“Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly. To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur.”
-AR Wallace
Years ago, I decided that publishing a new theory in my field of social evolution would be good preparation for the road ahead. My experience, possibly subject of a future post, taught me that one should not shoot for the top first with big new ideas. A better strategy, and one I have seen used by various eminent scientists, is to go low first (unless you can derive a highly specialized model, and disguise your threatening ideas). For my paper outlining the theory of natural reward, I identified Biology Direct as a suitable outlet.
Biology Direct was a relatively low-rung journal but not too low (Eigenfactor AI = 1.6; Nature = 22; Science = 18; PNAS = 4.7). It also espoused an innovative new approach to peer review that is conducive to big ideas. In discussing their new publishing platform, Koonin et al. (2006) stated, “It is quite likely that both mediocre papers and outright wrong ones will creep into Biology Direct…On the bright side, we believe that there is a good chance that Biology Direct will give the light of day to truly innovative, bold (sometimes, partly, speculative) research which, as we all know, can be extremely hard to get into high-profile journals.”
Biology Direct publishes all papers that attract at least three reviewers. Instead of rejecting papers, it publishes reviews with the papers. Biology Direct’s publishing philosophy is thus reminiscent of Max Planck’s journal Annalen der Physik, which published Einstein’s famous 1905 papers. Planck described his editorial policy as, “To shun much more the reproach of having suppressed strange opinions than that of having been too gentle in evaluating them (https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405).”
Thus, Biology Direct seemed a good bet. The Chief Editor’s Koonin’s greatest ambition was, moreover, “To develop an understanding of the driving forces of biological evolution…(Current Biology 2004 14:3 R97).” So I sent my paper describing a theory based on a new evolutionary force to Biology Direct .
Perhaps not surprisingly given the current state of science, Biology Direct did not review my paper. It did not even provide a name behind a decision or evidence of what happened. Instead, an unsigned email stated that after almost two months at the journal, and a month with status “reviewers assigned,” the paper was declined because of insufficient reviews. The email said, “details of those invited, as well as the review(s) obtained, are at the end of this email.” No such information, however, was provided at the end of the email.
I next sent my paper to the preprint server bioRxiv. I received an email back stating that my work was “not research” and thus would not be published on bioRxiv. The identify of the affiliate who made this decision was not revealed.
Looking for a place to get peer reviewed, I contacted the Chief Editor of Evolutionary Biology (one of the only forums for “broad syntheses”). The editor replied to my first email but did not get back again. I contacted him two weeks later and still he did not reply. I also emailed several leaders in the field asking if they have any suggestion on where I might publish this, and nobody responded.
Fortunately, arXiv’s quantitative biology section published my preprint. My paper now sits at Peerage of Science. Peerage of Science allows for an open review of a paper before it is solicited by a journal. I am delighted that there are now two individuals reviewing my paper.
One thing that my prior experience in social theory taught me is that nothing is more important than persistence. Win by attrition! In the mean time, don’t let the little things bother you. Every day of my life I am thankful that I have the amazing fortune of 1) being alive, 2) being near loved ones, and 3) participating in a great scientific revolution.
Koonin, E. V., L. F. Landweber, and D. J. Lipman. 2006. A community experiment with fully open and published peer review. Biology Direct 1:1.
Q & A Eugene Koonin. 2004. Current Biology 14:3 R97.