They're organizers of a conference, not academics. If you require them to replicate the experiment to prove it's good science, you're crippling them. It's per

They're organizers of a conference, not academics. If you require them to replicate the experiment to prove it's good science, you're crippling them. It's perfectly appropriate for them to apply conservative heuristics to make their editorial load manageable, and a good heuristic is "has the appropriate academic credentials." They're popularizers, not the cutting edge.