More nomenclature: browsing _American Scientist_, I see that the Mendel fudge factor turns up again (as in Did Gregor Mendel fudge his results?) in a new book on the subject, with a terminology new to me. In the review and presumably in the book, it's called "sophistication of data". That sounds a lot nicer than "fudging", "massaging", "cooking", or "faking" the data.
The consensus seems to be that yes, Mendel did it, but it's not so bad when considered in historical perspective, and it may have been unconscious (e.g. through a bias introduced by checking only the results which seem faulty), and it may even be the work of an unknown assistant behind Mendel's back. That last one seems a bit much, though. The book is titled "Ending the Mendel-Fisher controversy" (it apparently doesn't, though) by Franklin and others. The review is by Stephen Stigler with the witty title "CSI: Mendel", available on-line at http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/2008/5/csi-mendel Non-Americans might understand the title better if they know that CSI stands for "crime scene investigation" and the title references an entire long-running industry of American TV programmes with that title. I understand that it's very popular, although I've never watched it. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Subscribe to discussion list (TIPS) for the teaching of psychology at http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/tips/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
