Controversial issues in science practice have often been controversial for years, decades, or even centuries. There is an extensive literature on peer review that addresses everything under discussion here, and more. It has previously landed close to home, and pretty recently, too. For example:
"After circulating a pilot questionnaire at the British Ecological Society meeting in Hertfordshire in 2005, I sent a questionnaire on peer review to two large, well-known e-mail discussion groups for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, ECOLOG-L and EVOLDIR." ( C. Smit. 2006. Peer Review: Time for a change? *BioScience *56:712-713. ) Matthew K Chew ASU Center for Biology & Society Tempe, AZ 85287-3301 USA http://cbs.asu.edu/people/profiles/chew.php http://asu.academia.edu/MattChew
