Creativity in the review of science

Abstract

Science is fundamentally a creative pursuit. At every step of the process, novel ideas that are useful to the scientific task at hand are employed—the very definit-ion of creativity (Runco and Jaeger 2012). In a recent commentary on novelty and editorial peer review, it was proposed that novelty be abandoned as a criterion assoc-iated with decisions by editors to reject (Arnqvist 2013). I find this a challenging proposition for at least two reasons. Novelty is important. Editors are useful. I high-ly value the creative aspects of what we do. I do not restrict this assessment of novel and useful to the inter-pretation proposed by the authors but apply the search for this criterion to the application, visuals, statistics, and integration of different ideas that in their combin-ation become novel like hybrid vigor. Importantly, creativity research is an extensive and well-established field. Training (Graham et al. 2012, Ha 2006, Scott et al. 2004), environment (Hunter et al. 2009), testing (Ander-son et al. 2004, Kim 2008, Kuncel et al. 2007), and self- versus non-self ratings (Ng and Feldman 2012) provide clear guidelines and opportunities for effectively using creativity in peer review. Ecological editors may be chasing novelty based on intuition, and I recognize that there is variation in editors just as there is in any set of reviews by external referees, but this does not, however, directly implicate the loss of novelty or creativity as an important consideration when reviewing. On the con-trary, perhaps we should embrace it, improve how we evaluate it, formalize it, and place it in its appropriate context.