On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, Stephen Black went:
> Those who teach experimental psychology and research design might
> want to ponder the philosophical implications of a disturbing new
> study just published in the British Medical Journal by Taylor et
> al (2000).
>
> (at http://bmj.com/cgi/content/short/321/7259/471)
"Great minds" and all that: I'd seen the same article this morning
and I'd considered posting the URL to TIPS.
> What's the problem? It's that homeopathy is biological nonsense, as
> it uses as a curative agent a substance so diluted that no molecules
> of it can exist in the administered product. So the philosophical
> problem is to reconcile convincing empirical evidence with the
> knowledge that the finding is not understandable according to known
> scientific principles.
Agreed on all counts, but...
> Distasteful as it may be, in such cases the possibility of fraud
> must be considered.
...not agreed on this count. The f-word can end a career, and thus it
can be used to intimidate researchers whose results make us
uncomfortable. For a not-so-nice example involving controlled
drinking in alcoholics, see http://www.peele.net/lib/glass.html. I
realize that this case is different because the results appear to
violate our understanding of the physical universe. Even so, I think
the most reasonable response is the one that ends your post:
> This finding deserves attention but not yet acceptance. What is
> needed now is an exact replication by an independent group of
> researchers with no ties to homeopathy.
...back to agreeing on all counts. There's a difference between fraud
(on the one hand) and inadvertent contamination of results by
researcher allegiance (on the other).
--David Epstein
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
