Peer Review

Academics love peer review. This is the benchmark that determines whether or not some piece of research is good. Peer review is this incredible system that reminds me of a mathematics teacher I had many years ago. Rather than grading assignments, he had the students swap assignments and grade each other. He was extremely surprised when at exam time, a significant number of "A" students became "D" students. Unfortunately, the academic peer-review system has no exam time.

Further thought on peer review: Peer review is what produced modern art. Not the stuff Picasso did. I mean the truly rubbish stuff, where blind tests cannot distinguish it from stuff produced by monkeys.