Yeah, when it comes to these two guys, who knows? But I've kept hearing about systemic issues about how science is funded and the pressures that puts on researchers and how that effects what science gets done. And I guess thats a hopeful thing, at least- I've kept hearing about it. People are talking about it. Hopefully this leads to change. Your theory about otherizing is interesting; I've always assumed that the preference for older researchers primarily comes from the fact that older researchers, by dint of having been around longer, have longer track records that can justify getting funding. On the other hand, people do tend to otherize like crazy- do you think there might be a possibility of removing some of its influence in the grant evaluation process? Obviously there can't be complete blindness (I'm thinking of orchestra auditions that take place behind a screen)- for one thing, experience at writing grants will show through- but is there any place in the process that could be more blind?
It's tough, because when you write a grant, you always cite your own work heavily (e.g. "we have previously done such and such [ref], and based on that we propose thus). Citing one's own work, which is indispensable to making the grant concise, necessarily removes anonymity. Like most armchair quarterbacks, I'm better at identifying the problem than offering solutions. Part of me thinks that we might need a quota system. That is, say, $5 billion is going to researches who are less than 5 years from their post-doc, or something. That's not a great solution, but the status quo sucks worse.