I'm writing a paper on evolution I would like some statistics about how many papers on evolution are submitted, how many are accepted and how many are rejected, every year. In other words how many papers on evolution survive the peer review process?

 

Thanks.

This is something that you probably won't find out, as there is afaik no database that keeps track of non-accepted submissions. I would assume it would be kept confidential between the author and the editor (as well as reviewers).

Your best bet is to look at journals that have specialized in evolution papers and see if they post their acceptance ratios. I kind of doubt it, though.

Plus, do you want to track by journal (what % do they accept?), with high-end journals obviously being more picky, or do you want to actually track individual papers (not possible and considerably more difficult) as they "roll downhill", getting rejected over and over until they finally get an acceptance in some obscure rag.

Hmm, so their are no statistics. What about acceptance rates to lets say science?

I have no precise figures at hand, but the rejection rate in the top-tier journals like Science and Nature tend to be around 80%. Most actually without being peer-reviewed, but directly rejected (out of scope or insufficient impact). I do not know how many of those actually sent to review are still getting rejected. I assume the rate to be much higher, too (based on what I am hearing).