BioEssays: new publishers and a new start

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 14 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0265-9247
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1521-1878(199801)20:1<iii::aid-bies1>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

With this issue of BioEssays, the journal begins publication under its new owners, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., one of the world's major science publishing firms. The former owners, the ICSU Press (Oxford) and the ICSU Press' parent body, the International Council of Scientific Unions (Paris), will, however, retain a continuing involvement with BioEssays' progress. A change of publishers for a journal always provides an appropriate point to take stock of the past, present and future. When BioEssays began publication in July, 1984, there were few monthly review journals in existence. The founding editor of BioEssays, Dr William J. Whelan (University of Miami School of Medicine) believed that one particularly serious gap in the review literature could be filled by a monthly journal devoted to review and discussion of the advances in molecular biology and the ways that molecular biology was unifying biological science. BioEssays was created to fill that niche. That Dr Whelan's perception of significant empty niches in the review literature was correct was borne out over the next six years, as a growing number of review journals, starting with TIG, made their appearance. Despite this now large field of review journals, BioEssays, we believe, continues to retain a special place. Unlike the majority of the review journals which are dedicated to the proposition that there are still discrete fields in biology, e.g. cell biology, genetics, biochemistry, plant biology, etc., our basic philosophical premise is that the conventional disciplinary boundaries are vanishing. The term 'biology' was first used two centuries ago, in 1800, by one Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (!), yet it has never been more true than today that biology is a single science, and not simply a cluster of independent, unrelated disciplines. This can be seen by looking at virtually any contemporary area or problem in biology. Can one, for instance, imagine oneself doing serious work in developmental biology without being aware of recent discoveries in cell biology? Or can one expect to understand brain physiology and higher-level integration of functions in ignorance of recent advances in the molecular biology of neurotransmitters and receptors and the new studies on neural defects in knock-out mice? Or, to take another example, if one is interested in particular microorganisms that cause specific infectious diseases, can one afford to ignore studies that pinpoint specific host genetic and molecular differences that affect susceptibilities to those microorganisms? Or, can a cancer biologist blithely ignore recent advances in Drosophila developmental biology when increasing numbers of tumour suppressor genes are found to have informative Drosophila homologs? Finally, can one think about anything in biology in any depth without at least some passing thought about its evolutionary origins? The great biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky thought not ('Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' was his aphorism) and we agree with him-though some of us might be tempted to add that developmental phenomena are also pervasive and that few things in biology can be fully comprehended without paying attention to the developmental dimension. In effect, our basic premise is that understanding in biology requires a broad knowledge of living things. The corollary, however, is that a journal that tries to do justice to these interconnections must carry articles that are intelligible to all biologists, regardless of their particular training and disciplinary backgrounds. Toward that end, we strive to make each article clear and interesting to the non-specialist. Of course, accuracy and informativeness are equally essential. Hence, all articles except for the minireviews at the front of each issue ('What the papers say') and opinion pieces at the back ('Commentary', 'Science and Society') are put through a careful peer-review process. As with any endeavor involving human effort, of course, errors will sometimes creep in and we, therefore, welcome corrections and comments from our readers through the 'Correspondence' column. BioEssays is now in its 14th year. Although adolescence is traditionally viewed as a difficult period, it can just as appropriately be seen as a time of growth and development. We intend to make it just that for BioEssays, and pledge to our readers to do our best to report on what is most exciting and important in the life sciences as they begin their third century. The significance of understanding what is happening in biology can hardly be overstated in view of the impact that ideas in biology are having on society at large. Whether one is dealing with questions of gene therapy or gene diagnosis, the latest advances in neurosciences, the search for traces of extinct life on Mars, or the latest in evolutionary biology, the public is increasingly aware of the life sciences and their importance. It is probable that biological science, along with information science, is going to be one of the principal forces that shape human life in the 21st century. Covering all the exciting developments in biology, and their implications for our thinking and lives, is the major goal of BioEssays in the decades ahead.