Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1415 sci.misc:2245
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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: <2417@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 1 Aug 88 17:33:25 GMT
References: <2366@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1663@microsoft.UUCP>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: eddy@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Sean Eddy)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 25

article <1663@microsoft.UUCP> gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin) writes:
> > >Given the facts of this case, fraud is a very very plausible hyphothesis...
>  > 
>(me) > I have to take exception to this... 
>
>And *I* take exception to this.  Nobody accused them of fraud.  

Pardon me? Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "fraud is a very
very plausible hypothesis"? 

Given that the experiment has been reproduced in other labs, something
real could well be going on. You may, of course, continue to imply that six labs
and multiple researchers are simply lying; however, to do so is
blindly combative and contrary to basic principles of science.  
An experiment should be tested on scientific grounds before the
experimenter is attacked on personal grounds.

- Sean Eddy
- Molecular/Cellular/Developmental Biology; U. of Colorado at Boulder
- eddy@boulder.colorado.EDU		!{hao,nbires}!boulder!eddy	
-
- "But the scientist is intensely religious -- he is so religious
-  that he will not accept quarter-truths, because they are an 
-  insult to his faith."
-                       - Sinclair Lewis, in _Arrowsmith_