[jolic]

The public editor wouldn't know any of that. It's pretty much thier job to not take someone at thier word. Even if he could verify each person's contribution, their position in the field and the relevance of these facts to this issue he still can't be sure that this isn't e.g. some fight between two sides and that this group isn't in minority to 172 other experts that think differently. It's out-of-band verification if you so will.