basics of fair use:

Of the entire conversation, certainly the greatest disappointment to me was the obviously incomplete understanding held by my publishing colleague of what fair use actually is — in other words, its fundamental characteristics, such as its relativistic nature and lack of definitional precision, the 4-point multiple-factor test (see the good discussion at the University of Texas site, about halfway down, “Using the Four Factor Fair Use Test”), and what the doctrine aims to sustain. My sudden need for a basic, conceptual presentation took me by surprise, and given the fact that I was speaking to a whip-smart VP of a major publishing house, I felt it was an unfortunate one.

PMR: I followed up the Texas link which included:

1. Is the work protected?

Copyright does not protect, this Policy does not apply to, and anyone may freely use*:

• Works that lack originality
  • logical, comprehensive compilations (like the phone book)
  • unoriginal reprints of public domain works
• Works in the public domain
• Freeware (not shareware, but really, expressly, available free of restrictions-ware — this may be protected by law, but the author has chosen to make it available without any restrictions)
• US Government works
• Facts
• Ideas, processes, methods, and systems described in copyrighted works

PMR: and I followed the last link to Cornell:

§ 102. Subject matter of copyright: In general

(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:

(1) literary works;

(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;

(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;

(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;

(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;

(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

(7) sound recordings; and

(8) architectural works.

(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

PMR: Well, IANAL BUT the last sentence looks pretty clear to me. Large parts of a scientific paper are:

• procedure
• principle
• discovery

PMR: and the form (including illustrations) is irrelevant.
This is, I assume, US only but nonetheless it seems pretty clear that I can:

• reproduce a chemical synthesis/recipe (“procedure”)
• reproduce a chemical graph (“discovery”)
• reproduce a chemical molecule diagram (“concept”)

Now I’m quite happy to avoid reproducing the publishers pagination (I hate PDFs anyway). But can anyone disillusion me as to why I shouldn’t download and reproduce material from PARTS of scientific papers without permission. And is anyone happy to accompany me to the barricades?