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The domain of Science is a republic, and all its citizens are brothers and equals, its princes of Monaco and its stonemasons of Cromarty meeting, barren of man-made gauds and meretricious decorations, upon the one majestic level.–Mark Twain (1)
This issue marks a changing of the guard at The FASEB Journal, and it seems appropriate to describe our plans for the journal’s third decade. Twenty volumes ago, William J. Whelan, FRS, of the University of Miami became The FASEB Journal’s first Editor-in Chief (1987-1996); ten volumes later, he was succeeded by Vincent Marchesi of Yale (1996-2005). Their efforts, together with those of their associate editors and editorial boards have established The FASEB Journal as an oft-cited, interdisciplinary journal of international science.
In that tradition, we hope that this journal will continue to serve as an engaged, and engaging, advocate of new science and to spread news of the best, peer-reviewed work in experimental biology. We plan to enlarge this archival aspect of The FASEB Journal by introducing editorial material that is eagerly read and discussed, and not simply consulted.
We aim to draw general attention to the contributions to life science made by every one of our constituent societies. Our editorial board has been enlarged to include one member selected by each society. Since we agree with Twain that "the domain of Science is a republic," we’ll welcome work from fields that range from anatomy to zoology, confident that basic discoveries in any one domain of Science are important to any other. On the other hand, we confess that we’d like to review an increased number of manuscripts that describe the isolation of X or the structure of Y rather than the effect of agent X on cell A or organism B.
We will not only champion the best of original scientific work but also address the life of science and of scientists. We will feature editorials, as well as op-ed pieces, and we invite our readers to contribute letters to the editor, book reviews and essays. We will inaugurate a series of biographical and autobiographical memoirs entitled "Milestones" and occasional pieces called "The Bright Side of Life (Science)." These pieces will undergo editorial, if not peer review, in accord with the experience of New Yorker editor Harold Ross who observed, "Editing is the same as quarreling with writers—same thing exactly." (2)
The journal will take editorial stands on public issues that affect the constituent societies of FASEB, such as the teaching of evolution, the support of basic, investigator-driven experimental science, or the composition of the scientific work force in our laboratories. Since our editorial stance may not necessarily reflect the official position of FASEB or its member societies, we expect to arouse controversy. We will be pleased to offer space for rebuttals and corrections, and to provide a forum for active debate on public issues. We’ll keep in mind Adlai Stevenson’s warning that "man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them." (3)
The cover of The (new) FASEB Journal will no longer sport banal, full-color photomicrographs of the sort that decorate scores of other scientific publications. In keeping with our rich visual heritage in the life sciences, we will select images that serve as visual analogs, not simple illustrations, of newsworthy articles. These images will be chosen from masterpieces of 19th century biological illustrations such as those in the collections of the Marine Biological Laboratory/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library, the Library of Congress, or the American Museum of Natural History. Many of these images have previously remained hidden in the rare books stacks, and therefore meet Ambrose Bierce’s definition of painting as "the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic." (4)
Finally, our editorial positions will by no means impinge on the quality of science published as FJ Express articles, Research Communications, etc. Our editorial policy will rise to a task set by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1860.
When James Russell Lowell was offered the editorship of a new literary magazine in 1853, he had made it "a condition precedent" that his friend Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes be the first contributor engaged. Holmes accepted Lowell’s challenge of steady work and published his commentaries in every issue of the new journal; he also gave the publication its name, The Atlantic Monthly. We are still in debt to his knack for names. Holmes not only christened Boston "the Hub" but also introduced "Brahmin" as a tag for Boston’s elite. And, in 1846, Holmes suggested to Dr. Morton the name "anesthesia" for the state and "anesthetic" for the agent first exhibited in the Ether Dome.
In addition, Dr. Holmes imported the study of medical microscopy from France to Harvard, anticipated Semmelweis in demonstrating the cause of puerperal fever, invented the parlor stereopticon, and from 1847–1853 served as Dean of the Harvard Medical School. But it was his book of essays, The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table, that made Dr. Holmes famous in the English-speaking world. In twelve volumes of verse and prose, Holmes raised the flags of sense and wit against the forces of unreason in his time: fundamentalism, homeopathy and phrenology. In words as true of creationism today as of phrenology in 1859, Holmes complained:
"It is so hard to prove a negative... It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement. It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot be, by the common course of argument."(5)
These days, Dr. Holmes would qualify for any number of our constituent societies as an anatomist,physiologist, geneticist, clinical investigator, and American physician. In 1860, he issued a charge to the Massachusetts Medical Society, a charge we gladly accept for our journal today, that we hold:
"every point of human belief, every institution in human hands, and every word written in a human dialect, open to free discussion, today, tomorrow, and to the end of time."(6)
With those words as a guide to the republic of Science we’re ready to begin with Volume 20 of The FASEB Journal.
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FOOTNOTES
The opinions expressed in editorials, essays, letters to the editor, and other articles comprising the Up Front section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FASEB or its constituent societies. The FASEB Journalwelcomes all points of view and many voices. We look forward to hearing these in the form of op-ed pieces and/or letters from its readers addressed to journals{at}faseb.org
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