Where Have All the Good Editors Gone? - A Necessary Polemic

Don’t be afraid: America’s greatest folksinger of all time, Pete Seeger (‘Where have all the flowers gone?’), is not back as a zombie to critic aquaculture. It seems, however, that he was much more aware of the evolution of different human societies and cultures than many aquaculture editors are of the appearance and development of their journals.

In the new age, where a certain political elite has made alternative facts and fake news acceptable to the public, it is not surprising that strange papers appear even in highly ranked aquaculture journals: articles with fake bib­liographies or missing or at least very poor identification of the organisms studied. They appear without any sanction or commentary and even pretend to be peer-reviewed.  Who knows if results or even entire articles are homemade? Can we be sure that results or even entire articles are not just fabricated fairytales? Is it of any surprise that Open Access (OA) journals, including those from major publishers, do not fight these tendencies? Earning article proces­sing charges appears to counts more than science! Where have all the good scientific editors gone?

In some subscription journals, and even more so in OA journals, you will miss the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section ‒ usally a sign of the lively scientific life of a journal and the contest for the best interpretation of published results. Not so in many aquaculture journals. Which author wants to pay article processing fees in an OA journal for something intrinsic to science, namely discussing the results presented by colleagues? Discussion leads to paradigms being proposed and eventually recognized by a majority of scientists after academic pros and cons (Kuhn 2012). Do these journals believe that they are close to the absolute truth, like religions or communist and fascist ideologies, which not only don’t need any discussion but actively suppress it? Where have all the good editors gone? And if they are still around, have they forgotten all about scientific education and good scientific practice?

One of the foundations of scientific work, which is clearly distinguished from esoteric homeopathic beliefs, is the traceability and reproducibility of studies from other laboratories. But how can this be guaranteed when dog (or cod) Latin terms are used for supplements of botanical preparations that are at best known regionally where the respective ethnopharmacy is applied, but are by no means in general use? Why do aquaculture journals not require the actual common scientific terms? This requirement is not a symptom of racism a la ‘oppression of ethnic minorities’ ‒ it is the basis of scientific work and communication, which every scientific author should have learned in university. It contributes to the general understanding and acceptance of the more empirical science of aquaculture. Where have all the good editors gone?

Similar criticism applies when aquaculture and related journals, mainly OA journals, allow the use of product names instead of the usual, still rather superficial, characterization of the feed composition. This is simply advertisement and not science at all! Where have all the good editors gone?