Forgive my morbidity, but I can't resist.
Frankly speaking, Maddox is dead, and he'll be dead for a very long time.
Steve
At 11:58 AM 4/14/2009, you wrote:
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
