Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1362 sci.misc:2159 Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!arizona!mike From: mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article (fallout...) Message-ID: <6445@megaron.arizona.edu> Date: 27 Jul 88 15:12:05 GMT References: <1911@aecom.YU.EDU> Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson Lines: 49 From this mornings NYT, July 27, 1988, page 7. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Report in Scientific Journal Is Held to Be Flawed A team of investigators has concluded that a report published in the journal Nature last month that seemed to defy the rules of physics was based on scientifically unreliable experiments. After spending a week in the French laboratory that astonished the scientific world with the assertion that water, no matter how diluted, seems to "remember" medicinal properties it once had, the investigators concluded that the report's hypothesis was "as unnecessary as it is fanciful." The investigating team consisted of John Maddox, editor of the British journal, which published the original report June 30 with expressions of skepticism; Walter Stewart of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., an investigator of scientific fraud, and James Randi, the magician, who has also worked to expose scientific fraud. The team concluded that the report was based "chiefly on an extensive series of experiments which are statistically ill-controlled, from which no substantial effort has been made to exclude systematic error, including observer bias, and whose interpretation has been clouded by the exclusion of measurements in conflict with the claim." ... The investigators wrote that, according to Dr. Benveniste, most of the experiments that "worked" were conducted by one scientist at the French laboratory and a co-author of the original report, Elizabeth Davenas. Dr. Stewart said he believed that Dr. Davenas and other researchers had allowed "wishful thinking" to influence their interpretation of the data. ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The article also says that the full report of the team's investigation will be published in this week's issue of Nature, along with a rebuttal by the chief scientist in the original study, Jacques Benveniste. Benveniste charged the investigators with "amateurism" and compares the inquiry to the "Salem witch hunts". -- Mike Coffin mike@arizona.edu Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci. {allegra,cmcl2,ihnp4}!arizona!mike Tucson, AZ 85721 (602)621-4252