‘I do not think it should appear in its present form’. Many a dejected researcher has read those words when their paper is summarily rejected by a journal. Rest assured, however, even the greatest scientific minds have read them on occasion.
Issue one of the Philosophical Transactions
© The Royal Society
In 1839, Charles Darwin submitted a paper on the geology of Glen Roy in the Scottish Highlands to the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions. He received a response from Adam Sedgwick, who would later become one of Darwin’s greatest critics. The Society Fellow admired Darwin’s insight but bemoaned his long-winded explanations, rejecting the paper in its present form. It was the only paper Darwin submitted to the journal.
Sedgwick’s critique of Darwin’s work forms part of a new exhibition at the Royal Society about the history of the Philosophical Transactions. Detailing the turbulent beginnings of the journal – which was first published during the Great Plague of London in 1665 – through to the modern publication, the exhibit shines a light on its colourful history. The extensive display, developed by the Royal Society and researchers at the University of St. Andrews, UK, also reveals the birth of the modern peer review process.
Although Darwin’s referee report highlights the humbling nature of a referee’s comments, it’s the correspondence of Sir George Stokes, the pioneer of fluid dynamics, which reveals new details about the nature of peer review. Stokes’ letters look rather mundane when compared to the more prominent pieces in the collection, such as Maxwell’s original paper on the electromagnetic field, but the monotonous language belies a crucial contribution to the scientific method.
Sir George Gabriel Stokes was secretary of the Royal Society from 1854 to 1885
© The Royal Society
Stokes’ letter is a simple clerical note asking a referee for their professional opinion and recommendation for a paper. The piece displays a staunch professionalism in the review process, which may have been lacking in the previous centuries: the work of Anton van Leeuwenhook on single-cell organisms in the 1600s, for instance, was published by the Royal Society even when they could not replicate his results.
Stokes also discussed papers at length with their authors during the submission process. He structured the review process by ensuring referees did not renege their responsibilities and edited the majority of papers published in the journal, becoming in the process the first modern scientific editor. For want of a better phrase, he appears to have been a one-man band, having a fundamental impact on the way in which we conduct scientific research. Not bad for a chap who was also Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge at the same time.
The Philosophical Transactions: 350 years of publishing at the Royal Society exhibition is open to the public between 2 December 2014 and 23 June 2015 at the Royal Society, London. The exhibit forms part of a project called Publishing the Philosophical Transactions: the economic, social and cultural history of a learned journal, 1665-2015 led by Dr. Aileen Fyfe at the University of St. Andrews.
