Follow up to "Integrity" post...

So after considering for some time my rant on integrity, and the situation of external review, and talking with several professors, I think I've come to reconsider my thoughts. One professor put it best,

"You don't flaunt your internal problems to external reviewers. You deal with them internally."

This makes sense to me. Further contemplation helped me realize that this is actually much like a family, where you can fight it out like crazy between one another, but if there's ever an external attack, you stand up for your sibling, parent, etc. That doesn't mean you can't be objective, or you hide problems. On the contrary, you have to be objective, self-critical (as I am here regarding my previous post), and address problems that my be present. The key is to find the appropriate venue to address these issues. An external reviewer, who's only decision is whether or not to support you, doesn't need to hear about internal problems. In that situation, the key is to get the funding, so you have a venue left to deal with the problems. Lesson learned.