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From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article (fallout...)
Keywords: skepticism debunking
Message-ID: <27780@bbn.COM>
Date: 2 Aug 88 14:20:03 GMT
References: <1911@aecom.YU.EDU> <6445@megaron.arizona.edu> <492@metapsy.UUCP> <1930@aecom.YU.EDU> <498@metapsy.UUCP>
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In article <498@metapsy.UUCP> sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:
}In article <1930@aecom.YU.EDU> werner@aecom.YU.EDU (Craig Werner) writes:
}>	Actually, Randi's only assumption was that "all known laws of physics
}>are valid."
}
}That's quite an assumption, when one is looking at something that may
}invalidate existing laws of physics.  A prejudice, I would say.  If all
}physicists had such an assumption, there would be no discoveries of new
}laws of physics, no progress in the field of physics.

  Bullstock.  All it means is that you are careful to eliminate the
  *expected* and the *erroneous* before you conclude that the basic laws
  need amending.  The photoelectric effect experiments stood in
  contradiction to then-current theory, whether folk liked it or not.
  It would have been appropriate to examine the experiments
  _demonstrating_ the effect *very* closely (they are making an
  astounding claim, after all), but if the experiments are accurate
  then their results will survive the scrutiny, and sooner or later the
  results will have to be explained.

  There are two approaches out at the "leading edge" of one field or
  another: you can be VERY critical and start from the position that a
  theory-revolutionizing result is more likely to be the result of an
  error, intentional or otherwise, rather than a breakthrough.  Or you
  can assume that every experimenter is pretty much straight-arrow and
  careful.  To my taste, there are a LOT more sloppy experiments and
  just plain head cases out there than there are Einsteins and Bells,
  so I'd think it was MUCH more prudent (and time- and cost-effective)
  to start from the skeptical, instead of the trusting, position.

  Let me try this same thing a different way: let's say that a scientist
  requistions a chunk of lunar rock and does some analysis on it and finds...
  CHEESE.  So he writes it up, and is very pompous and important about how
  carefully he found confirmation of the age-old hypothesis that the moon is
  made of chess... yes even green cheese.  Well, I'd just as soon have
  someone like a Randi come along and ask the obvious: What did you have for
  breakfast that morning, what did your _assistant_ have for breakfast that
  morning, etc.

   __
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