There Shall Be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

Abstract

MOST responsible producers of goods and services strive to establish and maintain the integrity of their products by some system of quality control, whether it is the vintner's palate or the Volkswagen's inspectors. Among scientific periodicals this most frequently takes the form of a "peer review" of submitted articles whose findings are weighted in final judgment by editors and their advisers. Judgment Day occurs monthly for the Editorial Board of the Journal, and the meetings are held in private, which is unfortunate, for they often constitute lively theater with articulate antagonists jousting under only marginal restraint of the stage . . .