An influential academic safeguard is distorted by status bias
To those that have, more shall be given
When, in 1905, the then-unknown patent clerk Albert Einstein sent his revolutionary ideas on special relativity, the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and a few other topics to the German journal Annalen der Physik, its editors were happy to publish them. Submissions were rare and therefore rarely rejected—unless the text was clearly bonkers.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Peer pressure”
From the September 17th 2022 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Science & technology
Are ice baths good for you?
They won’t hurt. Actually they might, a bit
Why carbon monoxide could appeal to the discerning doper
Professional cycling is debating whether to ban the poisonous gas
A sophisticated civilisation once flourished in the Amazon basin
How the Casarabe died out remains a mystery
Heritable Agriculture, a Google spinout, is bringing AI to crop breeding
By reducing the cost of breeding, the firm hopes to improve yields and other properties for an array of important crops
Could supersonic air travel make a comeback?
Boom Supersonic’s demonstrator jet exceeds Mach 1
Should you worry about microplastics?
Little is known about the effects on humans—but limiting exposure to them seems prudent