I generally know over a long time that being an editor is a tough job. The unanswered question in my mind was, how do they cope with the challenge? As I started probing the answer appeared to be very simple. They do it by being careless. That is perhaps the only way they can survive the pressure. It works because of the confidentiality of the editorial process. They can easily get away being careless. This is equally true of all the high and low prestige journals. I got two very illustrative and representative examples in 2025 that I am relating below. They are not isolated examples. I have experienced this on several occasions but two stories are enough to illustrate.
In September I communicated a MS to Medical Hypotheses. Obviously, it was a hypothesis paper. But the editor thought that it was a review and returned the manuscript saying that we do not publish reviews. The MS is now public and the readers may decide whether it is a hypothesis or not. The fact that we use a large volume of literature in support of the hypothesis does not make it a review. But that’s ok, there can be a difference of opinion about this, which is an intrinsic part of science. Categories of articles are rather artificial and too much importance need not be given to it. Wherever there is a new novel concept which sounds logical, testable with some support from existing literature and ways of testing it further are also suggested it is sufficient to call it a hypothesis. But the editor labeled it as a review and I don’t mind that. But I am a teacher by nature and immediately thought that it is a good opportunity to use this example for students to understand the types of articles, the norms as well as the ambiguity in classifying them. I asked the editor by email whether they consent to use our correspondence as a teaching material or a pedagogical article.
I expected a yes or no reply to this. Instead, after a few days I received an email from Elsevier Research Support division asking my what help I needed from their unit to improve my article. This I had never asked. I was ok with the rejection. I just had asked for editor’s consent to use this hypothesis-review debate for teaching purpose. I wrote back saying that I don’t need any help. Perhaps the editor needs help in reading my email or understanding my question. It is obvious that neither the editor nor the research support team had read my email. There was nothing difficult to understand. Then after a while I received a reply form the research support saying that the correspondence was confidential and I should not publish it anywhere. Why didn’t I get this simple response right away on my first mail? The simple answer is that the editor just did not read my mail or was not able to understand my simple question. The latter is most unlikely as editors are not that dumb (well not too sure about this!!). So the clear indication is that they are careless. They don’t even read mails.
The second example is from PNAS, a very prestigious journal. I communicated a paper as direct submission. They took much longer time than what they promise, but that is understandable. After five weeks they rejected without review. This is not unusual, but interesting. In the rejection letter they routinely write a line saying that the the decision does not reflect on the technical quality of the paper. I see a logical dissonance here. Journal prestige is based on the implicit assumption that good journals publish high quality papers. The journals on the other hand declare that rejections are not based on the quality. I wrote an email mainly about this logical contradiction. I did not necessarily expect an elaborate reply. The editor could have said that replying to such a question is outside my editorial capacity.
But instead, I got a funny reply saying that your paper cannot be reconsidered for publication. I had not asked reconsideration at all. This again means that the editor had not even bothered to read the email, or had not understood the question. This demonstrate that even editors of most prestigious journals do not care even to read emails. Again they do not have the capacity to understand questions is most unlikely, so being careless is the only possibility. I am amazed that such carelessness characterizes the system of science publishing. How do we expect reliability of published research?
PNAS consented to making this correspondence public and readers can find it here. Medical hypotheses did not so I haven’t made it public.
I won’t blame editors alone. They are careless for two reasons, one is that they are under tremendous pressure and second, they can get away because of the confidentiality of the editorial processes. It is the system fault. But what amazes me is that editors are not coming out clearly on the need to rethink and redesign the system itself (except some editors speaking out after retirement). By human nature they won’t because personally they are doing good in the existing system. If it is bad for science or causing injustice to someone else, why should they be worried!!
My science, My way 