Reaching the World

Editorial by Rustum Roy

Why Another Journal?

Over the last few decades I have been the Founding Editor of several new journals which are now well-established. The Materials Research Bulletin (1966) was the first such in the, then, new “interdisciplinary” field of materials research. The Bulletin of Science Technology Society (1980), also initially published by Elsevier, was the first journal of any kind to cover this maximally interdisciplinary area. The Journal of Materials Education (1982) was the first and the only Journal devoted to education in the flourishing field of research. Materials Research Innovations (1996) did not pioneer in a new field (as in the others noted above) but in its review process. Published originally by Springer Verlag, now in its eleventh year, it was the first journal to use the process of super peer review (SPR) to displace the enormously time-wasting, and anti-innovation bias, of the (standard) peer-review process (PRP). In each of these cases the justification for a new journal was the fact that we were really breaking new ground in “form,” content, or community to be served by the new journal.

Following the same justification principle, the journal of The Science of Healing Outcomes (JSHO) is new in several very specific ways. It will be the:

1^st peer-reviewed journal of healing case studies using scientific criteria instead of statistical data
1^st professional scientific journal devoted (exclusively) to records/data on human healing, including single case studies
1^st journal devoted to healing outcomes whether caused by body, mind or spirit vectors

Let us take a look at each in turn.

Science not Statistics: Most major scientific discoveries start with a “single case study.” Faraday electrolyzed but one beaker of water and electrolyzed and dissociated it into H2 and O2. I am sure he repeated it a few times. But he did not perform an RCT. Nor did Plunckett at DuPont when he discovered Teflon; nor did the Bell Labs team that made the first transistor. Careful work, unexpected results, all on “single cases.”

Prof. Andrew Weil and I have discussed for years the enormous distortion in medical research caused by the absolute refusal to follow the path of science—look very carefully and critically, of course, at all the extraordinary observations that are made by careful honest citizens—and professionals of all kinds: MD’s, Ph.D’s, R.N.’s and N.D.’s (“no degrees” like Michael Faraday and Bill Gates). Serendipity, or is it as Deepak Chopra calls it, “synchrodestiny,” has always been very important in science even in some of today’s healing vectors—one need only think of quinine, Viagra, lithium—but unfortunately not in NIH-FDA driven type medical research. The JSHO now opens the door to bringing precisely that genre of advances—as in Science—into the healing area. This is not to say that some large population studies may be necessary for the NIH-FDA to check for side effects safety in large populations, etc. That is normally called engineering.

The JSHO Editors have chosen to focus this journal on healing outcomes in humans. In the last analysis, it is the outcomes that count. Does it work? That is what attracts the educated public. And works largely on humans (not on rats or rabbits). The TV advertisements by “pharma” intrinsically pay tribute precisely to this fact, using fictitious young healthy females and males supposedly being changed by some pill or procedure. Strangely the research has often spent millions on statistics with rats, or rabbits, and very different looking heterogeneous person populations!

A final distinctive element of this journal: It is the use of SPR to help judge the acceptability of papers. First, this journal has editors who decide. Far too often in journals, the so-called “peer” reviewers doom a paper with a single critical remark because the Editors do not exercise their proper role. You will note with concern that no journal or agency has ever defined a peer. Who was an appropriate peer for Linus Pauling? The anonymity of reviewers is another questionable practice: is it essential? We managed very well in Materials Research Bulletin without it. The question remains: Is there a demonstrated better way? Of course! It has existed for hundreds of years. The Proceedings of the Royal Society (in the U.K.), the National Academy of Sciences (in the U.S.), both very prestigious Journals, and many analogous bodies in other countries accept papers from any member without any review. They rely on two simple facts: track record and motivation. Their membership in their own National Academy means that they are, say 1 in 1000 among their colleagues—they have a track record. They must preserve their reputations and are therefore strongly motivated to avoid errors. It worked for generations, albeit it has been modified recently in some countries.

Our “SPR” is only a broadening of the theory—track record and its preservation is a very strong motivation. Instead of election to an academy we use a lower bar—of having published widely (30–50 peer reviewed papers depending on location of employment). For young or new entrants we allow the channel of having a sponsor with the necessary qualifications who knows the author’s work to sponsor such a paper.

The bureaucracy is vastly simpler than the standard PRP (peer reviewed publications.) The manager checks into the appropriate nature of the topic and meeting the key SPR criteria, and of course, the format. When okayed, the title and abstracts are emailed to the members of the editorial board whose interests are closest to the paper. If any so wish they may specifically review the paper, and submit their comments. With all (or none) such reviews and the certification of having passed the SPR criteria, the Editors accept or reject the paper.

So JSHO is ready for its launch. We invite a whole new range of professionals in the whole person healing practices from chiropractors to acupuncturists, Qi Gong and Reiki and Mahikari practitioners and all nursing professionals, etc., and the hundreds of therapies based on light, sound, or variations or combinations, thereof, and of all forms of mental and spiritual healing, to submit their papers. All they need is solid data (from their own institutions or from hospitals or other bodies) on the “before” and “after” conditions of the patients.

The JSHO welcomes your comments and submission of papers. At this juncture your financial support for FOH-JSHO is also specially needed.