@jonny I'd explain the choices of academics from them being busy and not willing to read hundreds of papers by as many applicants to grants/positions/promotions, rather than cowards. The comfort, the ease, the simplicity, and for some, the beauty, of relying on journal prestige for evaluation instead of doing the actual work of reading the proposals and the scientific papers, and caring about the methods and the discoveries, not the pedigree, or the number of publications, or the journals they are published in. Takes work, also skill. And impartiality, integrity, and a certain detachment. All tall orders.

The day a scientist publishes great work in a blog post – or a preprint, is almost the same – and gets a job or a grant from it is when we'll know the future has arrived, and it's a matter of kindling it so as to extend to everyone else.

#academia #ScientificPublishing