Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1408 sci.misc:2238 sci.research:452 Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!dasys1!tneff From: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc,sci.research Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article Summary: why not send Robin Leach too Keywords: homeopathy Message-ID: <5826@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 31 Jul 88 17:38:59 GMT References: <10465@lll-winken.llnl.gov> <20850@beta.lanl.gov> <2444@cxsea.UUCP> <6052@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <5473@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> Reply-To: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) Organization: Independent Users Guild Lines: 55 From what I read about this in SCIENCE and elsewhere, the real sticky part is that NATURE sent its investigating team out before publication, but then went ahead and published anyway before the team reported. The editor defended this by saying that the results were already being reported in the French press and he didn't want to look like he was sitting on a discovery. This after delaying 2 years from receipt. Now isn't that a HELL of a way to run a railroad? It seems clear to me that what prompted NATURE to send in a team featuring Randi and his intrepid band of spoon-straighteners was the presence of homeopathic doctors on the French team, not to mention that it WAS a French team to begin with. Homeopathy, for those who aren't familiar with it, believes (among other things) that you can administer microscopically tiny doses of harmful agents (infectious and otherwise) to a patient and by doing so counteract or immunize against the deleterious effects the harmful things would cause in normal doses. Obviously a result that showed you could dilute an antibody infinitely but retain its effect, would be music to the ears of homeopaths the world over. I'm sure that's why the homeopathic foundation supported Beneviste's research, and why those h.p. doctors themselves were on the team. The discipline is far more popular in Europe than it is in the US or the UK, which is one potential source of cultural bias when an Anglo-American journal tries to deal with h.p. funded results. Let's put it this way, if Beneviste had been working at Johns Hopkins with a bunch of Texans and Bostonians on his team, and Pfizer paying, I doubt Randi would have paid that call. :-) Of course, had the above been the case perhaps the result wouldn't have been obtained. We'll find this out when more people try to reproduce the results. But sending Randi was an insult. The man is a macrophage. He makes his living from charlatanism as surely as Madame Zolana and her palmistry shop down the street. Madame Z produces it, Randi debunks it. It's a neat ecology. Research does not take place in a vacuum, political or economic. Sending "The Amazing Randi" [sheesh] after a serious experimenter is like sending the Child Abuse Squad to visit your bachelor uncle. Sure, it's easy to say "if nothing is amiss, they won't be able to prove anything." But tell that to the neighbors! Tell it to the grants board next time around. Beneviste is not claiming to be able to bend spoons for crissake, he's claiming to be able to dilute an antibody astronomically but still detect activity via a special staining technique. What's Randi's job, to look for an Algerian midget under the lab table? Maybe a trick microscope? Disappearing ink in the notebooks, perhaps. I fault NATURE on two counts: putting a professional debunker and showman like Randi on its team, and then publishing anyway before the team had reported. Beneviste undoubtedly laid himself open to this trouble by taking homeopath money and emplying homeopath assistants *ON A PROJECT* so likely to be dear to their hearts. Regardless of whether the results bear out, I hope he learned a lesson. -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: t.neff (no kidding)