It is unfortunate that it is now so difficult to publish suggestive ideas. While Medical Hypotheses is one approach to solving this problem, I would like to encourage editors of other journals to consider another possibility. When a senior author has demonstrated his or her scientific credentials by the publication of two or three papers in a journal, he or she could be given the opportunity to publish a hypothesis or theory, subject to certain restrictions, such as the three criteria Horrobin suggests.
Such articles would be subjected to a brief review, to be certain that they are clearly written and meet the journal's criteria for publication. I strongly agree with Horrobin that journals should not worry about whether such ideas are "right." As long as they stimulate thinking and suggest new experiments, hypotheses belong in the literature, where they reach a wide audience.
For a very modest increase in ...
