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From: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article (fallout...)
Keywords: skepticism debunking pseudoscience
Message-ID: <2384@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 30 Jul 88 01:19:56 GMT
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In article <19778@cornell.UUCP> dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Paul F. Dietz) writes:
>The fact that B. reacted to the debunking team by attacking their
>knowledge of biology is to me quite damning.  Pseudoscientists often
>defend their work by personal attacks on critics.
>
>That Randi is a magician is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT.  I don't care if
>they used a witch doctor; what matters is that they spotted flaws
>in B.'s methodology.  How they were spotted is transparent to the user.
>

Let me see if I get this straight.  You are saying that: 1. A person's
qualifications have nothing to do with whether his oppinion should be believed;
and 2. Since honest people never object to being accused, the fact that
Benveniste got defensive means he must be guilty.
Hmmm.  You have an interesting mind.

What I and others are suggesting is that: 1. the investigators are not without
bias; and 2. The "flaws" to which they point seem, if I have understood
correctly, to be trivial.  The eperiments did not always produce
an activity after dilution and the experimentors were able to discern
which tubes were which.  So what?

Frankly, I would be more leary of the honesty of the researchers if the
notebooks showed that the procedure *always* worked.  And, keeping
an experiment blind is very dificult when the experimental samples behave
differently from the controls.  At least the experimentors acknowledge that
the "blind" nature of the experiments could not be maitained.


>Nature should not have accepted this paper.  By doing so, it has
>given homeopathy undeserved recognition, and has tarnished its
>own reputation.  In the unlikely event the findings are not the result
>of error or fraud, publication in a lesser journal would have
>sufficed.  Doing so would not have attracted as much media attention.
>
>  Paul F. Dietz				dietz@gvax.cs.cornell.edu
>  (Record one "yes" vote for establishing a Nobel Booby Prize.)

If the results are true (which I do not yet believe), they represent
one of the most important findings in recent history.  Why should they
be put in a lesser journal?  If true, they warrent media attention.
In the unlikely event that the results do represent a biologically important
phenominon, the question Nature will have to face is: why did they sit on an
important discovery for 2 years simply because it did not fit the current
conventional wisdom.  There would be books written about how Benveniste was
persecuted by the establishment because he dared to speak the truth.
Don't believe me?  Look at some history of science books.
I think Nature showed about the correct level of restraint.
They had it reviewed by several competent scientists (who are far more
familiar with scientific method than Randi...but I forgot, you don't
think qualifications and experience have anything to do with credibility).
They had the experimentors do many sets of controls and move the experiment
into independent labs.  The experimentors responded to every
criticism the reviewers had. You cannot call someone a liar simply because
what they are saying is unbelievable.   What possible grounds could they have
for denying the paper publication?  

You seem to forget (if indeed you ever knew) that the perpose of publication
is to get scientific work out in community of scientists so that it can be
tested, criticised and, perhaps, explained. 

-tony