A group of rebel editors has emerged with a new publication from the reforms forced – or, if you prefer, inflicted – on the controversial Medical Hypotheses journal.

After Elsevier decided to bring in peer-review for Medical Hypotheses, in the wake of the publication of a paper on the link between AIDS and HIV, a number of the journal’s editors resigned. Now some of them have appeared again on the board of the new Hypotheses in the Life Sciences.

“Because traditional anonymous peer review often discriminates against novelty, and can allow reviewers the power to block the publications of valid views different from their own without concomitant responsibility for doing so, Hypotheses in the Life Sciences does not routinely subject papers to peer review, although some will be reviewed anonymously at the editor’s discretion,” says the journal’s website.

The journal will be published by the University of Buckingham Press and its editorial board includes former Medical Hypotheses editor Bruce Charlton. Its founding editor is another former MH man, William Bains, who describes himself as “a 50-ish scientist and entrepreneur in the life sciences”.

Science Insider says the team behind the new journal sees it more as a replacement for the recently deceased Bioscience Hypotheses than a direct competitor for the new-fangled Medical Hypotheses.

“We’re trying to steer a middle course [between] completely autonomous editorial choice and a more conventional peer review system,” Bains told The Scientist. “What a journal of this sort can provide is a certain amount of scientific quality control, but without attempting to be definitely authoritative and without some of the restrictions that come from conventional peer review.”

Image: detail from HyLS website.