Editing a basic science journal

The Journal of comparative and Physiological Psychology is a “society” journal; it is interdisciplinary, at the edge of psychology´s traditional boundary. The authors and readers must be conversant (and competent) in the concepts and techniques of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, genetics, evolution, or ethology, besides the traditional experimental psychology. Because the motivation of individuals to publish greatly exceeds resources for publishing, selection of papers is necessary. The selection procedures are not unique; the editor and associate editors send the manuscripts to experts in the field for advisory opinions. The paper must fit the mission of the journal, it must be technically sound, the conclusions derived compellingly from empirical data, and, finally, it must be interesting and significant, is fairley nonobjective, he cited frequently in future research. Significance is fairly nonobjective and judgmental; what is one person´s significance is another person´s trivia. I know of no solution to the problem of the “tyranny of editors,” but their terms are finite (at least with society journals) and most axe aware of the problem. They do not want to go down in history with the dubious distinction of having rejected Einstein´s first paper on relativity theory (or the like). Most editors are sensitive to the problem of distinguishing significant novelty in science from mere incompetence.