Someone quoted in that article makes an important point: "The system is not meritocratic. You don't necessarily see the best papers published in those journals. The editors are not professional scientists, they are journalists which isn't necessarily the greatest problem, but they emphasise novelty over solid work." It isn't widely known, but the former editors of Nature and Sci. Am., Maddox and Piel, were not professional scientists. They did not have PhDs. I am not saying that should have disqualified them, but it makes you wonder how they ended up as the de facto arbiters of DoE policy. They and the other editors they worked with seemed to have a shallow grasp of some technical issues. Years ago I exchanged a lot e-mail messages with them. I found myself trying to explain aspects of calorimetry and other subjects they did not grasp, or had never heard of. I did this by pointing them to papers by McKubre and Miles. They did not read these papers. As one of them told me, "reading papers is not our job."
Maddox and Piel were among the most influential opponents of cold fusion. I am not suggesting that I knew more than Maddox. He had tremendous knowledge of a wide range of scientific subjects. He had a much deeper, broader education than I have, and decades of experience. A person does not have to have a PhD to make important contributions. But I did have some specific knowledge of hands-on experimental details that he lacked, and -- more important -- that he no interest in acquiring. I guess what I am saying is that no single person should have as much power as these people had. - Jed
