The Publishing Ecosystem, Reciprocal Altruism, and the Kindness of Strangers

Abstract

The scientific peer review process is a wonderful thing, when it works. As editor-in-chief of the Annals, I am reminded fairly often of some shortcomings in this system, and over the past couple of years, problems that exemplify these shortcomings seem to have become more frequent and therefore more serious. These are not new, nor are they unique to entomology, but I think there is a disturbing trend that we ought to consider and attempt to rectify. Here are some recent examples: o I got a call from one of our hard-working subject editors who complained that he could not find anyone to review a manuscript submitted to Annals that I had assigned him. He had gone through the list suggested by the author without success (Iwish everyone would provide such a list-it does often make things easier for us), and then tried as many people as he could identify who were competent in the area of the manuscript. The problem seemed to be that some potential reviewers explained that they were too busy with their own work to spend time evaluating the work of other people, and some just didn't respond at all to repeated requests. Sometimes editors have had to query more than a dozen scientists before they can get at least one to agree to be a reviewer. In the worstcase scenario, we may have to settle for less competent opinions than we would like. This is a bit like the jury system, in which the smart people know the excuses they can use to opt out, sometimes leaving less thoughtful people in charge of a defendant's fate.