 Why does Dr. Melrose think it is bad to have authority in their field?
"He's gone completely hay-wire. Nobody's been able to get near him for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's leaving the Farm. He sat with a mute appeal in his large grey eyes as Lessing flipped the reader-switch and blinked in alarm at the wildly thrashing pattern on the tape. The first was from Roberts Bros., announcing another shift of deadline on the book, and demanding the galley proofs two weeks earlier than scheduled. As director of psionic research at the Hoffman Medical Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck up daytime hours. It bore the letterhead of the International Psionics Conference: Dear Dr. Lessing: In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic behavior patterns, we would be gratified to schedule you as principle speaker at the Conference in Chicago on October 12th. "A Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development." When they were finally forced to recognize that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds, with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. They were trying to study phenomena which made no sense, observing things that defied logic. Natural laws came crashing down about their ears as they stood sadly by and watched things happen which natural law said could never happen. And the more they struggled, the thicker and more impenetrable the bramble bush became— But now David Lessing had discovered a pathway through that jungle, a theory to work by— At his elbow the intercom buzzed. Dr. Peter Melrose was tall and thin, with jet black hair and dark mocking eyes. "I think you'd better wait before you do that," Melrose said sharply, "because I'm planning to take you apart at the Conference next month unless I like everything I see and hear down here today. "I want to hear this fairy tale you're about to publish in the name of 'Theory'," Melrose said. But mostly, I want to see just what in psionic hell you're so busy making yourself an Authority about." "If the papers you've already published are a preview, we think it's false as Satan." "So far, we haven't found any way to set up logical controls," said Melrose. Not bad, really. "We haven't been energetic enough to find an orthodox approach that got us anywhere.
 The focus of maintaining authority in an area takes away the focus from the quality of work
 The focus of maintaining authority in an area takes away the focus from the quality of work  People who have titles and recognition are assumed to be at their peak, and their work can only go downhill from there  It is too easy to disprove any of the conclusions they reach so there is no sense of a true authority that can be trusted  He thinks having particular authorities takes away the spotlight from potentially important younger researchers