Sir

I could not agree more with the author of your Opinion “Resolution to enhance confident creativity” (Nature 403, 1; 2000) that “there will always be established and influential scientists who … are resistant to looking beyond their long-held scientific assumptions”. I also agree that “too many of today's creative scientists lack long-term security” and that “good but unconventional ideas are probably falling by the wayside”.

Peer review is important for ensuring the quality of published work and proposed studies. This quality check can prevent false information being disseminated and funds being wasted. But peer review can also restrict creativity. What can be done to improve the system?

With the emergence of electronic publications, which do not have to rely on a fixed format, the reviewing/citation components can now be integrated into publications. Supplemental information and hyperlinks can be added to electronically published papers to connect them with related information — a review or a follow-up research article, say. In this way, the value of the published work is automatically revealed through the reading of linked literature. Ultimately, pre-publication review might even be eliminated and replaced with continuous post-publication review, creating a free atmosphere for expressing creative ideas.

I have started such an experiment and created an electronic journal, Logical Biology (http://logibio.com), dedicated to debating controversial issues and promoting logic as a tool for scrutinizing long-held conventional views in biology: for example, the nature of bacterial life. Some people may dismiss this type of publication, but, in the interest of fostering creativity, isn't it worth a try? The primary goal of scientific publication is, after all, not validation but communication.