Early papers in the first issue of Conservation Ecology, for example, were solicited from colleagues in a novel international research program that sought to develop integrative theories appropriate for linked ecological, economic, and social systems. Reviewers rejected every paper. That was all the easier because we have a double-blind peer review system that hid the distinguished names of the authors from reviewers. Traditional peer review concentrates on what is wrong with articles. It therefore fills the essential need to eliminate bad science and scholarship.
Scientific journals take pride in high rejection rates for manuscripts.
In Kenneth Boulding's terms, that carries rigor to the point of rigor mortis. The solution was to request editors to be particularly alert to and sympathetic toward novelty in papers and, in particular, to encourage reviewers and editors to work actively and positively with authors so that novel ideas and papers are developed as rigorously as possible. By the traditional review criteria, the first version of the Khanina contribution would have been rejected instantly because the author is unfamiliar with English and the ideas are unfamiliar to North American, and even to some European reviewers. But there seemed to be the seeds of something useful, so I asked two colleagues familiar with the topic and familiar with European cultures and languages, to work with the author. They actually rewrote the piece in the manner they understood, and several subsequent revisions led to the present Response.