There are many ways in which academia is non-transparent, but I don't think one journal rejecting double-blind reviewing is a major one. In the areas of computi

There are many ways in which academia is non-transparent, but I don't think one journal rejecting double-blind reviewing is a major one. In the areas of computing in which I work not only can I guess who's written a paper (I would estimate at least 75% of the time off the top of my head, and with a little help from Google I imagine I could get well over 90%), but I can often guess who's written a review of my papers (perhaps 10-20% of the time). Computing might be an odd example - it's all I know. But I suspect that even most "broad" subjects end up breaking down into sub-areas where the participants tend to know each other pretty well. Double-blind seems to me to be an attempt to try and cover up the much deeper flaws of "peer review". Peer review doesn't in practice mean that a peer-reviewed article is 100% correct, and that legions of scientists have honed every sentence. It means it got past the prejudices of a few reviewers, and (unless the reviewer is unusually committed) means that it didn't contain anything that screamed "obviously wrong" on a quick read through. When I get a genuinely good review (in particular if it finds a flaw in my work), I find it immensely useful, but these are sadly in the minority. IMHO the greatest reason why new-comers to the field find it hard to get papers accepted is because their ideas have a higher chance of grating against those held dear by the established people who act as reviewers; this is such a fundamental flaw in the system that fiddling with double-blind barely even counts as fiddling at the edges. Given all this, it greatly amuses me when in North America to see products advertised as being based on peer reviewed science.