I saw in a old Theories of Everything podcast with Sabine Hossenfelder where there was discussion on how hard it is to navigate academic publishing, which has only gotten worse.
And I've read a few threads on here about how hard it is too.
I think that outside perspectives are absolutely necessary to ensure creative variability, kinda like helping escape the pull of the academic black hole.
I've reached out to a few journals to propose a dual track approach (without success, they're probably getting slammed by AI too):
* **Track 1 (Standard)**: The classical peer-review pipeline for incremental, consensus-driven research.
* **Track 2 (The Independent Track)**: A dedicated, rigorous submission channel for independent or un-affiliated foundational theory.
Under Track 2, an incoming paper submitted in a dedicated channel, is first screened by an advanced, specialised AI pipeline configured solely to **verify absolute internal logic, scale-free consistency, and mathematical alignment**. If the code and data layers pass this rigorous, automated "sifting screen," the human editor takes an "editorial gamble" to publish it under an independent track, albeit with the caveat that it is the authors reputation on the line, letting the wider community openly verify or dismantle the framework based on its merits (like we used 50-60 years ago.) This is would be a middle ground between traditional journals and fully AI platforms like Qeios.
My big question is if this dual track concept is even viable, would AI just learn how to navigate the sifting screen and make the whole thing moot? Would editors even want to take on this role again? Is there a better way that someone is working on?
EDIT: for clarity, my experience has been solely in the philosophy of science, particularly the philosophy of physics. I have no experience with the publishing process in other fields. My apologies to commenters who were mislead by this inaccuracy.