Intellectuals in the universities operate on the reward system of publications, sorted by peer review, which is a sacred thing to them. An alien anthropologist would see this as merely a tribe re-affirming the values of the tribe, with no outside challenge. Or the comparison would be made with other animals such as dogs in a pack. Yet, beyond these sceptical doubts, the issue of fraud constantly comes up. The latest is 500 papers set to be retracted by the publishers Hindawi and Wiley, after investigations uncovered peer-review rings, with reviewers and editors working together in corruption. The full extend of academic corruption is not known, but in my opinion, the whole paradigm is rotten to the core.