Updates

January, 2024: We would like to announce the SoS Research Collective, a first of its kind organization for supporting independent researchers (and academics thinking independently). You can read the announcement post on our Substack to learn more, but in brief we would like to offer researchers the following:

• A title (SoS Research Fellow) and dedicated page featuring a biography, links to articles, etc.

• Payment of $50 per peer-reviewed article

• Editing services and advising (time and expertise permitting)

• Promotion on the SoS website/substack (featuring your work on our Best of Science Blogging feed, researcher spotlight posts, etc.)

Email us at info@theseedsofscience.org if you are interesting in joining us as a SoS Research Fellow or learning more about the Collective.

March, 2023: SoS co-founders Dr. Dario Krpan and Roger’s Bacon participated in a panel discussion at the London School of Economics, “Different Perspectives on Diversity of Thought in Social Science” (video). Dr. Krpan and Bacon spoke about how we can encourage greater diversity of thought by reconsidering norms around scientific writing/publishing and by finding more ways to get amateurs/independent researchers involved in social science research. A short commentary on the event which mentions Seeds of Science was written in the Lancet.

The point of this journal, founded by Roger's Bacon (a pseudonym) and Dario Krpan, is to provide a place where people outside the system of science can publish their findings, ideas, and views. Roger's Bacon identified two neglected aspects of diversity. First, psychological diversity. We live in environments that shape our minds. The academic environment privileges particular characteristics: diligence, competitiveness, verbal abilities, organisational skills, quantitative expertise, self-promotion. What about those who do not possess these qualities? Are they to be excluded from science? Second, functional diversity. We think of ourselves as free agents, but the settings we work in impose incentives and constraints that limit our freedom. To promote psychological and functional diversity, we must create possibilities for non-traditional scientists, amateurs, to contribute.

October, 2022: We are now publishing our articles on Substack in addition to the standard PDF format (assigned a DOI, searchable in academic databases). Readers who wish to receive newly published articles as an email newsletter may sign up through our Substack page.

August, 2022: Seeds of Science is discussed in a recent NewScience essay written by co-founder Roger’s Bacon, “Research Papers Used to Have Style. What happened?”. The essay traces the evolution of scientific writing style over time and makes the case that we would benefit from more aesthetic value in our writing; Seeds of Science is mentioned as an example of a journal that gives authors the freedom to write in non-traditional styles and formats.

Jan, 2022: Seeds of Science has recently received a grant through Scott Siskind’s ACX grants program. From the announcement post on Scott’s blog Astral Codex Ten:

Roger’s Bacon, $6,000, for work on Seeds of Science, a scientific journal which publishes articles that are nontraditional in content or style with peer review conducted through voting and commenting by a community of "gardeners" (free to join, visit this page for details). Bacon has been exploring the role of amateurs in science, most recently in this journal article (non-conflict of interest note: the article mentions the SSC Surveys as an example of good amateur science, but this grant decision was made primarily by an outside reviewer).

We are extremely grateful to Scott for the grant and are very excited to use this funding to grow Seeds of Science (heh).