Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1361 sci.misc:2158 sci.research:428
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ethan
From: ethan@ut-emx.UUCP (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc,sci.research
Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article
Summary: results may be bogus
Message-ID: <4520@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jul 88 13:35:08 GMT
References: <10465@lll-winken.llnl.gov> <20850@beta.lanl.gov> <2444@cxsea.UUCP>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 32

> |In article <10465@lll-winken.llnl.gov>, colvin@mahler.llnl.gov (Mike Colvin) writes:
> |> 	Has anyone read in the newsgroup read the article: "Human basophil
> |> degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE" in
> |> the June 30 Nature on page 816?  It's also discussed in an editorial
> |> entitled "When to Believe the Unbelievable" on page 787 of the same issue.
> |>   [much description deleted] 
> |> 	Anyway, I just wanted to point out this truly bizarre article and
> |> would like to hear what other people have to say about it.
> |

I see in today's newspaper that an investigation by Nature  discovered
that there were at least two problems (fatal problems) with the
laboratory protocol.  First, the experimenters knew at all times
which solutions were which (i.e. control and experiment) and
this is well known to produce biased results.  Second, the laboratory
notebooks revealed a large number of cases that produced negative
results but were not included in the statistics.  In other words,
the experimental setup allowed for unconcious bias, and the data reduction
included a fair amount of concious bias.  This is all supposed to come
out in Nature in the near future.  The author (Benveniste ?) is
standing by the work and has denounced the investigation as sloppy
and unprofessional.

As with any truly startling result, the sensible thing is to believe it
only when such questions have been cleared.  Far firmer and more
believable results have collapsed under examination.

-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU