Prof Gloria Moss & Dr Niall McCrae – Off-Guardian Dec 30, 2025
Publication of research results, theoretical propositions and scholarly essays is not a free-for-all. As shown by the dogmatism around climate change and Covid-19, sceptics struggle to get papers in print. The gate-keeper is the peer-review system, which people take for granted as a screening process to ensure rigour in scientific literature.
But it is not always been that way. Until at least the 1950s, the decision to publish was made by the editors of academic journals, who were typically eminent professors in their field.
Peer review, by contrast, entails the editor sending an anonymised manuscript to independent reviewers, and although the editor makes a final decision, the reviews indicate whether the submission should be accepted, revised or rejected. This may seem fair and objective, but in reality peer review has become a means of knowledge control – and as we argue here, perhaps that was always the purpose.
You may be surprised to know that the instigator of peer review was the media tycoon Robert Maxwell. In 1951, at the age of 28, the Czech emigree purchased three-quarters of Butterworth Press for about half a million pounds at current value. He renamed it as Pergamon Press, with its core business in science, technology and medicine (STM) journals, all of which instilled peer review.
According to Myer Kutz (2019), ‘Maxwell, justifiably, was one of the key figures — if not the key figure — in the rise of the commercial STM journal publishing business in the years after World War II’.
Maxwell’s company stole a march on other publishers and its influence was huge. By 1959 Pergamon was publishing 40 journals, surging to 150 by 1965. By 1996, one million peer reviewed articles had been published. Yet despite the increase in outlets, opportunities for writers with analyses or arguments contrary to the prevailing narrative are limited.
Maxwell was instrumental to peer review becoming a regime to reinforce prevailing doctrines and power.
Elizabeth and Robert Maxwell at their 1945 wedding. Click to enlarge
Back in 1940, Maxwell was a penniless 16 year-old of Jewish background, having left his native land for refuge in Britain. His linguistic talents attracted him to the British intelligence services. On an assignment in Paris in 1944 he met his Huguenot wife Elisabeth. After war ended in 1945 he spent two years in occupied Germany with the Foreign Office as head of the press section.
Four years later, with no lucrative activity to his name, this young man found the money to buy an established British publishing house. According to Craig Whitney (New York Times, 1991), Maxwell made Pergamon a thriving business with ‘a bank loan and money borrowed from his wife’s family and from relatives in America’.
But how was he able to acquire Butterworth Press, initially? A clue is given by a BBC video clip (2022) on Maxwell’s links to intelligence networks. While operating as a KGB agent in Berlin, he presented himself to MI6 as having ‘established connections with leading scientists all over the world’. According to investigative journalist Tom Bower, ‘unbelievably what he really wanted was for M16 to finance him to start a publishing company’.
This point is corroborated by Desmond Bristow, former M16 officer, who states that Maxwell asked the secret security service to finance his venture. Seven years after launching Pergamon Press, Maxwell moved into Headington Hill Hall, a 53-room mansion in Oxford, which he leased from Oxford City Council.
If it was the intelligence services (British and/or Russian) that bankrolled Pergamon Press, their motive could have been to ensure control of knowledge following the tremendous advances of the Second World War (such as nuclear physics and weapons of mass destruction). Maxwell’s choice of name for the publisher is interesting. The ancient site of Pergamon was allegedly the locus of Satan’s throne (Revelation, 2:12), and a cynic might suggest that Maxwell’s peer review system would turn science from Enlightenment to a new Dark Age.
A ploy of Maxwell was to label his journals as global: instead of the parochial ‘British Journal of…’ it was always ‘International Journal of….’ In 1991 Maxwell sold his academic publishing empire to the Dutch publisher Elsevier for £440 million. By then he had achieved his – and perhaps his secret sponsors’ – goal of a globally controlled academic press.
If a censorial conspiracy seems far-fetched, consider the case of the critical thinking journal Medical Hypotheses. Founded by British scholar David Horrobin in 1975, this journal published novel, radical ideas about health likely to be rejected by conventional journals. A single editor decided what to publish, with no review panel. In Patricia Kane’s obituary in the British Medical Journal, Horrobin was described as ‘one of the most original scientific minds of his generation’.
In 2009 Medical Hypotheses became a cause célèbre. Bruce Charlton, who succeeded Horrobin as editor-in-chief, accepted a highly controversial article by a Berkeley virologist. Peter Duesberg contested the HIV basis of AIDS and argued that the South African government was right not to administer antiretroviral drugs to AIDS sufferers because the HIV–AIDS link remained unproven. Publication caused furore in the scientific world. Scientists associated with the US National Institute of Health threatened to remove all subscriptions to Elsevier titles from the National Library of Medicine. Their demand was not only that Elsevier withdraw this article, but also to institute peer review at the journal.
Elsevier agreed and dismissed Charlton. Mehar Manku, who replaced him, assured that the journal would now ‘be careful not get into controversial subjects’, the reverse of what Horrobin intended. Charlton later remarked: –
The journal which currently styles to itself Medical Hypotheses is a dishonest fake and a travesty of the vision bequeathed by the founder Professor David Horrobin; and as such it ought to be closed down—and on present trends it surely will be.
Consider the case of British scientist Rupert Sheldrake, whose research on morphic resonance challenges core tenets of normal science. Sheldrake was subjected to intense hostility from John Maddox, chief editor of Nature, the most prestigious scientific journal in the world.
In an infamous editorial in 1981, Maddox denounced Sheldrake’s first book A New Science of Life as an ‘infuriating tract’ and ‘the best candidate for burning there has been for many years.’ In 1999 Maddox reviewed Sheldrake’s book Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, which presented compelling evidence of psychic powers in birds and animals:
Rupert Sheldrake is steadfastly incorrigible in the particular sense that he persists in error. That is the chief import of his eighth and latest book. Its main message is that animals, especially dogs, use telepathy in routine communications. The interest of this case is that the author was a regular scientist with a Cambridge PhD in bio-chemistry until he chose pursuits that stand in relation to science as does alternative medicine to medicine proper.
As the discerning reader will notice, Maddox plays the man rather than the ball, refusing in his ad hominem attack to engage with Sheldrake’s evidence. This is not a scientific approach, but ideological censorship, with the personal vengeance of ‘cancel culture’. Such oppressive group-think is facilitated by the peer review system, and is not only applied to ‘far out’ theorists like Sheldrake.
The most significant use of academic journals for propaganda is with the ecological agenda. The supposedly overwhelming consensus for anthropogenic climate change is a myth, as the oft-cited figure of 97% of scientists was derived from four studies, all of which were flawed.
Like father, like daughter? Robert Maxwell pictured with his daughter Ghislaine Maxwell, currently imprisoned in the U.S. for her role in the Epstein files. Click to enlarge
Science is not an opinion poll, and an appropriate rewording of the statement would be that 97% of scientists believe in whatever gets them funding. Peer review has been exploited by the pharmaceutical industry. Antidepressant drugs have been consistently endorsed in medical journals since Prozac was introduced in the 1980s, despite dubious safety and effectiveness. This favouring of Big Pharma products reached its zenith with Covid-19 vaccines.
For the sake of humanity, we need to revert to an open and objective scientific enterprise. Like many purportedly progressive developments in society, peer review has brought more problems than it solves. That it was initiated by the rogue figure of Robert Maxwell, with secretive funding, suggests ulterior design.
Originally published by Country Squire
—
Niall McCrae is a social commentator and an officer of the Workers of England trade union. He was previously a senior lecturer in mental health at King’s College London. His books include The Moon and Madness (2012), Echoes from the Corridors (with Peter Nolan, 2016), Moralitis: a Cultural Virus (with Robert Oulds, 2020) and Green in Tooth and Claw: the Misanthropic Mission of Climate Alarm (2024). He writes regularly for The Light newspaper.
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Has anyone else ever noticed the uncanny resemblance between Robert Maxwell and Golda Meir?
https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/10/GettyImages-515118634-9be8d5c-e1696504139531.jpg?quality=90&resize=620,414
i worked for maxwell and later for Rupert Murdoch
where did his money come from ?
his big falling out with george soros was because both men were reporting
on fellow jews working against the authorities, financial rewards were good
Not all jews given up to the authorities were acting against the state
but Jan Hock now given the name by MI6 as robert maxwell
just wanted money
He would stand on the roof of the daily mirror building and urinate down in passer by
it was quite well known he would prostitute his daughter, and asa tenger would have her himself
gislane took to epstein as protection.
Robert would use Lord Goodman a clever jewish lawyer to continually make threats
about slander if anyone mentioned him, the jewish MP Leo Abse who would promote homosexuality and perversion with animals
remember when Hitler came to power he had huge book burnings of perverted books, hitlers bringing in the children and animal protection law was to thwart this trend
Hitler was a vegetarian
Maxwell had a stash of money in his safe this was his ” black widow fund”
for asassinations, it was tragic that the radio programme chris cooper investigates
tapped maxwells phones and was about to expose him when chris committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the head
Interesting article. Bookmarked.
The general problem is that of truth by “authority”. The authors of the article might do better IMO if they didn’t lead with being a “professor” and “dr”. Perhaps mention their academic baubles in context, but leading with them forever signals, “We know these things and you plebs need to pay attention”.
But yes we who observe the system know there are various forms of gatekeeping. “Peer review” is one of many. The whole business is to present to the sheeple what is respectable. The new years honours system likewise seeks to promote the “respectable”. People like Sir Edward Heath or Sir Jimmy Savile.
Back in the day I believe dentists often did more “work” than they needed to get money. Taking teeth out unnecessarily and so on. Yet, these people too are often supposed to be “people to aspire to be”.
Simon Charles Smith, 1973 Cycling Proficiency graduate and Smethwick Cultural Attaché to TTS.
As kier starmer slides the UK further down into a communist state
a huge migrant crime wave engulfs the UK, the bill for the migrants
is now £40 billion and growing
Starmer and the socialists seem oblivious to migrant gangs piling in
The british people have been begging both Trump and Elon Musk
to come sort the country out.
Most migrants being imported are fighting age men and are now filling the military barracks, this is a sinister development, British people were pushed harrrased and bullied to have the covid kill-shot, migrants pouring in were not.
The USA is great at regime chamge, for gods sake come do it here
LOL…
Not one mention of ‘Promis’ software…the spyware developed by the yankees’ stolen by Maxwell (solomon Hoch) and then sold back to the CiA* and five eyes alphabets to spy on the muggles…via the stolen state spookery
the daughters that don’t pimp tweens at mar a lago are all computer affilliated …and which goes to show the concept of stealing anything at all was all bullshit because if Maxwell is funded by five eyes to gate keep the scientisms..He’s also an insider using civy street to infect non blob business and enterprise.. with his spyware.. for the spookery and their owners..
*there’s no real distinction between Russkie or Yankee spooks..because they are all joo organizations..or rather, central banking enterprises..
I suppose he could have reminded us of what his real name was?
Peer reviewed, just like the 9/11 stuff explaining how those three towers came down. I suppose they must be thinking what’s left to inherit will be worth inheriting…
And the Covid stuff.
And the anthropogenic climate change stuff
And presciption drugs
All ideologically driven
Telepathic dogs, that would be a rabbit hole. And so what, surely they’re not all like that. Telepathic…waiting by the gate or door when you come home is not being telepathic.
His sudden rise to power must have been by supporting somebody else’s ideological bent, until he manufactured his own which wouldn’t have been that different from the one that got him started.
Climate Change?
OK…. Climate is LGBQT2+ …. blah blah blah
Now can I get my WOKE PhD?
Jack Witchity – I thought the resemblance between Golda Meir and LBJ was perfect – they could be twins.
Juze- operators in the hands of an angry God.!
“Ye shall know them by their grin” – unknown adversary of kosherism @ approx 33AD.
Maxwell is just another extension of the mockingbird media, and the intelligence agencies primarily responsible for the rule over our nations during the past 125 years through stealth. Strange that people are willing to admit that the principal methods through which we are ruled are deception, fearmongering and oppression, but they care nothing about trying to discern the real source or cause of it all. The US, which boasts of having some 17 so-called “intelligence” agencies (which the people are allowed to know about) is clearly the most corrupt nation and empire on the globe, and likely in all human history. Yet, other than knowing that the corruption level in a nation is usually directly proportional to amount of power and wealth it has, no one seems to really care that the major source of the power and the corruption are to be seen and found in the very methods used to gain and maintain wealth and power. All of those methods are concentrated in organizations and institutions, both criminal and legal, which just happen to be above all of the laws which we must obey and which are used to control us.
No, the solution to clean things up is not anarchy or libertarianism such that we can all be both equal and unequal under no laws, or to live in nations in which nothing is really immoral or illegal. The solution is to get rid of all of the corruption, people and institutions which are exempt from the laws which apply to everyone, and to do that with very sudden and extreme prejudice. We can debate what the phrase ‘get rid of’ means, or ought to mean, when the time comes.
The psychologists tell us that people who do crazy and harmful things to themselves and others are really acting out unresolved conflicts, or contradictions, within their psyches. Somehow their true natures are at odds with their beliefs, what they have done, or their conscious selves, and they just keep acting out in destructive ways, over and over again, those same contradictions. On a more dividual scale, it is said in politics that a nation generally gets the government it deserves. However, when we see how the Western powers aided and abetted the communist revolutions in Russia and China, or the fact that none of our Western governments really represent the people of their nations, it is hard to see that the people are as wicked as the governments appointed to rule over them. There is a disconnect or contradiction akin to, or parallel, to what you seen in a disturbed individual person. The ways in which we are governed (largely through, mass deceptions, fakery, fearmongering, brainwashing, and intimidation, and the whole bag of tricks) does directly reflect the deep-down contradictions between the people being abused and the very core of the ruling class.
More so, when we examine any nation in which stealth and corruption are accepted as normal and necessary to maintain and accumulate more and more power and wealth over others, we see all of the vices and none of the virtues flourishing, and even the very methods reflect exactly who and what is really in charge. Loyal brainwashed Americans accept at face value the official narratives they are fed by the establishment. Doubting the moon landings is still a bridge too far for them. Despite the distance in time, now almost 25 years from 9/11, it is still a matter of bad faith for most Americans to actually look at the facts and see that it was an inside job using the Mossad to do the wet work. The good people (the healthy and natural body of the nation value and want the truth) but the neurosis is that on such important matters and on all more crooked and higher levels the truth simply cannot be allowed. It is the same with respect to Covid and the vaccines. The truth is there but the people in higher positions have to be more loyal to the fakery and the psyops. They are punished if they aren’t.
Where do these very elaborate and expensive mass deceptions, pretexts, false flags, psyops, and bioweapon viruses and vaccines really come from? If the insider institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Trilaterals, CFR, the WEF, and Chatham House wanted to start a flu pandemic in order to usher in the pretexted-sustainability UN Agendas along with a global economic and fiscal “Reset”, who would they rely on? What nation would be capable of pulling it off? What nation spends more on stealth and spy agencies than all other nations combined? What nation makes the most use of mind control methods, and is the most sophisticated in pulling off psyops?
We know the answer, but why would they have to use all of the sophisticated intelligence-agency machinery to pull off a plandemic? Why could they not just have relied on the fakery, mind control and coercive methods of the media, and government and professional institutions, and simply imposed the centralized controls on us without a bioweapon fake “killer virus”? There is evidence that the globalist plans call not just for legal controls over us, but also controls over our bodies, our DNA and our minds. Then there is the issue of population reduction, and experiments with various toxins, the central people would deem as necessary. But what kind of people think of these things and actually have no qualms even in performing them? The only answer are sociopaths – intelligent criminals and the very kind of people recruited to serve in our intelligence communities.
We all know of the dishonesty and corruption in the way we are ruled, but it is most unlikely that even powerful moguls such as Bill Gates, or those in the elite insider organizations are in control. Likely it is the case that they are all under threats and in control of the expert sleuths who specialize bribing, intimidating, and controlling people.
When we examine the elaborate and grandiose US psyops, crimes against humanity, and the blatant atrocities, and spread and institutionalization of every single crime, we know it is not a true refection of the decent American people. It is a reflection or a projection of something far more sinister. It is the acting out of very disturbed minds who control the reins of power. It was McLuhan who said that the medium is the message, and if we examine how things are done these days, it is most likely that the very planning is coming only a little bit from the money-power moguls, but that actual diktats are going to them from some super aloof intelligence network controlling the numerous spy, intelligence, and military agencies in all of our nations with the hundreds of billions spent each year on them to keep them going. It is the axe controlling the arm and the mind behind the arm, wildly hacking away everything in sight.
Unless there is some good reason to use their services, those institutions would surely die and disappear. They have a life of their own and are no longer there to serve but to be served. On the world stage they are institutions which keep the satellite nations and foreign holdings in line, and mainly through the use of their sophisticated technologies and ruthless methods. Like organized criminal organizations, which they really are, they do have a sociopathic and ruthless will and ability to control their principal benefactors. Likely because of vast powers of the international banking cartel and the dominance of the Rothschild dynasty, the entire US miliary intelligence apparatus is in control of those organizations, which is said to control the British and EU ones as well. However, their own intelligence apparatus would be even more powerful and likely has little or no budget restrictions. It would have to be able to monitor and control of most nations, multinational corporations, and major institutions, and most other intelligence organizations.
The psyops, international crimes, and fakery from the US has become more blatant, destructive, and bazaar, and all of it feeds a steady diet of fear, division and uncertainty to the people. Meanwhile, these methods continue to destroy more and more US credibility and trust on the world stage. As their psyops and fakery become more and more institutionalized and outrageous, the nation in effect becomes more and more isolated. It is almost as if some super Rothschild intelligence agency wants that to happen, with the future being more clearly seen for them with Israeli expansionism, and all of the silk-road prospects they are developing between Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. It may be that they want the US out of the picture – after it knocks off Iran.
Two migrants are in hospital following a double stabbing in Lambeth yesterday afternoon (December 30). The Metropolitan Police said the force was first called to Tram Close, in the Herne Hill area, shortly after 4pm amid reports of a rival gang attack.
Upon arrival, a 31-year-old man was found on the residential street with multiple knife wounds. London Ambulance Service paramedics treated him at the scene for non-life-threatening injuries with another man dead at the scene
FOR GODS SAKE SEND ALL THESE FOLK HOME
Anti jew graffiti on Co Louth roads condemned
Story by Allan Preston • 14h •
graffiti that was discovered on roads in Co Louth has been called
“an unacceptable attack” on Ireland’s Jewish community.
is it any wonder look what jews are doing ?
anyone who is not anti jew has no heart
Pictures circulated online showed the markings in the Ardee area of the county, with the words Jew and Rat alongside a Star of David as well as a swastika.
its nicely done and well proportioned
Fianna Fáil councillor John Sheridan commented on Wednesday: ” I had been contacted last night about some anti jew graffiti painted on a road outside Ardee and County Council are following up today.
“This is an unacceptable attack on Jewish people living in Ireland and should not be tolerated. Targeting of anyone because of their murders is not acceptable.”
Louth County Council confirmed they had investigated the incident on Wednesday and that arrangements were being made to remove the graffiti “as quickly as possible.”
The public have been ringing in to say ” leave it”
Migrant Child rape gang ‘rapist’ tried to kill wife
Story by Will Bolton •
Rape gang boss went on to try and murder his wife following a series of police failings.
The man, named only as Offender J, a muslim migrant allegedly took part in the gang rape of 12-year-old Samantha Walker-Roberts in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in 2006.
Three years later, the man attempted to kill his wife.
He had not been investigated by police despite previously being named as being involved in a child rape gang.
He was identified by Shakil Chowdhury, the gang’s ringleader, as an accomplice, but Greater Manchester Police failed to pursue the investigation.
Miss Walker-Roberts only learnt of this failure in 2022 following a safeguarding review commissioned by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester. after it was all hidden up by Kiet Starmer
3 min read
Golda Meir is actually the twin sister of U.S. President Lyndon Bains Johnson
Maxwell was a full-on Mossad agent. Mossad purchased the Promis software, re-engineered it to include backdoors. Maxwell then became the global salesman for it, selling it to numerous governments around the world.
Maxwells megalomania eventually led to financial disaster. He then tried to blackmail Mossad into bailing him out. Which is why he got the chop.
As long as you’re willing to obey, read from whatever script has been handed to you, and inundate LinkedIn with posts on ocean health, vanishing glaciers, and other horrors of “climate change”, academia is the place for you!
RAH: Absolutely! Especially if you throw in a regression analysis or two. And with a touch of game theory, you’re golden.
The whole space has become so political, you can have a marketing degree from a run-of-the-mill state school, and you can publish nothing for a decade, and still be treated like a rock start – once you’ve been “chosen” – for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to delve into on this site.