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From: RSchatte@aol.com [Rebecca Keith]
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 16:28:06 EST
Fwd Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 18:40:34 -0500
Subject: Blind Methodology article to appear in JSE

>From The Houston Chronicle February 2, 1998

Scientists have trouble keeping their eyes shut

Review issued on 'blind' methodology of research
by Robert Matthews
New Scientist

Parapsychology, widely dismissed as a sloppy pseudoscience, makes
far more use of rigorous experimental methods than other
scientific disciplines, according to a study of the prevalence of
"blind" methodology in research.

Blind techniques were originally designed to stop investigators
in clinical trials from affecting the outcome of their
experiments. Blinding prevents them from knowing whether a
patient has been given the drug or a placebo and from modifying
their observations accordingly. but scientists in other fields
face a similar temptation to tweak their data, whether
deliberately or subconsciously.

Yet according to an analysis of over 1,000 papers, most
researchers seem to believe that they are immune to such foibles.
The problem is most acute in the "hard" sciences of physics and
chemistry, where not one paper surveyed used blind methods.

Medicine also scored badly. The surveyed papers were published in
leading journals such as Nature, the Journal of the American
Chemical Society, Cell and the Journal of Applied Physics. By far
the highest proportion of papers with blind methods appeared in
journals favored by parapsychologists -- the Journal of the
Society for Psychical Research and the Journal of
Parapsychology.

The study, due to appear in the Journal of Scientific
Exploration, comes from Rupert Sheldrake, the London-based
biologist who has become a controversial figure for his
unorthodox scientific beliefs and interest in "fringe" areas.

"Most hard scientists take it for granted that blind techniques
are unnecessary in their own field," Sheldrake says.
"Parapsychologists, on the other hand, have been constantly
subjected to intense scrutiny by skeptics, and this has made them
more rigorous."

Physicists and chemists show no signs of tightening up their
methods, Sheldrake has found. In a survey of 23 British
university physics and chemistry departments, he found only one
that taught its students even the basic techniques involved.

"One chemist summed up his attitude to blind methods by saying
science was hard enough as it is, without making it worse by not
knowing what you're working on," Sheldrake says.

Tom Fearn, an expert on experimental design at University College
in London, says physicists and chemists may have become
complacent.

"There is this belief that blind methods are only needed where
the subject of the experiment should not know what is happening,
or where it's hard to measure the quantity you're interested in
objectivity," he says.