The assessment of research articles based on peer review, rather than editorial agendas, lies at the core of the integrity of scientific and academic publishing. Recently, reports suggest that some science journals, including some of the most prestigious, have begun to evaluate manuscripts (in part) on the basis of the editors’ personal and subjective assessments for the potential misuse, distortion or abuse of the results in ways that might cause harm to people not involved in the data collection. For example, an esteemed journal rejected a recent submission, in part, because the results showed differences in trust, altruism and negative reciprocity among adherents to different religions around the world. Christians, for example, were shown to be less prosocial than Muslims globally. Women were shown to be more prosocial than men. These, or perhaps other group-level findings in the paper, were inferred by the editors to have the potential to cause “harm.”

While anchored in the best of intentions, such editorial biases may jeopardize scientific efforts to better understand the world, explicitly add political biases to scientific results, further undermine the public’s confidence in science, and could ultimately harm the very communities the editors seek to protect. Good public policy often hinges on having a clear and unbiased understanding of the world. For example, beginning in the 1950s, the United States government pushed the consumption of fluid milk, including as part of school lunches, with the “Got Milk” Program. Early on, administrators noticed that “minority children” were avoiding milk and reported upset stomachs. Convinced of the health benefits of fluid milk, researchers suggested this was due to poverty and socioeconomic challenges. This program and policy persisted for decades despite a growing body of evidence that many populations around the world are lactose intolerant after about age five due to genetic differences in regulatory genes.

To explore how these editorial concerns about potential indirect harms caused by the clear and unbiased reporting of data might be influencing our science, we invite authors who have had their manuscripts rejected on the basis of such indirect harm concerns to submit all the relevant materials to us for analysis and inclusion in our database. Because we are also aware that editors may compel authors to suppress certain results for political reasons, we also request authors who have had their papers accepted but with aspects de-emphasized or suppressed to provide us with all the relevant materials for analysis and inclusion in our database.

Our goal is to understand how nonscientific, editorial concerns are shaping our understanding of the world and scientific reporting. We believe the project has the potential to help journals and editors improve their processes.

We are deeply concerned about maintaining the anonymity of both authors and editors. Any materials submitted will be kept strictly confidential. Any data we report publicly from this project will protect the identity of authors and editors (but not journals). We are open to sharing our database with anyone in a manner that maintains the anonymity of authors and editors.

Please make submissions to Mona Xue at culture.cognition.evo.lab@gmail.com.