Summary

The current system of publication in biomedical research provides a distorted view of the reality of scientific data that are generated in the laboratory and clinic. This system can be studied by applying principles from the field of economics. The “winner’s curse,” a more general statement of publication bias, suggests that the small proportion of results chosen for publication are unrepresentative of scientists’ repeated samplings of the real world. The self-correcting mechanism in science is retarded by the extreme imbalance between the abundance of supply (the output of basic science laboratories and clinical investigations) and the increasingly limited venues for publication (journals with sufficiently high impact). This system would be expected intrinsically to lead to the misallocation of resources. The scarcity of available outlets is artificial, based costs of printing in an electronic age and a belief that selectivity is equivalent to quality. Science is subject to great uncertainty: we cannot be confident now which efforts will ultimately yield worthwhile achievements. However, the current system abdicates to a small number of intermediates an authoritative prescience to anticipate a highly unpredictable future. In considering society’s expectations and our own goals as scientists, we believe that there is a moral imperative to reconsider how scientific data are judged and disseminated.

当前生物医学研究的出版系统对实验和临床数据给出的是扭曲的结论。出版系统可以用经济学领域的原理来分析。 “历史是胜利者书写的”是对同行评审偏见的更准确的表述，它表明成功发表在期刊的小概率结果不能代表真实世界的本来面目。科学的自我纠正机制因供需关系（大量实验结果的产出）与日益有限的出版刊物（具有足够影响力的期刊）而难以发挥作用。因而正是因为扭曲的出版界使科学资源分配不当。出版渠道稀缺是人为的，理由是印刷成本以及从众多稿件中选择少数文章发表就可以保证发表质量的错误信念。科学的发展是完全不确定，创新是冒出来的而不是计划出来的：我们现在不能确信哪些努力最终会产生有价值的成就。然而，当前的出版系统实际上是让少数人拥有预测高度不可预测的未来的权威预知能力。为了社会的发展和我们作为科学家的责任，我们认为有必要重新考虑如何判断一个稿件的价值和如何发表这些稿件。

文献

Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science

为什么当代出版实践扭曲了科学

Young NS, Ioannidis JPA, Al-Ubaydli O (2008) Why current publication practices may distort

science. PLoS Med 5(10): e201. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201

Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science | PLOS Medicine

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201

扩展阅读：

“顶刊”论文怎么了？

https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-107667-1382150.html

How journals like Nature, Cell and Science are damaging science (The Guardian)

https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/6559b9fb/how-journals-like-nature-cell-and-science-are-damaging-science-the-guardian

https://www.ethicalpsychology.com/2013/12/how-journals-like-nature-cell-and.html

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/How-journals-like-Nature%2C-Cell-and-Science-are-Schekman/1bb7931cb3580a946adfcad30ef7ddcd31baface

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/how-journals-nature-science-cell-damage-science

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/nobel-laureate-attacks-luxury-journals/2009773.article

Nobel laureate attacks ‘luxury journals’

Professor Schekman, who will receive his Nobel Prize at a ceremony on 10 December, adds that in “extreme cases the lure of the luxury journal can encourage the cutting of corners, and contribute to the escalating number of papers that are retracted as flawed or fraudulent”.

https://www.scienceonthenet.eu/content/article/francesco-aiello/randy-schekman-and-natures-tyranny/gennaio-2014

Randy Schekman and Nature’s tyranny

“The most prestigious scientific journals are distorting the progress of science, encouraging a “tyranny” that must be interrupted”. For his j’accuse, the American Biologist has chosen the perfect stage: the Nobel Prize award ceremony, few days ago in Stockholm. “I have published in the big brands, including the papers that won me the Nobel Prize for Medicine. But no longer” stated Schekman. ”Publishing on luxury journals encourages scientists to submit “flashy and eye-catching” papers, and not scientific researches that really deserve attention”, he piled it on from The Guardian. Schekman is surely not the first and only scientist who attacked top brand journals.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2021636118?doi=10.1073%2Fpnas.2021636118

Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165614716300712

Are the Most Prestigious Medical Journals Transparent Enough?

===================

英汉对照 （机器翻译）

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201

Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science

为什么当前的出版实践可能会扭曲科学

·        Neal S Young , 尼尔·S·杨，

·        John P. A Ioannidis, 约翰·P·A·约安尼迪斯，

·        Omar Al-Ubaydli 奥马尔·乌拜德利

• Published: October 7, 2008      发布日期：2008 年 10 月 7 日

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201

Citation: Young NS, Ioannidis JPA, Al-Ubaydli O (2008) Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science. PLoS Med 5(10): e201. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201 引用：Young NS、Ioannidis JPA、Al-Ubaydli O (2008) 为什么当前的出版实践可能会扭曲科学。 PLoS Med 5(10)：e201。 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201

Published: October 7, 2008 发布日期：2008 年 10 月 7 日

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. 这是一篇根据知识共享公共领域声明条款分发的开放获取文章，该声明规定，一旦置于公共领域，本作品可以自由复制、分发、传播、修改、构建或以​​其他方式使用任何人出于任何合法目的。

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this article. 资助：作者没有收到本文的具体资助。

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. 竞争利益：作者声明不存在竞争利益。

Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed 出处：未委托；外部同行评审

Summary 概括The current system of publication in biomedical research provides a distorted view of the reality of scientific data that are generated in the laboratory and clinic. This system can be studied by applying principles from the field of economics. The “winner's curse,” a more general statement of publication bias, suggests that the small proportion of results chosen for publication are unrepresentative of scientists' repeated samplings of the real world. The self-correcting mechanism in science is retarded by the extreme imbalance between the abundance of supply (the output of basic science laboratories and clinical investigations) and the increasingly limited venues for publication (journals with sufficiently high impact). This system would be expected intrinsically to lead to the misallocation of resources. The scarcity of available outlets is artificial, based on the costs of printing in an electronic age and a belief that selectivity is equivalent to quality. Science is subject to great uncertainty: we cannot be confident now which efforts will ultimately yield worthwhile achievements. However, the current system abdicates to a small number of intermediates an authoritative prescience to anticipate a highly unpredictable future. In considering society's expectations and our own goals as scientists, we believe that there is a moral imperative to reconsider how scientific data are judged and disseminated. 当前生物医学研究的出版系统对实验室和临床产生的科学数据的现实提供了扭曲的观点。该系统可以通过应用经济学领域的原理来研究。 “胜利者的诅咒”是对发表偏见的更普遍的表述，它表明选择发表的一小部分结果不能代表科学家对现实世界的重复采样。科学的自我纠正机制因供应充足（基础科学实验室和临床研究的产出）与日益有限的出版场所（具有足够高影响力的期刊）之间的极度不平衡而受到阻碍。该系统本质上会导致资源分配不当。可用渠道的稀缺是人为的，这是基于电子时代的印刷成本以及选择性等同于质量的信念。科学存在很大的不确定性：我们现在不能确信哪些努力最终会产生有价值的成就。然而，当前的系统让少数中间体拥有预测高度不可预测的未来的权威预知能力。在考虑社会的期望和我们作为科学家的目标时，我们认为，道德上有必要重新考虑如何判断和传播科学数据。

This essay makes the underlying assumption that scientific information is an economic commodity, and that scientific journals are a medium for its dissemination and exchange. While this exchange system differs from a conventional market in many senses, including the nature of payments, it shares the goal of transferring the commodity (knowledge) from its producers (scientists) to its consumers (other scientists, administrators, physicians, patients, and funding agencies). The function of this system has major consequences. Idealists may be offended that research be compared to widgets, but realists will acknowledge that journals generate revenue; publications are critical in drug development and marketing and to attract venture capital; and publishing defines successful scientific careers. Economic modelling of science may yield important insights (Table 1). 本文的基本假设是，科学信息是一种经济商品，科学期刊是其传播和交换的媒介。虽然这种交换系统在许多方面与传统市场不同，包括支付的性质，但它的共同目标是将商品（知识）从生产者（科学家）转移到消费者（其他科学家、管理人员、医生、患者和消费者）。资助机构）。该系统的功能具有重大影响。理想主义者可能会因为将研究与小部件进行比较而感到生气，但现实主义者会承认期刊可以产生收入；出版物对于药物开发和营销以及吸引风险投资至关重要；出版定义了成功的科学事业。科学的经济模型可能会产生重要的见解（表 1）。

The Winner's Curse 胜利者的诅咒

In auction theory, under certain conditions, the bidder who wins tends to have overpaid. Consider oil firms bidding for drilling rights; companies estimate the size of the reserves, and estimates differ across firms. The average of all the firms' estimates would usually approximate the true reserve size. Since the firm with the highest estimate bids the most, the auction winner systematically overestimates, sometimes so substantially as to lose money in net terms [1]. When bidders are cognizant of the statistical processes of estimates and bids, they correct for the winner's curse by shading their bids down. This is why experienced bidders sometimes avoid the curse, as opposed to inexperienced ones [1–4]. Yet in numerous studies, bidder behaviour appears consistent with the winner's curse [5–8]. Indeed, the winner's curse was first proposed by oil operations researchers after they had recognised aberrant results in their own market. 在拍卖理论中，在某些条件下，获胜的竞标者往往支付过高的价格。考虑石油公司竞标钻探权；公司估计储备的规模，并且不同公司的估计不同。所有公司估计的平均值通常接近真实的储备规模。由于估价最高的公司出价最高，因此拍卖获胜者会系统性地高估，有时甚至严重到导致净亏损 [1]。当投标人了解估算和出价的统计过程时，他们就会通过降低出价来纠正赢家的诅咒。这就是为什么有经验的投标人有时会避免诅咒，而不是没有经验的投标人[1-4]。然而，在许多研究中，投标人的行为似乎与赢家的诅咒一致[5-8]。事实上，赢家诅咒是石油运营研究人员在认识到自己市场的异常结果后首先提出的。

An analogy can be applied to scientific publications. As with individual bidders in an auction, the average result from multiple studies yields a reasonable estimate of a “true” relationship. However, the more extreme, spectacular results (the largest treatment effects, the strongest associations, or the most unusually novel and exciting biological stories) may be preferentially published. Journals serve as intermediaries and may suffer minimal immediate consequences for errors of over- or mis-estimation, but it is the consumers of these laboratory and clinical results (other expert scientists; trainees choosing fields of endeavour; physicians and their patients; funding agencies; the media) who are “cursed” if these results are severely exaggerated—overvalued and unrepresentative of the true outcomes of many similar experiments. For example, initial clinical studies are often unrepresentative and misleading. An empirical evaluation of the 49 most-cited papers on the effectiveness of medical interventions, published in highly visible journals in 1990–2004, showed that a quarter of the randomised trials and five of six non-randomised studies had already been contradicted or found to have been exaggerated by 2005 [9]. The delay between the reporting of an initial positive study and subsequent publication of concurrently performed but negative results is measured in years [10,11]. An important role of systematic reviews may be to correct the inflated effects present in the initial studies published in famous journals [12], but this process may be similarly prolonged and even systematic reviews may perpetuate inflated results [13,14]. 类比可以应用于科学出版物。与拍卖中的个人竞标者一样，多项研究的平均结果可以得出对“真实”关系的合理估计。然而，更极端、更壮观的结果（最大的治疗效果、最强的关联或最不寻常的新颖和令人兴奋的生物学故事）可能会优先发表。期刊充当中介机构，可能因高估或错误估计的错误而遭受最小的直接后果，但它是这些实验室和临床结果的消费者（其他专家科学家；选择研究领域的受训者；医生和他们的患者；资助机构；等等）。如果这些结果被严重夸大（被高估并且不能代表许多类似实验的真实结果），他们就会被“诅咒”。例如，最初的临床研究往往不具有代表性且具有误导性。对 1990 年至 2004 年发表在知名期刊上的 49 篇关于医疗干预措施有效性的被引用最多的论文进行的实证评估表明，四分之一的随机试验和六项非随机研究中的五项已经存在矛盾或被发现与到 2005 年已经被夸大了[9]。报告最初的阳性研究和随后发布同时进行的阴性结果之间的延迟以年为单位[10, 11]。系统评价的一个重要作用可能是纠正著名期刊上发表的初步研究中存在的夸大效应[12]，但这个过程可能同样会延长，甚至系统评价也可能使夸大的结果永久化[13, 14]。

More alarming is the general paucity in the literature of negative data. In some fields, almost all published studies show formally significant results so that statistical significance no longer appears discriminating [15,16]. Discovering selective reporting is not easy, but the implications are dire, as in the “hidden” results for antidepressant trials [17]: in a recent paper, it was shown that while almost all trials with “positive” results on antidepressants had been published, trials with “negative” results submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration, with few exceptions, remained either unpublished or were published with the results presented so that they would appear “positive” [17]. Negative or contradictory data may be discussed at conferences or among colleagues, but surface more publicly only when dominant paradigms are replaced. Sometimes, negative data do appear in refutation of prominent claims. In the “Proteus phenomenon”, an extreme result reported in the first published study is followed by an extreme opposite result; this sequence may cast doubt on the significance, meaning, or validity of any of the results [18]. Several factors may predict irreproducibility (small effects, small studies, “hot” fields, strong interests, large databases, flexible statistics) [19], but claiming that a specific study is wrong is a difficult, charged decision. 更令人担忧的是文献中普遍缺乏负面数据。在某些领域，几乎所有已发表的研究都显示了形式上显着的结果，因此统计显着性不再显得具有歧视性 [15, 16]。发现选择性报告并不容易，但其影响是可怕的，就像抗抑郁药试验的“隐藏”结果一样[17]：在最近的一篇论文中，表明虽然几乎所有抗抑郁药“积极”结果的试验都已发表，提交给美国食品和药物管理局的“阴性”结果的试验，除了少数例外，要么未发表，要么发表时提供结果，以便它们看起来“阳性”[17]。负面或矛盾的数据可能会在会议上或同事之间进行讨论，但只有当主导范式被取代时才会更公开地出现。有时，负面数据确实会出现来反驳重要的主张。在“Proteus现象”中，第一个发表的研究报告的极端结果之后是极端相反的结果；这个序列可能会让人对任何结果的重要性、意义或有效性产生怀疑[18]。有几个因素可能会预测不可重复性（影响小、研究规模小、“热门”领域、强烈兴趣、大型数据库、灵活的统计数据）[19]，但声称某项研究是错误的是一个困难且充满争议的决定。

In the basic biological sciences, statistical considerations are secondary or nonexistent, results entirely unpredicted by hypotheses are celebrated, and there are few formal rules for reproducibility [20,21]. A signalling benefit from the market—good scientists being identified by their positive results—may be more powerful in the basic biological sciences than in clinical research, where the consequences of incorrect assessment of positive results are more dire. As with clinical research, prominent claims sometimes disappear over time [21]. If a posteriori considerations are met sceptically in clinical research, in basic biology they dominate. Negative data are not necessarily different than positive results as related to considerations of experimental design, execution, or importance. Much data are never formally refuted in print, but most promising preclinical work eventually fails to translate to clinical benefit [22]. Worse, in the course of ongoing experimentation, apparently negative studies are abandoned prematurely as wasteful. 在基础生物科学中，统计因素是次要的或不存在的，完全无法通过假设预测的结果受到赞扬，并且很少有关于可重复性的正式规则 [20, 21]。来自市场的信号性好处——优秀的科学家通过他们的积极结果而被识别——在基础生物科学中可能比在临床研究中更强大，在临床研究中，对积极结果的错误评估的后果更为可怕。与临床研究一样，突出的主张有时会随着时间的推移而消失[21]。如果后验考虑在临床研究中受到怀疑，那么在基础生物学中它们占主导地位。就实验设计、执行或重要性的考虑而言，阴性数据不一定与阳性结果不同。许多数据从未在印刷品中被正式反驳，但最有希望的临床前工作最终未能转化为临床效益[22]。更糟糕的是，在正在进行的实验过程中，明显负面的研究被认为是浪费而过早地放弃。

Oligopoly 寡头垄断

Successful publication may be more difficult at present than in the past. The supply and demand of scientific production have changed. Across the health and life sciences, the number of published articles in Scopus-indexed journals rose from 590,807 in 1997 to 883,853 in 2007, a modest 50% increase. In the same decade, data acquisition has accelerated by many orders of magnitude: as an example, the current Cancer Genome Atlas project requires 10,000 times more sequencing effort than the Human Genome Project, but is expected to take a tenth of the time to complete [23]. In the current environment, the distinction between raw data and articles (telling for sure what more an article has compared with raw data) can sometimes become difficult. Only a small proportion of the explosively expanded output of biological laboratories appears in the modestly increased number of journal slots available for its publication, even if more data can be compacted in the average paper now than in the past. 目前成功发表可能比过去更加困难。科学生产的供给和需求发生了变化。在健康和生命科学领域，Scopus 索引期刊上发表的文章数量从 1997 年的 590,807 篇增加到 2007 年的 883,853 篇，增幅为 50%。在同一十年中，数据采集速度加快了许多数量级：例如，当前的癌症基因组图谱项目需要比人类基因组计划多 10,000 倍的测序工作，但预计只需要十分之一的时间即可完成。 23]。在当前环境下，区分原始数据和文章（确定文章与原始数据相比有哪些内容）有时会变得困难。尽管现在比过去可以在平均论文中压缩更多的数据，但生物实验室爆炸式增长的产出中只有一小部分出现在可用于发表的期刊数量略有增加的情况下。

Constriction on the demand side is further exaggerated by the disproportionate prominence of a very few journals. Moreover, these journals strive to attract specific papers, such as influential trials that generate publicity and profitable reprint sales. This “winner-take-all” reward structure [24] leaves very little space for “successful publication” for the vast majority of scientific work and further exaggerates the winner's curse. The acceptance rate decreases by 5.3% with doubling of circulation, and circulation rates differ by over 1,000-fold among 114 journals publishing clinical research [25]. For most published papers, “publication” often just signifies “final registration into oblivion”. Besides print circulation, in theory online journals should be readily visible, especially if open access. However, perhaps unjustifiably, most articles published in online journals remain rarely accessed. Only 73 of the many thousands of articles ever published by the 187 BMC-affiliated journals had over 10,000 accesses through their journal Web sites in the last year [26]. 极少数期刊的过分突出进一步加剧了需求方面的紧缩。此外，这些期刊努力吸引特定的论文，例如产生宣传和有利可图的重印销售的有影响力的试验。这种“赢家通吃”的奖励结构[24]让绝大多数科学工作的“成功发表”空间很小，进一步夸大了赢家的诅咒。随着发行量增加一倍，接受率下降了5.3%，发表临床研究的114种期刊的发行量相差1000倍以上[25]。对于大多数发表的论文来说，“发表”通常只意味着“最终被遗忘”。除了印刷版发行之外，理论上在线期刊应该很容易看到，特别是在开放获取的情况下。然而，也许不合理的是，在线期刊上发表的大多数文章仍然很少被访问。去年，187 家 BMC 附属期刊发表的数千篇文章中，只有 73 篇通过其期刊网站的访问量超过 10,000 次 [26]。

Impact factors are widely adopted as criteria for success, despite whatever qualms have been expressed [27–32]. They powerfully discriminate against submission to most journals, restricting acceptable outlets for publication. “Gaming” of impact factors is explicit. Editors make estimates of likely citations for submitted articles to gauge their interest in publication. The citation game [33,34] has created distinct hierarchical relationships among journals in different fields. In scientific fields with many citations, very few leading journals concentrate the top-cited work [35]: in each of the seven large fields to which the life sciences are divided by ISI Essential Indicators (each including several hundreds of journals), six journals account for 68%–94% of the 100 most-cited articles in the last decade (Clinical Medicine 83%, Immunology 94%, Biochemistry and Biology 68%, Molecular Biology and Genetics 85%, Neurosciences 72%, Microbiology 76%, Pharmacology/Toxicology 72%). The scientific publishing industry is used for career advancement [36]: publication in specific journals provides scientists with a status signal. As with other luxury items intentionally kept in short supply, there is a motivation to restrict access [37,38]. 尽管人们表达了各种疑虑，影响因子仍被广泛采用作为成功的标准[27-32]。他们强烈歧视大多数期刊的投稿，限制可接受的出版渠道。影响因子的“博弈”是显而易见的。编辑对提交的文章的可能引用进行估计，以衡量他们对发表的兴趣。引文游戏[33, 34]在不同领域的期刊之间创造了明显的层次关系。在被引用较多的科学领域，很少有领先期刊集中被引用最多的作品[35]：在生命科学按 ISI 基本指标划分的七个大领域（每个领域包括数百种期刊）中，每一个领域都有 6 种期刊占过去十年被引用次数最多的 100 篇文章的 68%–94%（临床医学 83%、免疫学 94%、生物化学和生物学 68%、分子生物学和遗传学 85%、神经科学 72%、微生物学 76%、药理学/毒理学72%）。科学出版业用于职业发展[36]：在特定期刊上发表文章为科学家提供了地位信号。与其他有意保持供应短缺的奢侈品一样，存在限制获取的动机 [37, 38]。

Some unfavourable consequences may be predicted and some are visible. Resource allocation has long been recognised by economists as problematic in science, especially in basic research where the risks are the greatest. Rival teams undertake unduly dubious and overly similar projects; and too many are attracted to one particular contest to the neglect of other areas, reducing the diversity of areas under exploration [39]. Early decisions by a few influential individuals as to the importance of an area of investigation consolidate path dependency: the first decision predetermines the trajectory. A related effect is herding, where the actions of a few prominent individuals rather than the cumulative input of many independent agents drives people's valuations of a commodity [40,41]. Cascades arise when individuals regard others' earlier actions as more informative than their own private information. The actions upon which people herd may not necessarily be correct; and herding may long continue upon a completely wrong path [41]. Information cascades encourage conventional behaviour, suppress information aggregation, and promote “bubble and bust” cycles. Informational analysis of the literature on molecular interactions in Drosophila genetics has suggested the existence of such information cascades, with positive momentum, interdependence among published papers (most reporting positive data), and dominant themes leading to stagnating conformism [42]. 有些不利后果是可以预见的，有些是可见的。长期以来，经济学家一直认为资源分配是科学领域的问题，尤其是在风险最大的基础研究领域。竞争对手团队承担过于可疑和过于相似的项目；太多人被某一特定竞赛所吸引而忽视了其他领域，从而减少了正在探索的领域的多样性[39]。一些有影响力的个人就某个研究领域的重要性做出的早期决定巩固了路径依赖：第一个决定预先确定了轨迹。一个相关的效应是羊群效应，即少数知名人士的行为而不是许多独立代理人的累积投入推动了人们对商品的估值[40, 41]。当个人认为他人早期行为比自己的私人信息更丰富时，级联就会出现。人们聚集的行为不一定是正确的；羊群效应可能会长期沿着完全错误的道路继续下去[41]。信息级联鼓励传统行为，抑制信息聚合，并促进“泡沫与破灭”循环。对果蝇遗传学分子相互作用文献的信息分析表明，这种信息级联的存在，具有积极的势头，已发表论文之间的相互依赖性（大多数报告积极的数据），以及导致停滞不前的主流主题[42]。

Artificial Scarcity 人为稀缺

The authority of journals increasingly derives from their selectivity. The venue of publication provides a valuable status signal. A common excuse for rejection is selectivity based on a limitation ironically irrelevant in the modern age—printed page space. This is essentially an example of artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity refers to any situation where, even though a commodity exists in abundance, restrictions of access, distribution, or availability make it seem rare, and thus overpriced. Low acceptance rates create an illusion of exclusivity based on merit and more frenzied competition among scientists “selling” manuscripts. 期刊的权威越来越来自于它们的选择性。出版地点提供了一个有价值的地位信号。拒绝的一个常见借口是基于与现代印刷页面空间无关的限制的选择性。这本质上是人为稀缺的一个例子。人为稀缺是指即使某种商品存在丰富，但获取、分配或可用性的限制使其显得稀缺，从而定价过高的任何情况。低接受率造成了一种基于优点的排他性假象，以及“出售”手稿的科学家之间更加疯狂的竞争。

Manuscripts are assessed with a fundamentally negative bias: how they may best be rejected to promote the presumed selectivity of the journal. Journals closely track and advertise their low acceptance rates, equating these with rigorous review: “Nature has space to publish only 10% or so of the 170 papers submitted each week, hence its selection criteria are rigorous”—even though it admits that peer review has a secondary role: “the judgement about which papers will interest a broad readership is made by Nature's editors, not its referees” [43]. Science also equates “high standards of peer review and editorial quality” with the fact that “of the more than 12,000 top-notch scientific manuscripts that the journal sees each year, less than 8% are accepted for publication” [44]. 手稿的评估从根本上是负面的：如何最好地拒绝它们以提高期刊的选择性。期刊密切跟踪并宣传其低接受率，将其等同于严格的审查：“《Nature》杂志每周提交的 170 篇论文中只有 10% 左右有空间发表，因此其选择标准非常严格”——尽管它承认同行评审具有次要作用：“关于哪些论文会引起广大读者兴趣的判断是由《自然》杂志的编辑而不是其审稿人做出的”[43]。 《科学》还将“同行评审和编辑质量的高标准”等同于“该期刊每年看到的 12,000 多篇顶尖科学手稿中，只有不到 8% 被接受发表”的事实[44]。

The publication system may operate differently in different fields. For example, for drug trials, journal operations may be dominated by the interests of larger markets: the high volume of transactions involved extends well beyond the small circle of scientific valuations and interests. In other fields where no additional markets are involved (the history of science is perhaps one extreme example), the situation of course may be different. The question to be examined is whether published data may be more representative (and more unbiased) depending on factors such as the ratio of journal outlets to amount of data generated, the relative valuation of specialty journals, career consequences of publication, and accessibility of primary data to the reader. 出版系统在不同的领域可能会有不同的运作。例如，对于药物试验，期刊运营可能会受到更大市场利益的支配：所涉及的大量交易远远超出了科学评估和利益的小圈子。在不涉及额外市场的其他领域（科学史也许是一个极端的例子），情况当然可能有所不同。要检验的问题是，发表的数据是否更具代表性（并且更加公正），具体取决于期刊渠道与生成数据量的比率、专业期刊的相对估值、出版的职业影响以及初级期刊的可及性等因素。数据给读者。

One solution to artificial scarcity—digital publication—is obvious and already employed. Digital platforms can facilitate the publication of greater numbers of appropriately peer-reviewed manuscripts with reasonable hypotheses and sound methods. Digitally formatted publication need not be limited to few journals, or only to open-access journals. Ideally, all journals could publish in digital form manuscripts that they have received and reviewed and that they consider unsuitable for print publication based on subjective assessments of priority. The current privileging of print over digital publication by some authors and review committees may be reversed, if online-only papers can be demonstrated or perceived to represent equal or better scientific reality than conventional printed manuscripts. 解决人为稀缺的一种解决方案——数字出版——是显而易见的，并且已经被采用。数字平台可以促进发表更多经过适当同行评审的手稿，这些手稿具有合理的假设和合理的方法。数字格式出版物不必仅限于少数期刊，或仅限于开放获取期刊。理想情况下，所有期刊都可以以数字形式发表他们已收到和审阅的手稿，并且根据优先级的主观评估认为不适合印刷出版。如果仅在线论文能够被证明或被认为代表了与传统印刷手稿相同或更好的科学现实，那么目前一些作者和审查委员会对印刷版相对于数字出版的特权可能会被逆转。

Uncertainty 不确定

When scientific information itself is the commodity, there is uncertainty as to its value, both immediately and in the long term. Usually we do not know what information will be most useful (valuable) eventually. Economists have struggled with these peculiar attributes of scientific information as a commodity. Production of scientific information is largely paid for by public investment, but the product is offered free to commercial intermediaries, and is culled by them with minimal cost, for sale back to the producers and their underwriters! An explanation for such a strange arrangement is the need for branding—marking the product as valuable. Branding may be more important when a commodity cannot easily be assigned much intrinsic value and when we fear the exchange environment will be flooded with an overabundance of redundant, useless, and misleading product [39,45]. Branding serves a similar and complementary function to the status signal for scientists discussed above. While it is easy to blame journal editors, the industry, or the popular press, there is scant evidence that these actors bear the major culpability [46–49]. Probably authors themselves self-select their work for branding [10,11,50–52]. 当科学信息本身成为商品时，其价值无论是短期还是长期都存在不确定性。通常我们不知道哪些信息最终最有用（最有价值）。经济学家一直在努力解决科学信息作为商品的这些特殊属性。科学信息的生产主要由公共投资支付，但产品免费提供给商业中介机构，并由他们以最低的成本进行挑选，然后卖回给生产者及其承销商！对于这种奇怪的安排的一个解释是品牌的需要——将产品标记为有价值的。当商品无法轻易被赋予太多内在价值时，以及当我们担心交换环境将充斥着过多的冗余、无用和误导性产品时，品牌可能会更加重要[39, 45]。品牌与上述科学家的地位信号具有类似和补充的功能。虽然很容易责怪期刊编辑、行业或大众媒体，但很少有证据表明这些行为者应承担主要责任[46-49]。可能作者自己选择他们的作品来进行品牌推广[10,11,50-52]。

Conclusions 结论

We may consider several competing or complementary options about the future of scientific publication (Box 1). When economists are asked to analyse a resource-allocation system, a typical assumption is that when information is dispersed, over time, the individual actors will not make systematic errors in their inferences. However, not all economists accept this strong version of rationality. Systematic misperceptions in human behaviour occur with some frequency [53], and misperceptions can perpetuate ineffective systems. 我们可以考虑关于科学出版的未来的几种竞争或互补的选择（专栏1）。当经济学家被要求分析资源分配系统时，一个典型的假设是，当信息分散时，随着时间的推移，个体参与者的推论不会犯系统性错误。然而，并非所有经济学家都接受这种强烈的理性版本。人类行为中的系统性误解以一定的频率发生[53]，并且误解可能会使无效的系统永久存在。