New vision for scholarly publishing

SJI is pioneering a new vision for scholarly publishing.  It combines the open-access model with innovative approaches to address the problems in the current scholarly publishing system at the worldwide level.  This revolutionary project is an attempt to provide a one-stop efficient forum for publishing research and creative work from all disciplines. See what scholars are saying.
 

Rapid and fair peer-review process

SJI maintains a rapid turnaround time from submission to publication, averaging 60 days compared to 6 to 18 months for most traditional journals. Each submission is reviewed by three to seven peer reviewers with final decisions reported to the author, usually within four weeks.  This is possible because SJI has a growing review board with more than 3,000 active reviewers. When the majority of reviewers recommend publication of a paper, and one reviewer recommends rejection, SJI seeks additional reviewers' opinion to make the final decision. See what scholars are saying.
 

Quadruple-blind peer-review system

SJI employs a fair and innovative quadruple-blind review system, where the referees, authors and editors remain anonymous throughout the peer-review process. With this pioneering and innovative approach, SJI is trying to eliminate some of the flaws of the traditional peer-review system as mentioned below.

Many authors and researchers expressed concerns about the fairness and integrity of the peer review process in traditional scholarly publishing. Many scholars feel that the peer review system in the traditional publishing world is plagued by elitism, bias, abuse, and conflict of interest.

Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, has said "The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong" (source).

Some scholars such as Drs. Peter M. Rothwell, Christopher N. Martyn, and Alison McCook have argued that traditional peer review lacks accountability, and may be biased and inconsistent (source).  Dr. Lena Eriksson, a Swedish researcher in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, argued that the traditional peer review system may make the publishing process susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy (source). The traditional peer review process may also suppress dissent against "mainstream" theories as indicated by Dr. Brian Martin (source), Dr. Juan Miguel Campanario (source), and Drs. Campanario and Martin (source).

Moreover, research and ideas that are consistent with the elites' views are more likely to be accepted by premier elitist journals or publishers than are iconoclastic or revolutionary findings and ideas (source). An extensive study by Dr. Tom Jefferson's well-respected international team of scientists has revealed that the traditional system of peer review, which has existed in some form for at least 200 years, is flawed.  Dr. Jefferson states "if peer review were a new medicine, it would never get a license" (source). Dr. Fytton Rowland of Loughborough University, U.K. has also pointed out some of the flaws in the traditional peer review system (source). Studies by Dr. A. J. Meadows, Dr. A. Williamson, and others have also found that some editors and reviewers were biased and discriminated against authors based on nationality, native language, gender, or host institution (source).

Many scholars have argued that there is a need to liberate the publication process for faster and fairer access. With its pioneering and innovative quadruple-blind review system, SJI is trying to eliminate some of these flaws in the traditional peer-review system. See what scholars are saying. 
 

Flexible stylistic rules

SJI maintains minimal stylistic rules and considers papers that follow any style manual such as APA, MLA, or Chicago. All traditional journals have very restrictive stylistic policies that unduly create artificial barriers and in effect retard innovation and creativity.  Restricting the authors and researchers to only one style manual is a flawed concept for open-access electronic journals and perhaps for the future of scholarly publishing. 

Unlike other journals, SJI is not obsessed with trivial non issues that make publishing drudgery for many scientists and authors (e.g. if one missed a comma in the bibliography, or forgot to italicize the issue number of a journal in the reference section). For its pioneering and innovative approaches, SJI has received overwhelming support from scholars, researchers and editors from across the country and from around the world.  Many scholars and editors are indicating that they always had reservations about these antiquated style guides, but did not have the courage to speak up against the status quo. See what scholars are saying. 
 

Article length

SJI does not set the same limitations on the length of the article as other traditional journals do.  For our standard journals, an article can be up to 50 pages long. Recently, we have also launched micro journals that publish brief articles that can be up to 10 pages long.


Post-print archiving permitted

SJI allows and encourages authors to deposit their post-prints in open-access archives or repositories. The primary benefit of post-print self-archiving is reaching a larger audience which enhances the visibility and impact of research.


Innovative journals

Our standard scientific journals are complemented by several unique and innovative journals such as Journal of Dissertations, Journal of Patents & Trademarks, Journal of Reviews, Journal of Electronic Books, Journal of Biography & Autobiography, Journal of Current Events & Issues, Journal of Creative Work, Journal of Research Data, Journal of Bibliographies, Journal of Monographs, and Journal of Research Abstracts. Moreover, in response to requests from readers and authors, SJI has launched dozens of micro journals that will publish peer-reviewed articles that can be five to ten pages long. Our standard journals publish peer-reviewed articles that can be up to 50 pages long. 


One of the fastest-growing forums

Our innovative approaches have received overwhelming support and appreciation from scholars, researchers and editors from every corner of the globe. As a result of such worldwide attention, SJI is becoming one of the fastest growing forums for publishing research and creative work from all disciplines. This is precisely the reason why some traditional publishers are becoming hostile to SJI and other open-access journals. See what scholars are saying. 


Fraud Alert

It has come to our attention that a couple of individuals and organizations are propagating libelous, deceptive, misleading and false information and rumors about SJI (as well as other open-access journals) via anonymous emails, blogs, and institutional forums. We are taking legal actions against such fraudulent and libelous activities. 

For example, some of these individuals and organizations are spreading misinformation that open access journals do not conduct peer-reviews of articles. Columnist Robin Peek states “…they are using…the ‘sky is falling on peer review’ as a fear tactic....this is like Microsoft campaigning to make Google go away...(source).

If anyone has doubts about whether or not an open-access journal uses a peer-review system, he or she can easily verify this by submitting a paper to see if it goes through a peer-review process.  One can also become a reviewer for an open-access journal to see if he or she is asked to review any manuscripts. Rather than using this simple way to verify the fact, these individuals and organizations are spreading lies, fear, and smear.

Please read the section below titled Misinformation about open access publishing and Suppression of new ideas & innovation.  If you receive any fraudulent and suspicious emails or reports, please forward them to us so that we can collect additional evidence for our legal actions. Thank you for your support.

Please read the comments of support we are receiving every week from scholars across the country and from around the world (comments).



The Open-Access Movement

Dysfunctional practices in the journal publishing system

Recent independent studies of the journal publishing market have concluded that it is not working optimally because of structural problems (source). Subscription fee-based and print-based scholarly publishing system has become dysfunctional and is in a state of crisis. 

Journal subscription fees have risen four times faster than inflation since the mid-1980s (source). According to Blackwell Periodical Price Indexes, there has been an average increase in journal prices of 178.3% in science and technical journals between 1990 and 2000. Institutional subscriptions to individual journals can cost up to $20,000 per year. Recent estimates indicate that profits for traditional journals are, on average, 40% in a $9 billion industry.

The restricted-access subscription-based journal publishing system is in and of itself a barrier to advancement of knowledge because only the most affluent universities and scholars have access to most of the journals.  Moreover, during the past few years, the escalating cost of research journals has forced many scholars, libraries and institutions to cancel their subscriptions. The current system has become economically unsustainable for libraries, limiting their ability to provide access to vital research information. Universities have also faced decreasing support for libraries as spending on libraries has fallen under 3% of average university spending since 1980s. 

At a time when digital and online access should enable researchers to maximize the reach and impact of their research, the restrictive business practices of traditional publishers have placed serious constraints on the dissemination of knowledge. All of this is detrimental to both readers and authors. As the readers’ access to research becomes limited, it reduces the authors’ exposure. It creates barriers for the scientific community from scholarly interaction and access. Consequently, access to scientific knowledge has gone into a state of decline in recent years. Moreover, the US-based share of world scientific output has declined (source).
 

Discontent with the traditional business model

A widespread discontent with the traditional business model for scholarly journals has led to the proposal of a new business model, the open-access.  Open access publishing provides an accessible alternative by taking advantage of the Internet. As the printing press of the modern age, the Internet widens distribution and allows scholars to share knowledge instantly with a worldwide audience. It fosters openness in the flow of scientific and creative ideas as a means to advancing knowledge.  Many scholars now believe that open-access publishing is the wave of the future. See what scholars are saying. 
 

The open-access model of publishing

The open-access concept shifts the funding from subscription fees to article processing fees. This new model for scholarly publishing has gained support from scholars, universities, and funding agencies in recent years. According to surveys, many funding agencies are willing to allow direct use of their grants by researchers to cover article-processing fees (source). The concept of article processing fee, however, is not an entirely new practice.  Many traditional journals levied page charges or reprint charges, long before open access became a possibility. In addition, traditional journals charge subscription fees and restrict access to scientific knowledge to those scholars and institutions that can pay their escalating charges. 

Open-access publishing model has changed this unfair practice. It has eliminated the subscription fees and opened up access to scientific knowledge. However, in order to pay for the publishing costs and generate adequate revenues, many open-access publishers charge a processing fee on accepted articles. In some cases, it is the author's employer or research grantor who typically pays the fee. 

In the traditional subscription model of publishing, the journal is exclusively available to subscribers for a fee.  In the open-access model, the article is freely available for all immediately upon publication. Open-access publishing promises to remove both the price barriers and the permission barriers that undermine library efforts to provide access to journal literature.  The open-access model has improved the circulation of knowledge, and has expanded its value by enhancing participation in a global exchange of ideas. 

Open access makes knowledge freely available to all, regardless of whether the researcher or scholar is at Oxford or Yale, or at a small college in Mississippi, Mumbai or Manila. Open-access publishing enhances the visibility of university faculty, reduces their expenses for journals, and advances their mission to share knowledge. Open access publishing ensures a free flow of scientific information and knowledge at the worldwide level. Most scholars now agree that electronic journals are a much better way of delivering journal articles than paper journals housed in libraries. Moreover, open access promises to enlighten the citizens outside the academy, enhance teaching and learning, and speed up the pace of discovery. 

To a large extent, the open-access movement is a reaction to the dysfunctional practices in the conventional scholarly publishing system. Many scholars consider the traditional publishing system obsolete and believe that the future of scholarly publishing lies in the open-access model. Richard Roberts, a Nobel Laureate and Editor of NAR stated "Open access is the future of scientific publication and one that we should all work hard to make successful" (source).


Benefits of open access publishing

The open-access model of scholarly publishing serves the interests of everyone. Open-access publishing offers the authors a worldwide audience larger than that of any subscription-based journal. Scholars benefit because the open-access publishing provides them barrier-free access to the scientific literature they need for their own research (as they are not constrained by the budgets of the libraries).  Open-access publishing also helps solve the pricing crisis for scholarly journals. No library in the world can afford to subscribe to every scientific journal and most can only afford a small fraction of them.  Open-access also makes research articles more visible, retrievable, and useful at the worldwide level, and fosters scientific collaboration and advancement.

Several studies have confirmed that an open access article is more likely to be used and cited than articles behind subscription barriers.  A 2006 study in PLoS Biology found that articles published as immediate open access were three times more likely to be cited than non-open access papers. From the point of view of funding agencies, open-access publishing increases the return on their investment in research by making the results of the funded research more widely available. From the citizen's perspective, open-access publishing offers them access to peer-reviewed research, most of which is not available in public libraries. It gives them access to government-funded research for which they have already paid through their taxes. It also helps them indirectly by helping the researchers, academics, physicians, and others who make use of cutting-edge research that can benefit the public. In other words, open access extends the reach of research beyond its immediate academic circle.

Governments fund research in order to make an impact on the economy and society. Making the research results available more easily to the commercial sector (through knowledge transfer from research institutions to the industry) has great potential to promote innovation. Recently, Houghton et al had provided research data that reveal the economic value of increasing access to research outputs (source). Open-access publishing facilitates more effective search and retrieval as well as sophisticated processing and analysis of content. Access barriers associated with the traditional publishing system make such access and analysis difficult. 

There is now a growing global demand for open access publishing. According to a recent international study by researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians University of Germany and University of Arkansas, about 96% of researchers indicated that open-access publishing provides easier access to scientific knowledge and it is desirable. Many scholars believe that open access to scientific knowledge can bring a global revolution in teaching, learning, research, and collaboration. These findings are consistent with the widespread international support for global open access initiatives.
 

Worldwide support for open access

The open access concept has received considerable support from researchers, academics, librarians, university administrators, funding agencies, governments, national research agencies, commercial publishers, and society publishers. Recently, The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has been formed to create awareness about public’s right to open access to scientific information. More than 30 nations have signed the Economic Co-operation and Development Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding (source).

During the past few years, a number of national and international initiatives have stressed the importance of open-access publishing. These include Open Society Institute’s Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002, World Summit on the Information Society and its Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in 2003, and Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing in June 2003.  Many countries, granting agencies, foundations, universities and research organizations have now either made commitments to open access, or are in the process of opening up access to research. Government committees around the world are also taking steps to promote free online access to scientific literature.

Research funding agencies and universities want to ensure that the research they fund in various ways has the greatest possible reach and impact. Many funding agencies including The National Institutes of Health and The Wellcome Trust have adopted open-access self-archiving mandates. The European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) has also expressed support for open-access archiving. In 2005, the Canadian Library Association endorsed a Resolution on Open Access. The Association of College and Research Libraries of the American Library Association has also documented the need for increased access to scholarly information.

Recently, several leading European research institutions launched a petition that called on the European Commission to establish a new policy that would require all government-funded research to be made available to the public shortly after publication (source).  This petition has been signed by several Nobel Laureates and more than 20,000 scholars from hundreds of educational and research organizations from around the world. In response, the European Commission committed more than $100 million towards facilitating greater open access. In the United States, the Federal Research Public Access Act has been introduced that would require federal agencies that fund over $100 million in annual external research to make peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from that research publicly available on the Internet.

In 2007, there were calls for an EU-wide open access mandate from the European Research Advisory Board.  In the US, eight non-profit organizations launched a similar petition.  Other calls for open access to publicly-funded research came from Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Energy.  The final report of a joint UK/US meeting (sponsored by JISC and NSF) recommended an open access mandate for publicly-funded research.  In the UK, the e-Infrastructure Working Group of the Office of Science and Innovation endorsed the open access mandate at the Research Councils UK.  Library and Archives Canada has also called for open access to publicly-funded research.  In India, the National Knowledge Commission recommended an open access mandate.  University-level open access mandates are under consideration at Harvard, MIT, University of California and dozens of other major universities around the world. 

The Public Library of Science recently stated “endorsements of open-access publishing amount to a stinging rebuke of the prevailing subscription-based publishing system. Open access is the only acceptable outcome.”

Twenty-five Nobel Laureates have recently asked the U.S. government to make all taxpayer-funded research papers freely available through open access platforms. The scientists said in a letter to Congress and the National Institutes of Health “Science is the measure of the human race’s progress. As scientists, and taxpayers too, we therefore object to barriers that hinder, delay or block the spread of scientific knowledge supported by Federal tax dollars - including our own works.”

According to a recent survey 81% of authors have indicated that they would willingly comply with an open access mandate from their university or funding agency (source). Another recent study of publishing scientists suggests that the general attitude toward the Open Access principle is extremely positive (source).
 

Misinformation about open access journals

Opposition to open access has largely been from traditional subscription-based journal publishers, whose business model depends upon providing access to research only to those who will pay for journal subscriptions. Many conventional publishers actively oppose open access, fearful that it will cut into their profitability.

Some organizations representing subscription-based traditional publishers in the United States are currently lobbying the government against open-access publishing. In fact, soon after the launch of the European petition, the well-known traditional journal Nature reported that subscription-based publishers were preparing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to counter open-access support. The Association of Research Libraries has stated recently, “This effort is clearly aimed at preserving established publishing conventions and the revenues of established publishers” (source).

Many top university presses such as MIT Press, Columbia University Press, and Oxford University Press are now dissociating themselves with these lobbying organizations of the traditional publishers.  Cambridge University Press and Rockefeller University Press have recently publicly criticized PRISM and its activities (source).

According to reports on the Internet, some traditional publishers and a few of their misguided allies in the academia as well as a few spin-doctors in the media are engaged in misinformation campaigns against open access journals.  Disinformation and distortions are also being propagated by a few bloggers. These individuals and organizations try to capitalize on the fact that some people accept spin or misinformation without verifying the accuracy of the information. For example, some of these organizations are spreading misinformation that open access journals do not conduct peer-reviews of articles. Columnist Robin Peek states “…they are using…the ‘sky is falling on peer review’ as a fear tactic....this is like Microsoft campaigning to make Google go away...(source).
 

Unsolved issues

Since 1998, a number of small scale non-profit open-access journals have been launched by various scientific associations and universities.  However, there are a handful of large-scale  open-access publishers.  These are Public Library of Science (PLoS) and BioMed Central. BioMed Central is a for-profit open-access publisher that was launched in 2000 and currently publishes about 139 journals.  Public Library of Science (PLoS) was launched in 2001 with a $10-million grant.  It operates as a non-profit publisher with seven journals.

These open-access publishers have been unable to come up with economically sustainable business models.  They have not been able to use a business model that is efficient and profitable for the publisher and at the same time affordable for the authors and their funding sources.  Most of the open-access journals are sustained by grants and endowments as well as subsidies from universities, foundations, government agencies, and professional societies or associations.  A handful of large open-access publishers have sustained their operation without reaching profitability by continuing to raise the article processing fee which is their primary source of revenues.  For example, Biomed Central now charges $1,700-$1,900 per article while PLoS charges $2,100-$2,750 per article (source).

Critics have argued that the escalating processing fees of these open-access journals are becoming a barrier that may destroy what it originally wanted to foster. In very few disciplines (other than medical and life sciences) do scholars have sufficient funds from grants and other sources to pay such high article processing fees. In many fields, funding at the university, foundation or government agency level is scattered, uncommon or rare.  Even in medical and life sciences, many researchers and scholars in less funded institutions as well as independent researchers are unable to pay such high article processing fees. In fields such as Social Sciences and Humanities, many authors are engaged in significant research without grants, and therefore, may not have the funds to pay for the prohibitive article processing fees.
 

Reasons for lack of profitability and affordability

As these academic publishers move from the noble intentions of the open access movement to that of hardheaded business realities, they have found themselves in a difficult situation. They have not been able to move from a relatively sheltered environment of the academic enterprise supported by grants, endowments and subsidies into the dynamic, changing, and competitive marketplace of Web commerce. Moreover, many of these open access publishers are led by scholars from the academia, whose experience is in securing grant funding and delivering research results. This expertise is quite different from what is required in an ongoing Web-based service enterprise.

One of the reasons for the difficulty in reaching profitability is that the major open-access publishers maintain a very high cost structure of operation which carries extremely high overhead and administrative costs. These include a plethora of big-expense offices and a stable of high salaried professional editors, executives, programmers, and database administrators. 

For a major traditional journal, the average cost of producing an article is approximately $2750. For open-access publishing, the cost is in the range of $500–$2500 per article (source). These expenses are split among editorial costs, electronic composition and production, journal information system, manuscript management system, electronic archiving, overhead expenses, and administrative costs. The publication fee or article processing fee must cover the costs of publishing the accepted article plus the cost of reviewing the number of articles the journal rejects for each accepted article.  Since costs per accepted paper rise with the rejection rate of papers, the fee usually rises as the rejection rate goes up and acceptance rate goes down.

Such high cost structure demands sizeable revenue streams to offset it.  However, the major open-access journals have not explored all possible streams of revenues.  Instead, they have relied heavily on processing fees and institutional memberships that pay the article processing fees for university faculty and researchers. However, as they continued to raise their fees, it has become unaffordable for many authors and institutions. 

There is also a serious problem with the fee structure of major open-access journals.  Their article processing fee or institutional membership fee is not scalable. They charge a flat article processing fee for publishing each article no matter how many authors collaborate in writing the article.  If an article is written by one author, he or she pays the same high processing fee as an article that has five authors.  This fee structure is not fair or affordable for an individual author whose research may not have been supported by a grant and therefore, he or she has to pay the processing fee out of pocket. 

The major open-access journals also charge a flat fee for their institutional membership.  Such membership fees have also been rising at a rapid pace. For example, in 2005, BioMed Central charged libraries up to $4,658 per year. The cost then jumped to $31,625 in 2006. These charges have continued to soar in 2007 and 2008.

Many institutions have begun to cancel their memberships.  The scientific and medical library at Yale University recently announced that it would cease its BioMed Central institutional membership (source). The Yale library noted that it paid $31,625 to cover the cost of publication in BioMed Central's journals by their authors in 2006. 

The major open-access publishers expected academic institutions to support author fees with massive reallocations from library acquisitions budgets. However, relying too heavily on article processing fees puts open-access journals at a disadvantage compared to traditional journals, which are supported centrally through library budgets.  Many universities have pointed out that libraries cannot simply transfer their acquisitions budget from subscriptions to open access overnight, since access to the subscription-only journals is important for their researchers.

According to news reports, as of Spring 2008, PLoS has not reached profitability or has not generated a sufficient surplus to sustain its operation without subsidies (source). Launched in 2002, PLoS did not even break even until 2007. BioMed Central did not reach profitability even in its 7th year of operation. 

The business models followed by the major open-access journals have failed to provide a viable long-term revenue base built upon logical and scalable options. They have failed to generate surplus revenue for reinvestment over time that will allow them to evolve and grow.
 

SJI solution

SJI with its 100-plus journals is the first global initiative to combine the open-access model with unique and innovative ideas and approaches to address the problems in the current scholarly publishing system at the worldwide level.  As a strategic response to market demand, SJI is pioneering a new vision for scholarly publishing. 

SJI leadership has a very clear sense of its mission and vision, and a passion for pursuing it. As we provide high quality services at lesser cost, SJI continues to thrive and our base of support grows stronger every day, while other open-access journals struggle to merely sustain their operations with the help of grants and institutional subsidies. Our journals are logical alternative to high-priced subscription-based print journals as well as high fee-based open-access journals.

SJI has been able to attain affordability and sustainability using a lean publishing model.  SJI is able to reduce costs of publishing by requiring the authors to perform the final formatting of their articles for publication. The authors are also asked to seek professional editing services if SJI reviewers and editors have recommended such revisions. SJI is in the process of employing open-source software to automate many tasks including early assessment of papers to identify possible duplicate submissions or repurposing material from other papers.  This automation will further reduce our administrative costs.

SJI has developed several alternative models of sustainability and is using innovative ways to generate revenues that are missing from other journals.  We have found numerous creative ways and a wide range of revenue streams that allow us to share and distribute the costs of open-access publishing across all interested stakeholders—not just article processing fees from authors. Such alternative streams of revenues help us keep our article processing fees low enough to attract authors and researchers who do not have sponsors or grants, and consequently, cannot afford to pay the high processing fees of other major publishers.

Unlike other journals, SJI has a scalable article processing fee structure which makes it affordable for authors and their funding agencies. The experience of SJI clearly indicates that researchers and their host institutions and funding agencies are willing to pay reasonable and affordable article processing fees for the sake of faster and fairer access and greater exposure of their work.

SJI has also realized that every kind of digital content can be made available through open access publishing--from texts and data to audio, video and multi-media contents.  SJI is probably the only open-access publisher that publishes peer-reviewed creative work (poetry, paintings, music, films, novels, video and multimedia) on its Journal of Creative Work.  Moreover, our standard scientific journals are complemented by several unique and innovative journals such as Journal of Dissertations, Journal of Patents & Trademarks, Journal of Reviews, Journal of Electronic Books, Journal of Biography & Autobiography, Journal of Current Events & Issues, Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Research, Journal of Research Data, Journal of Bibliographies, Journal of Monographs, and Journal of Research Abstracts.
 

Suppression of new ideas & innovation

Human history is riddled with examples of innovations and research that had been suppressed and derogated by the leading science community and the accepted scientific conventions of the time. Throughout human history, many innovators became the victims of the insults of the skeptical scientific, governmental and corporate power elites.

Many innovators, scientists, and scholars know that disagreeing with the dominant view is risky, especially when that view is backed by powerful interest groups. When someone introduces a new innovation, presents an unconventional scientific view, or comes out with a new way of doing things that threatens a powerful interest group, typically a government, industry or professional body, representatives of that group attack the innovator's ideas and the innovator personally.  Such attacks are carried out by censoring writing, blocking publications, withdrawing or denying grants, taking legal actions, and spreading false information or rumors.

What are the effects of suppression of new ideas, intellectual dissent, unconventional, or unpopular scientific views?  Suppression is not only a denial of the open debate that is the foundation of a free society, it also creates artificial barriers and in effect retard innovation and creativity. Moreover, it has a chilling effect that breeds external censorship as well as self-censorship.  If we can learn anything from the history of science, it is the dissidents and the unconventional thinkers who have spurred science on.

The  following quotes and facts illustrate the initial hostile and trivializing attitude towards new ideas, scientific inquiries, and revolutionary innovations.

“I watched his countenance closely, to see if he was not deranged... and I was assured by other Senators after we left the room that they had no confidence in it." --Reaction of Senator Smith of Indiana after Samuel Mores demonstrated his telegraph before member of Congress in 1842.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
--Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

Nobel Laureate Hans Krebs’ discovery of the metabolic cycle that would eventually bear his name was rejected from the journal Nature.

When Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar presented his ideas at the Royal Astronomical Society in January 1935, most famous astronomer at that time, Arthur Eddington, ridiculed his ideas. It took decades before the Chandrasekhar Limit was accepted by all astrophysicists and eventually his idea became the foundation for the theory of black holes.  Forty years later, Chandrasekhar was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in physics.

Galileo’s ideas about the universe were first dismissed as being impossible. The priests and aristocrats feared the worldview that  his ideas were beginning to force upon people. Galileo was placed under house arrest.

Nobel prize-winning biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi never got funded for his work on the relevance of quantum physics to living organisms.

As documented by Dr. Brian Martin of University of Wollongong, in his books and articles (source), many scientists pursuing research critical of pesticides or proposing alternatives to pesticides have come under attack and have been threatened with dismissal and in some cases had been dismissed. Government scientists critical of nuclear power have lost their staff and have been transferred as a form of harassment.

When Nobel laureate Hans Alfven came up with the idea of parallel electric fields he was ridiculed for his work.

When Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius proposed his idea that electrolytes are full of charged atoms, it was considered a crazy notion.

“Mr. Bell, after careful consideration of your invention, while it is a very interesting novelty, we have come to the conclusion that it has no commercial possibilities."  -- J. P. Morgan's comments on behalf of the officials and engineers of Western Union after a demonstration of the telephone.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." --Western Union internal memo, 1876.

Luigi Galvani's experiments were ridiculed because they countered established views. He was called the "frogs' dance instructor." His innovative experiments eventually became the basis for the biological study of neurophysiology.

When Scanning-tunneling microscope was invented in 1982, it was met by hostility and ridicule from the specialists in the microscopy field. In 1986, the inventors won the Nobel prize.

George Ohm's initial publication was met with ridicule and dismissal and it was called "a tissue of naked fantasy."  Ten years later, scientists recognized its great importance.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

Stanford Ovshinsky's invention of glasslike semiconductors was attacked by physicists and ignored for more than a decade.  Finally he got funding from the Japanese for his work. Consequently, the new science of amorphous semiconductor physics was born.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

When Sherwood Rowland, Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen first warned that chemicals called cholorofluorocarbons or CFCs, were destroying the ozone layer they were ridiculed for their work.  In 1995, Rowland, Molina and Crutzen, won a Nobel Prize.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." --G. B. Shaw.

In 1908 Billy Durant, in trying to raise money to create an automobile trust, boasted to J.P. Morgan & Co. "that the time would come when half a million automobiles a year will be running on the roads of this country." This annoyed Morgan partner George W. Perkins who said "If that fellow has any sense, he'll keep those observations to himself." Unable to raise capital in Wall Street, Durant went home and put together something called General Motors.

When Warren and his team introduced a new facet to MRI theory, his colleagues at Princeton told him that his insane ideas were endangering his career. They held a mean-spirited bogus presentation mocking his work.  After seven years, Warren was vindicated. His discoveries are leading to the development of new MRI techniques.

During 1903 to 1908, Wrights' claims about their airplane invention were not believed. Most American scientists discredited the Wrights and proclaimed that their mechanism was a hoax. 

The inventors of the turbine ship engine, the electric ships telegraph, and the steel ship hull were initially met with disbelief and derision for their work.

When Thomas Edison became successful with a light bulb filament he invited members of the scientific community to observe his demonstration. Although many from the general public went to witness the lamp, the noted scientists refused to attend. Sir William Siemens, England's most distinguished engineer said "Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress."  Professor Du Moncel said "The Sorcerer of Menlo Park appears not to be acquainted with the subtleties of the electrical sciences. Mr. Edison takes us backwards."

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." --Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology, 1872.

"Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

Famous quotations on innovation

"If at first, the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it." -- Albert Einstein.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."--Arthur Schopenhauer.

“At their first appearance innovators have always been derided as fools and mad men.” -- Aldous Huxley.

"Every great advance in science has been issued from a new audacity of the imagination" --John Dewey.

"That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next" --John Stuart Mill.

"Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created" --Albert Einstein.

"No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess"
--Isaac Newton.

"That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time" --John Stuart Mill.

"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."--Paul Johnson

"Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as "conceptual necessities", etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors." --Albert Einstein

"All great truths began as blasphemies." --George Bernard Shaw

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall." --Confucius

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4 and did not read until he was 7. His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams."  He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive."

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

French acting legend Jeanne Moreau was told by a casting director that her "head was too crooked and she was not beautiful enough to make it in films." She said to herself, "I guess I will have to make it my own way." After making nearly 100 films her own way, in 1997 she received the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sidney Poitier was told by a casting director, "Why don't you stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?" It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.

Beethoven's teacher called him "hopeless as a composer."  We all know that he wrote some of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf.

Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. This did not stop him from completing over 800 paintings.

An art dealer refused Picasso shelter when he asked if he could bring in his paintings from out of the rain.

Stravinsky was run out of town by an enraged audience and critics after the first performance of the Rite of Spring.

A young reporter asked Pablo Casals when he was 95  "Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived, why do you still practice six hours a day?" Mr. Casals answered, "Because I think I'm making progress."

Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both "unable and unwilling to learn."

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

English crime novelist John Creasey had 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

John Milton wrote Paradise Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight.



 

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