> The editor later proceeded to explain to us why he was inquiring about the reputation of these scientists: "I'm asking to make sure that I accept articles fro

> The editor later proceeded to explain to us why he was inquiring about the reputation of these scientists: "I'm asking to make sure that I accept articles from reputable people. Because you see, at , we want to do real science, not Richard-Dawkins-type science." I remember discreetly crying for an hour that night at the conference's bar, not because that man was unjustifiably mean to one of the most intelligent scientists in the world, but because I had come to the realization that our system of scientific publication was governed by people who have no idea what knowledge is. It's not just the people governing it. It's the system itself: you are vetted by the only people who understand what you write - the other members of your own little tribe. The editor is not supposed to understand what he publishes, he just asks the opinion of your colleagues, anonymizes slightly the responses (you can still tell who's who by their style) and gives them to you so you can reply. Afterwards the music starts again, you switch chairs and it's your turn to review your peer's article. Is there any wonder why this lead to heaps of useless research and widespread enhanced interrogation of meaningless data? And no, Richard Dawkins is not "one of the most intelligent scientists in the world", he's just somebody you like and you extended your character judgment to every aspect of his work because you took the same shortcut as that editor: he's in your opinion one of the good ones. And your opinion is that of someone using Facebook as a blogging platform ;-)