Selecting talks really subjective. It's more like choosing what songs to play at a party than an objective sorting process.
You have limited speaking slots. You have to guess what the conference attendees will find interesting this year. You are biased by your own particular interests.
Also, some of the submitters are your friends/colleagues, and even if they didn't tell you what they were submitting already, which is unlikely since your relationship is based on talking about this stuff, you can tell it's theirs in less than 250 words...
However a conference tries to sell the fairness and objectivity of its process, you can't anonymize or double blind these things away.
You have limited speaking slots. You have to guess what the conference attendees will find interesting this year. You are biased by your own particular interests.
Also, some of the submitters are your friends/colleagues, and even if they didn't tell you what they were submitting already, which is unlikely since your relationship is based on talking about this stuff, you can tell it's theirs in less than 250 words...
However a conference tries to sell the fairness and objectivity of its process, you can't anonymize or double blind these things away.