What is a “Seed of Science”?
It is a speculative hypothesis, an proposal for an experiment, a novel observation, a thought-provoking commentary, or an unorthodox research study. Like a real seed, a Seed of Science is small and carefully crafted. A good Seed includes some kind of justification for how the ideas or analysis could advance science (e.g. an argument or proposed experiment) and provides as much evidence and rationale as possible. Besides that, there are virtually no requirements on content or style — Seeds can be from any scientific discipline (including metascience, science ethics, and education) and can be written in non-traditional styles or formats for scientific articles (e.g. a narrative, a dialogue, etc.).
How to Publish
1. Write a “Seed of Science” (up to 4000 words, but this is a very soft limit; we will also publish much shorter pieces so don’t feel like you have to get close to the word limit). See below (“How are Seeds Evaluated?”) for further information on our criteria. We hope to encourage a diversity of styles and formatting in the articles so please don’t feel like you are constrained by the typical requirements of scientific writing; we will not issue a full rejection for stylistic reasons if we think there is merit to your ideas. It should also be noted that we are not concerned with credentials or prior academic achievements — professional scientists, students of all levels, and amateurs are encouraged to submit. Please contact us if you have questions about the suitability of a topic — we would love to help you in the writing process however we can. One note: for indexing purposes, we ask that references are cited in text as (author, date) and that a numbered references section is included at the end (you may use hyperlinks instead of in-text citations but still include a numbered references section).
2. Email your “Seed” in a word document to Info@TheSeedsofScience.org. You can tell us your name and institution (if you have one) at this point, or you can submit anonymously if you'd like.
3. We (the managing team) may desk reject your Seed if it is deemed unoriginal, uninteresting, or entirely devoid of scientific potential; the CrackPot Index will be loosely applied. If it is deemed worthy of review, then we will send the article out to the Gardeners for votes and comments. Peer review is conducted through voting and commenting by our community of Gardeners. Both votes and comments are considered in the final publication decision (e.g. if an article receives slightly less than 50% of the vote but receives many positive comments then we may decide to publish). For articles that require more technical expertise, we may seek the opinion of outside experts before making a final publication decision.
4. If accepted for publication, we will share the Gardener’s comments with you and suggest revisions as appropriate. In general, required revisions will be minimal — although we hope that authors will revise their article based on the Gardener’s comments, we will generally not require revisions unless there are specific aspects of your article or particular passages that are problematic due to their content/writing. Comments that illuminate and extend your ideas in a useful manner will be published after the main text of your article.
5. Your Seed is published! All manuscripts are published as PDFs (assigned a DOI, searchable in major academic databases) and as Substack articles (website text/email newsletter). Authors may also include a short biography and donation link (either personal or charity) on the landing page for their article (example).
How are Seeds Evaluated? (Publication Criteria)
1. Does the Seed contain novel ideas or analysis that have the potential to advance science?
This criterion is purposefully ill-defined because we want to be as open-minded as possible about what counts as a valid scientific contribution (but not so open that our minds fall out). An article (or "Seed") may answer this question in a very direct manner (e.g. by proposing an experiment or hypothesis), or more indirectly by providing speculations, questions, observations, or a preliminary data analysis that could inspire a promising line of thinking. The requirement of "novel ideas or analysis" may also be satisfied in a very broad sense, perhaps through providing a novel framing of a known problem or by applying a pre-existing idea in a new context. We encourage readers to ask themselves — can I imagine a future (however distant) where this Seed has contributed to scientific progress? Can you imagine someone citing this article or crediting it as inspiration? If the answer is a hard NO to these questions then you should probably vote as such, but if the answer is at least a "maybe" then you should proceed to the next criterion.
2. Does the Seed include adequate justification for its ideas and how they could advance science?
This criterion is aimed at ensuring the SoS doesn't become too abstract/philosophical or unconstrained by relevant facts. We don't expect your ideas to be entirely supported by current knowledge (that's the point of speculation after all) but you should be able to show that your starting point is supported by evidence or that a similar line of thinking has been productive in the past. We would also like the Seed to include some kind of “cash value” for further research — a hypothesis to be tested, a proposed experiment, a topic for further inquiry, or an argument for how your ideas could lead a scientist to think differently in a productive manner, etc.
3. Does the Seed contain high-quality writing?
If you feel the Seed is written in such a manner that it makes for a tough read then you may vote "no" regardless of the quality of the ideas. In general, we will try to avoid this situation by asking for cosmetic revisions before we send the article out for review. On the other hand, we do allow for a diversity of non-traditional styles and formats, so it is possible that an author may, for example, choose to write in a slightly more obscure style; this is why we choose the relatively vague criterion of "quality" instead of clarity. Another way to think about this criterion is — would I recommend this article to a friend?
Reflections on Criteria (April 2022)
Judging by the comments and votes of recent articles, there seems to be a considerable difference of opinion between gardeners on what kinds of articles should be accepted. While we do have very limited requirements on style/format and content (e.g. much more open to speculation than a typical journal), there are many gardeners that reject articles because it seems too much like a blog post (e.g. too informally written) and not a "proper" scientific article. We also have some gardeners that reject articles because they do not possess enough novel ideas, while others accept them because they still provide scientific value in some way, perhaps in framing known issues in a novel manner. These tensions are inevitable given the openness of our format. While we had certain ideas in mind when we (Dr. Dario Krpan, Dr. Sergey Samsonau, and Roger's Bacon) founded the journal, we also recognized that gardeners would interpret the publication criteria in different ways and that the diversity of opinions would ultimately make for a stronger review process. That being said, we believe there are a few things that gardeners can keep in mind which might improve the review process.
1. Try to focus on the quality of the content and not style/format. If you feel like there are good ideas in the article that deserve to be published but the quality of the writing could be improved then it's probably best if you vote "yes" and note your criticisms in the comments. If enough people critique the writing then we will require stylistic revisions before publication. While the quality of writing can certainly detract from the content of the article at a certain point, it would be a shame if an article had great ideas but was rejected for more superficial reasons which can be addressed in revisions.
2. Please keep in mind that comments from gardeners will be published along with the manuscript. If you agree with most of the article and think some of the ideas are novel/useful but have an issue with one section/idea then it might be best to vote yes but voice your complaint in the comments. This is a grey area of course — maybe the one issue is really important and invalidates the whole article — but also keep in mind that we can still require a revision to address the issue even if the vote is overwhelmingly positive. It should also be mentioned that our criteria explicitly states that we are open to speculation; while not all speculation is created equal, it is probably not appropriate to reject an article simply because it is speculative.
3. While it would be great if all of our articles possessed truly novel ideas and speculations, that is a very high bar, one that is not passed by many articles published in more traditional journals. As we grow and recruit more authors, we may be able to focus on new ideas/speculations, but for now it may be more profitable to emphasize the "scientific value" aspect of our criteria. We have added a clarification to our criteria that addresses the novelty issue:
"The requirement of "novel ideas" may also be satisfied in a very broad sense, perhaps through providing a novel framing of a known issue or by applying a pre-existing idea in a new context. We encourage readers to ask themselves — Can I imagine a future (however distant) where this Seed has contributed to scientific progress? Can you imagine someone citing this article or crediting it as inspiration?"
