Dear Roy,

I don't think so.  I don't think it's too late.  What people with 
serious intellectual standards need to do is to study the ranking 
methods, and show them to be at the best misleading, at the worst 
scandalous.

A dead-serious scientific evaluation of the scandal of 
assessment-by-mechanical-ranking would I think blow the system away.  
It's a set of emperor's clothes waiting to be noticed in their absence 
by a "little child" (the gender is not specified in the Danish: I 
suspect it was a girl!).  I don't think one person could do it, 
admittedly.  (My own one-woman campaign against the related scandal of 
letters of recommendation for established scholars in the "assessments" 
shows me that.)  But a research team funded by a foundation actually 
interested in promoting science instead of promoting smooth careers---if 
such can be found---would work.

Meanwhile I heartily endorse Mike Bradley's policy, for which he surely 
gets support at UMBC from my prize student of so long ago, David Mitch, 
of shaming his colleagues into actually reading.  I know it's radical, 
Roy, but without pressure from us radicals, would anything ever change?

Regards,

Deirdre McCloskey