See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/science/14maddox.html
No mention here of cold fusion. Some quotes:
John Maddox, Editor Who Enlivened Nature, Is Dead at 83
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: April 13, 2009
John Maddox, who turned the British journal Nature into an
internationally influential showcase for the most recent developments
in scientific research during his two stints as editor, while
bringing a sense of fun and an appetite for spirited argument to its
formerly staid pages, died Sunday in Abergavenny, Wales.
He was 83 and lived in London and Brecon, Wales. The cause of death
was pneumonia associated with a chest infection, said his son Bruno.
Mr. Maddox, a chemist and physicist by training, drew on his
experience as science correspondent for The Manchester Guardian (now
The Guardian) to bring a new sense of competitiveness and timeliness
to Nature in his 22 years as its editor. Rather than waiting for
scientific papers to come to him, he beat the bushes in search of
exciting material, a practice that, over time, guaranteed that the
most interesting, provocative papers found their way to Nature first. . . .
. . . In 1988 he published an article by Dr. Jacques Benveniste, a
French medical researcher who proposed that an antibody under study,
even when diluted many billions of times, retained the power to
elicit histamine from white blood cells because water possessed a
mysterious ability to "remember" the antibody even when it was no
longer present. The claim seemed to support believers in homeopathic
medicine, which often relies on treatments using extremely diluted solutions.
Mr. Maddox agreed to print the article on the condition that a team
of investigators be allowed to observe the experiments behind the
assertions. The investigative team, chosen by Mr. Maddox, included
the professional magician James Randi, also known as the Amazing Randi.
Dr. Benveniste's findings did not survive close examination, and
Nature later published a withering critique by Nature's lead
investigator. Amid howls of protest from scientists aghast either at
the article itself or at Nature's invasion of sacred laboratory
space, Mr. Maddox defended himself with the simple proposition that
"people should know what second-rate science is and that there is a
lot of it about."
- Jed
