Scientific ideas, especially the truly innovative ones, are like seeds: they need fertile ground and tender care in order to grow to their true potential.

Seeds of Science (ISSN: 2768-1254) is an open access journal (free to read, free to publish) dedicated to nurturing promising ideas and helping them blossom into scientific innovation. Peer review is conducted through voting and commenting by our diverse community of reviewers, or “gardeners” as we call them. Visit the about page or read our manifesto to learn more.

We also host the SoS Research Collective, a first-of-its-kind virtual organization for independent researchers (and academics thinking independently).


What is a “Seed of Science”?

It is a speculative hypothesis, a proposal for an experiment, a novel observation, a thought-provoking commentary, or an unorthodox research study. Like a real seed, a “Seed of Science” is small and carefully crafted. A good Seed includes some kind of justification for how the ideas could advance science (e.g. an argument, a proposed experiment, or preliminary data analysis) and provides as much evidence and rationale as possible. Besides that, there are virtually no requirements on content or style—Seeds can be from any scientific discipline and can be written in non-traditional formats. Although our Seeds may be different than a typical scientific paper, all articles receive DOIs and are searchable in major academic databases.

Trauma Exposure across the News Cycle and the Case for Biotypes of PTSD in War Journalists

Author: Sheeva Azma
Date: October, 2024
Area(s): Biology, Psychology
Text: PDF

A Controlled Experiment Testing the Effect of Unconditional 100% Exam Scores on Long-Term Retention

Author: Andrew Neff
Date: September, 2024
Area: Psychology, Science Education
Text: PDF

A Paradigm for AI Consciousness

Author: Michael Johnson
Date: June, 2024
Area: Biology, Psychology, Technology
Text: PDF, Substack

Attitudes Toward Artificial General Intelligence: Results from American Adults in 2021 and 2023

Author: Jason Jeffrey Jones and Steven Skiena
Date: February, 2024
Area: Social Sciences, Technology
Text: PDF, Substack

Now accepting submissions and recruiting new gardeners! See Publishing with SoS and the Gardeners page for more information.


Updates

January, 2024: We would like to announce the SoS Research Collective, a first of its kind organization for supporting independent researchers (and academics thinking independently). You can read the announcement post on our Substack to learn more, but in brief we would like to offer researchers the following:

  • A title (SoS Research Fellow) and dedicated page featuring a biography, links to articles, etc.

  • Payment of $50 per peer-reviewed article

  • Editing services and advising (time and expertise permitting)

  • Promotion on the SoS website/substack (featuring your work on our Best of Science Blogging feed, researcher spotlight posts, etc.)

Email us at info@theseedsofscience.org if you are interesting in joining us as a SoS Research Fellow or learning more about the Collective.

March, 2023: SoS co-founders Dr. Dario Krpan and Roger’s Bacon participated in a panel discussion at the London School of Economics, “Different Perspectives on Diversity of Thought in Social Science” (video). Dr. Krpan and Bacon spoke about how we can encourage greater diversity of thought by reconsidering norms around scientific writing/publishing and by finding more ways to get amateurs/independent researchers involved in social science research. A short commentary on the event which mentions Seeds of Science was written in the Lancet.

The point of this journal, founded by Roger's Bacon (a pseudonym) and Dario Krpan, is to provide a place where people outside the system of science can publish their findings, ideas, and views. Roger's Bacon identified two neglected aspects of diversity. First, psychological diversity. We live in environments that shape our minds. The academic environment privileges particular characteristics: diligence, competitiveness, verbal abilities, organisational skills, quantitative expertise, self-promotion. What about those who do not possess these qualities? Are they to be excluded from science? Second, functional diversity. We think of ourselves as free agents, but the settings we work in impose incentives and constraints that limit our freedom. To promote psychological and functional diversity, we must create possibilities for non-traditional scientists, amateurs, to contribute.

October, 2022: We are now publishing our articles on Substack in addition to the standard PDF format (assigned a DOI, searchable in academic databases). Readers who wish to receive newly published articles as an email newsletter may sign up through our Substack page.

August, 2022: Seeds of Science is discussed in a recent NewScience essay written by co-founder Roger’s Bacon, “Research Papers Used to Have Style. What happened?”. The essay traces the evolution of scientific writing style over time and makes the case that we would benefit from more aesthetic value in our writing; Seeds of Science is mentioned as an example of a journal that gives authors the freedom to write in non-traditional styles and formats.

Jan, 2022: Seeds of Science has recently received a grant through Scott Siskind’s ACX grants program. From the announcement post on Scott’s blog Astral Codex Ten:

Roger’s Bacon, $6,000, for work on Seeds of Science, a scientific journal which publishes articles that are nontraditional in content or style with peer review conducted through voting and commenting by a community of "gardeners" (free to join, visit this page for details). Bacon has been exploring the role of amateurs in science, most recently in this journal article (non-conflict of interest note: the article mentions the SSC Surveys as an example of good amateur science, but this grant decision was made primarily by an outside reviewer).

We are extremely grateful to Scott for the grant and are very excited to use this funding to grow Seeds of Science (heh).


 

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

— Richard Feynman