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From: eddy@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Sean Eddy)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article (fallout...)
Keywords: skepticism debunking
Message-ID: <2366@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 29 Jul 88 15:01:25 GMT
References: <6445@megaron.arizona.edu> <492@metapsy.UUCP> <1653@microsoft.UUCP>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: eddy@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Sean Eddy)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
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In article <1653@microsoft.UUCP> gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin) writes:
> (...)
>	3) fraud
>
>...  So #3 has to
>loom big in your mind.  Fraud happens on a daily basis in the scientific
>world.  There are many many examples of key scientific studies that
>were fraudulent.  
>
>Given the facts of this case, fraud is a very very plausible hyphothesis...

I have to take exception to this. Fraud may occur in science
(although I would question the sanity of someone who were to commit fraud
on *this* scale), but the whole business of science is based on truth.
Fraud is a monstrous offense. Accordingly, one does not go about
accusing a scientist of fraud simply because some results are
unbelievable. I should prefer shouting "rape" at a priest to shouting
"fraud" at a scientist.

It may be that Benveniste's results are not always reproducible. Dealing
with mammalian cells (especially immune system cells) is tricky;
Benveniste has explained that the staining procedure used is
delicate. Personally, I would have great difficulty reproducing
a delicate experiment with some aggressive debunker hanging over
my shoulder saying, "you know, if this screws up, I'm gonna make
a fool of you in every newspaper in the world..."

Perhaps we should wait until other scientists can or cannot reproduce
the result. After all, that's the way science is supposed to work.

- Sean Eddy
- Molecular/Cellular/Developmental Biology; U. of Colorado at Boulder
- eddy@boulder.colorado.EDU		!{hao,nbires}!boulder!eddy	
-
- "God give me unclouded eyes and freedom from haste. God give me quiet and
-  relentless anger against all pretense and all pretentious work and all
-  work left slack and unfinished. God give me a restlessness whereby I may
-  neither sleep nor accept praise till my observed results equal my
-  calculated results or in pious glee I discover and assault my error.
-  God give me strength not to trust in God!"
-                       - Sinclair Lewis, in _Arrowsmith_