The gatekeepers of the top scientific journals are people who themselves failed to publish in those journals when they were in academia. Had they been able to do so, they would today be authors, not professional editors. Could it be that the best science produced in the world today is being judged by the worst scientists? If true, that would be very unsettling.

It is quite doubtful that anyone would start graduate school or postdoctoral training with the idea in mind to become a journal editor. The vast majority of graduates initiating postdoctoral studies do so with an intent to become principal investigators. Something happens along the way. Disenchantment with an active career in science? Too few positions available? Harsh competition? Family choices? Perhaps all of the above.

A colleague once draw a comparison between professional journal editors and art or movie critics. The latter are not artists or film makers themselves and yet, they can be (and often are) fierce critics of art works. Although ingenious superficially, that argument is flawed. Granted, as Brian Eno has stated, art critiques represent some of the worst literature out there, and this is perhaps the only thing they have in common with peer review commentaries. Crucially, however, specialised technical knowledge is not required to have an opinion on the aesthetics of a piece of art. For better or worse, anyone can pass judgement on a painting, a piece of music or a film. On the other hand, a scientific paper cannot be judged or appreciated by anyone, it requires specific training and expertise. It’s a completely different ball game. Hence the necessity to have journal editors trained in the sciences. Alas, such a career path was always for them a plan B, not the reason why they enrolled in graduate studies.

We are in a time when huge amounts of young talent is being wasted, as junior scientists are increasingly being judged by the journals in which they publish, not by the discoveries they make.  And the “top” journals, those that may afford them a principal investigator job if getting published,  are being controlled by folks that themselves were unable to publish in them and thus failed to remain in academia.

The current publishing system is broken (more on that here ) and needs change. Radical change. But such change (for example this) needs courage, effort and a much higher level of knowledge from all stake holders, particularly academic leaders in recruitment committees judging junior investigators. They need to be able to judge the science, not where it was published (any small child can sum up impact factors). We can’t have all that new talent being wasted because a bunch of  failed-scientists-turned-“top”-journal-editors play safe by rejecting the vast majority of submissions on topics they deem “unfashionable” but which actually are beyond their capacity and understanding.

We need change to save scientific publishing and the current waste of talent.