In praise of high journal acceptance rates?

A Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics, Jason Wright, published a commentary in the February 2020 issue of Physics Today, titled "High journal acceptance rates are good for science".  He notes that the journals he publishes in have an 85% acceptance rate.  He says that "Therefore nearly all significant astronomical results submitted to those journals that are not obviously fatally flawed are likely to be published....it is the sign of a healthy culture of science, and astronomy is better for it."  He writes about how this state of affairs helps to avoid publication bias, because paper rejection is often influenced by reasons other than quality:  "scientific taste, politics, professional advantage, and science's inherent conservatism."  He even writes that "it's important that scientists be allowed to be wrong in the literature, as long as they have made no errors."  He concludes that "referees best serve when they act not as gatekeepers but as editorial consultants and independent voices that offer construcive criticism that improves submitted papers."

DTLR finds much merit in Wright's arguments.  However, I do think referees and editors have to be gatekeepers when it comes to one point that Wright alludes to, but does not emphasize.  I and many others have seen methodologically unsound research published, even in prestigious journals with low acceptance rates, in the life and social sciences.  A methdological critic would have been able to reject the paper before seeing any of the data.  This is a collective failing of authors, referees, and editors, who are often themselves untutored in even basic principles of research design and execution. There has been much discussion of these phenomena, for instance, in a special issue of the Lancet in 2014, and in closely related discussions of reproducible research (for instance).  Sadly, that this has continued to be a recognized problem for almost 15 years is a sign of an unhealthy culture of science.

One proposed remedy has much appeal:  "Results-Blind Manuscript Evaluation" (RBME), initially proposed by Joseph Locascio over 20 years ago (eg, Locascio, 2019).  This involves a two-stage manuscript review, where a mansucript is first evaluated on the basis of the Introduction and Methods sections, without knowledge of the results.  Methodologically unsound research can be rejected out of hand at this stage; if not, the manuscript moves to the second stage where its entirety is reviewed, though the decision to accept or reject may still not be based on the results, but only on the soundness of execution, analysis, and presentation thereof.  See the cited paper by Locascio for details.  RBME would not solve all the problems, but would go a long way in changing the incentives.

DTLR believes that a scientific journal should combine the insights of Wright and Locascio in its efforts to fight publication bias, while ensuring that research with a chance of contributing to, rather than misleading, the work of others, sees the light of day.

References

J. J. Locascio, 2019:  The impact of results blind science publishing on statistical consultation and collaboration.  The American Statistician, 73 sup 1:  346-351.

J. Wright, 2020:  High journal acceptance rates are good for science.  Physics Today, 73 (2):  10-11.