4 - Jacques Benveniste Summary - What Happened Next

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1331927,00.html

Jacques Benveniste Maverick behind a controversial experiment into the efficacy of homeopathy In 1988, the world's foremost scientific journal, Nature, rocked the scientific world and the media with a paper that appeared to demonstrate that homeopathy worked. A team of French allergy researchers led by Jacques Benveniste, who has died aged 69, described how an allergy test worked even when the reagent - the substance to be used in the chemical reaction was so diluted with water that the odds were against a single molecule remaining. Benveniste, a biologist and immunologist, argued that the water used for dilution "remembered" the molecule that had been diluted out of existence. Nature had printed the article on condition that it could appoint three experts to observe the experiment being replicated. The trio were John (now Sir John) Maddox, editor of Nature; James Randi, a professional magician, and Walter Stewart, an expert on science fraud. The three spent a week in Benveniste's Paris laboratory. The first day was spent talking; the second, planning; the third preparing blood cells and reagents for the test; and the fourth was devoted to the experiments. At the end of that session, the raw data was wrapped in tinfoil and taped to the ceiling, so that any attempt to tamper with it overnight would be noticed. The next morning, the tinfoil had been disturbed but not opened, as if an attempt to open it had been abandoned. The data was interpreted by Elisabeth Davenas, who had done the original research, and the results were significant; but when the labels were removed and she analysed the results "blind", they were shown to be random. It emerged that Benveniste had never performed the experiment himself, but had left it to Davenas, who had a special interest in homeopathy. She told the investigators that the experiment often did not work for months on end. In reality, she was examining very small amounts of data at a time, and discarding data that she felt was insignificant. After the investigation, Benveniste accused the investigators of McCarthyite witch-hunting. Maddox's view was that Benveniste was self-deluded, extraordinarily credulous, and so ignorant of the scientific methods that he did not understand that small samples of anything will vary according to chance. Randi's defence of the investigation was to argue that if he, Randi, said he kept a goat in his garden, people might be mildly surprised but they would be unlikely to disbelieve him. If, however, he said that he kept a unicorn in his garden, they might want to check how firmly its horn was attached. The results of the investigation appeared in Nature shortly afterwards. The findings earned the approval of the scientific community, but the opprobrium of homeopaths everywhere. Benveniste, who by now had a cult following, had abandoned his original research and steered his entire labora tory into investigating the idea that water molecules had memory. Two years later, then aged 55, Benveniste was sacked from his job at France's government-sponsored medical research body, the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm). Benveniste published 230 scientific papers, many of them in reputable journals. Towards the end of his life he compared himself with Galileo and repeatedly stated that he was in the running for a Nobel Prize. He won not one but two of the satirical Ignobel prizes awarded by a gang of Harvard scientists the 1991 chemistry prize for showing that water has memory, and the 1998 one for a paper showing that information can be transmitted over telephone lines and the internet. After seven years in the wilderness, Benveniste set up a company, DigiBio, in 1997, to promulgate his ideas. It was funded by France's largest manufacturer of homeopathic medicines, and by sympathisers. Its website, www.digibio.com gives its own account of the Nature debacle and appeals for funds from believers and supporters.

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Homeopathy – 2 – How does science work?