Concept

Nature (journal)

Overview

Nature is a British weekly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research across the natural sciences, including biology, physics, chemistry, the earth sciences, and related interdisciplinary fields. It operates editorial offices in London, the United States, continental Europe, and Asia under the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature. According to the 2022 Journal Citation Reports, Nature had one of the highest impact factors among multidisciplinary science journals (50.5), reflecting its strong citation influence within the scientific literature; some commentators also regard it as among the most influential scientific journals worldwide. In 2007, Nature (together with Science) received the Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanity. As of 2012, it claimed an online readership of about three million unique readers per month.

Founded in the autumn of 1869, Nature was first circulated by Norman Lockyer and Alexander MacMillan as a public forum for scientific innovations. The mid-20th century facilitated an editorial expansion for the journal; Nature redoubled its efforts in explanatory and scientific journalism. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the creation of a network of editorial offices outside of Britain and the establishment of ten new supplementary, specialty publications (e.g. Nature Materials). Since the late 2000s, dedicated editorial and current affairs columns have been created weekly, and electoral endorsements are featured. The primary source of the journal remains, as established at its founding, research scientists; editing standards are primarily concerned with technical readability.

The main research published in Nature consists mostly of papers (articles or letters) in lightly-edited form. They are highly technical and dense, but, due to imposed text limits, they are typically summaries of larger works. Fewer than 8% of submitted papers are accepted for publication. Nature’s research articles are widely cited and often attract international attention, and the journal has occasionally been involved in disputes and academic controversies, such as debates over retractions, peer-review processes, and methodological standards.

In addition to primary research papers, Nature publishes commentary, analysis, news, and features on topics such as research funding, science policy, ethical issues in science, and notable scientific developments; there are also sections on books, arts, and short science fiction stories. Innovations or breakthroughs in any scientific or technological field are featured in the journal as spotlight articles, which are news or magazine-style papers and therefore do not receive similar recognition as research articles. Some spotlight articles are also funded by partners or sponsors.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Nature (journal) is discussed.

Causal nature is the influence on the mind which is the cause of the effluence of apparent nature from the mind. This conception of causal nature is not to be confused with the distinct conception of one part of nature as being the cause of another part. For example, the burning of the fire and the passage of heat from it through intervening space is the cause of the body, its nerves and its brain, functioning in…
Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919
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All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy. But in the philosophy of value the situation is reversed. Nature is only a part of what we can imagine; everything, real or imagined, can be appraised by us, and there is no outside standard to show that our valuation is wrong. We are ourselves the ultimate and irrefutable arbiters of value, and in the world of value…
Bertrand Russell, What I believe
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Since we have undertaken to make a diligent search into Nature, I cannot but conclude it necessary to declare what Nature is. It is very absurd to attempt a discourse of the essence of natural things, and not to understand what is the power and sphere of Nature.
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
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We will lay this down, therefore, as the genuine and perfect rule of practice, that it should be certain, free and preparatory, or having relation to practice. And this is the same thing as the discovery of a true form; for the form of any nature is such, that when it is assigned the particular nature infallibly follows. It is, therefore, always present when that nature is present, and universally attests such…
Francis Bacon, Novum organum
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For it is certain that Nature, taken in the abstract, has sovereign right to do anything she can; in other words, her right is co-extensive with her power. The power of Nature is the power of God, which has sovereign right over all things; and, inasmuch as the power of Nature is simply the aggregate of the powers of all her individual components, it follows that every individual has sovereign right to do all that he…
Benedictus de Spinoza, The Philosophy of Spinoza
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Nature (journal)

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Philosophers who discussed Nature (journal)

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