On: A 2017 Nobel laureate says he left science because...

[jaclaz]

>To somewhat counter-balance this ...

I am missing the counter-balance effect, it seems to me we are saying the same thing, the "senior investigators" were passed not because they were geniuses (or not only because of this) but rather because they managed to get the reputation of genius[1], while "younger investigator" got eviscerated not because they were not (possibly) geniuses, but rather because they had not such a reputation preceding them.

[1] BTW not necessarily undeserved

[Fomite → jaclaz]

I wasn't satisfied with "counter-balance" as a word when I wrote that, honestly.

It was mostly more the idea that what counts as "PR" for a senior academic isn't necessarily intuitive.