The matter of standards. III. The editorial process ''All over the world scientists are fretting. It is night in London and Deborah Dormouse is unable to sleep. She can't decide whether, after four week's of anxious waiting, it would be counterproductive to call a Nature editor about her manuscript. In the sunlight in Sydney, Wayne Wombat is furious that his student's article was rejected by Science and is taking revenge on similar work that he is reviewing for Cell. In San Diego, Melissa Mariposa reads that her article submitted to Current Biology will be reconsidered, but only if it is cut in half. Against her better judgement, she steels herself to throw out some key data and oversimplify the conclusions-her postdoc needs this journal on his CV''.
Peter Lawrence ( ) To establish-and keep-a scientific career, it is necessary to publish one's work in places where it will be seen (and, one hopes, appreciated) by one's peers. This is fair: most scientists are dependent on the money of others and the financial sponsors-in many cases, the taxpapers-have a right to see the results of the work that they have paid for. Publication in good journals ensures (in principle) that the work has been vetted for quality while publication in the ''top'' journals guarantees wide exposure to fellow scientists, who can then judge its quality and value. The Duke of Wellington is said to have seen off a would-be blackmailer with the famous retort, ''Publish and be d. . ...!'' For the modern scientist, it is far more a case of ''Publish or be d. . ...!'' (professionally, that is).
There are, in effect, two major stages in the whole process of staying alive as a practising research scientist. First, one has to do good work, work that has some novelty, both in the approach and the results, and sheds new light on some subject. Second, one has to write up the results and get them published in a good journal. Leaving aside the non-trivial difficulty of obtaining the money to do the work, (2) a naΔ± Β¨ve observer-say an intelligent visitor from Mars being briefed on science as it is done on Earth-would guess that even for the most talented scientists, the big challenge would be the first phase, doing good work, with the second stage, publication in good journals, being an automatic sequel. In the long period that lasted from the late 17 th century, when science started on the long road toward becoming professionalized and the first scientific journals were launched, to roughly the 1960s, that was essentially the way the system worked. If you had done good work, you were virtually assured publication in a major journal that your peers saw regularly.
Yet, as every contemporary earthling-scientist knows, that is much less the case today. The larger uncertainties start not