Is it only music if it is played and adored in a concert hall? Or does it stop being music when listened to from a tiny, tinny AM radio speaker?
Every industry associated with distribution of information -- music, movies, television, books, newspapers, journals -- have channels designed to keep out the "bad" and pump/hype/sell the "good" (in order to make money for the distributor).
Unfortunately, [Golden Rule] those with the gold make the rules, and often rule on good or bad based on factors completely separate from the merits of the content itself (like politics and even personal rivalries).
Case in point, person X might have a great voice and great music, but music promoters are concerned about the complete package of the musician: are they good looking and young? Do they have stage presence? Can they dance? How will they look on MTV?
Although you might point to YouTube-sensation Susan Boyle to prove me wrong (not good looking, not young, little stage presence, can't dance, doesn't look good on TV), I'll counter that Susan was not bestowed with her beautiful voice overnight. She'd been singing in churches and karayoke (sp) for years. Were it not for the fluke of making it on to a televised talent show, that YouTube has come into its own, and for the fact that (today in her late 40's) she now has a compelling story to override the x-factors that stymied her musical dreams in her younger days, she'd be where she was: nowhere.
To wrap this back around to Steven Jones.
Imagine the journal with all its alleged questionable standards and irregularities is the tiny, tinny AM radio speaker. You have not judged the quality of the music (the validity of the content), mostly because you are intellectually incapable of it, and the other NSA team members from Q Group haven't put their heads together in committee for a "psuedo-science" debunking worthy of the photons it takes to display.
Where are all of the NIST physicists/scientists (or from other agencies) willing (and with employer permission) to publicly appear and debate Jones/Gage point-for-point? My word, they'd even have an advantage of knowing Jones/Gage's side of the debate and practically their entire presentation IN ADVANCE, because they are all over the internet! Where are their scientific reports of using the samples within their possession (and without questionable collection, storage, and chain-of-custody issues) to repeat Jones' experiments and validate/disprove their assertions?
You would think that this issue is so important that they could spare the annual salaries of a few $150k scientists from their multi-million dollar budgets to settle this once and for all.
But no. Q groupies like you are sent out to sow weeds in the wheat fields, character assassinate, and apply all manner of guilt-by-association without addressing the core concerns.
~TwentyTen
