He followed their standard practice. Now, it may be the peer-review process as a whole is a little sloppy.
He may have followed THEIR standard practice.
He didn't. Standard practice is to have the paper reviewed by another associate editor. He did not do that, which many take as a suggestion that he knew no other editor at the journal would publish that paper.
From
STATEMENT FROM THE COUNCIL OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON:
quote:
The paper by Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," in vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, was published at the discretion of the former editor, Richard v. Sternberg. Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history.
{emphasis added}
™ Version 4.2
