the right people (editors at the top journals) would find the work objectionable on some minor grounds they don't apply to other more tenuous hypotheses.

Dr. Greg Cochran had a university administrator threaten to shut down a journal if the editor published his paper on Ashkenazi Intelligence. Another journal refused to publish the paper because of Zorba the Greek. We covered it here and here and Cochran and his co-author Harpending join the dialogue in the comments.

Expecting economists to discover IQ links to economic phenomena

Things may be changing though - don't you find Heckman's conclusion to be quite unpolitic and blunt? I expect to see papers with greater predictive validity coming from the Behavioral Economics school. Our take here and some additional links here, here and here. If the research starts yielding results I can't see how modellers are going to avoid seeking higher precision or greater efficacy. If Heckman could get past the gate-keepers (yes, I know a Nobel Laureate is given more leeway that some ass't professor with the ink on his Ph.D still fresh) there is hope for others.