Race Report
With a number of stories of doping emerging in the sports world over the last few days, where’s Rant been to provide color commentary and analysis? I’m currently in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, where my wife an I are visiting friends of hers from her grad school days. Yesterday, we did the Beach to Beacon 10K run, organized by Cape Elizabeth native Joan Benoit Samuelson. And it was a perfect morning for running. Cool, overcast, a bit on the humid side (OK, that’s not so perfect), with a breeze to help keep us cool. Not like this morning’s thunderstorms and steady rain. And thank goodness for not having to deal with that. I’ve never been overly fond of running in the rain (or more importantly, since my primary sport is cycling, riding in the rain).
The Beach to Beacon is a rolling course, going through a number of narrow lanes as it meanders through 6.2 miles to the Portland Head Light, a lighthouse commissioned by none other than George Washington (factiod provided by our hosts). A full field of 5500, ranging from elite runners (the winner came in at just under 28 minutes) to more casual runners like me, crowded the roads. Even with so many, it was possible to find open space and not trip over the person next to you. At times, I was questioning my sanity. Still, knowing that no matter what, I’d be done in less than an hour, I plodded along. Probably should have used one of those energy gels to perk my pace up, but with the pulse redlined for the last half of the race, my brain was too mushy to attempt opening the packet. That, and I didn’t want to slow down while doing so (which I no doubt would have done).
The finishing half-mile is a bit deceptive, as you see runners on the Beacon’s grounds who are ahead of you and things seem flat. This comes after an uphill effort that left my pulse monitor chirping like an out-of-control metronome, showing a number beyond what a person my age is supposed to be capable of. Great, I thought, a bit of time to bring the pulse rate down and catch my breath for the finish. Now, where’s the entrance to the grounds? There’s a gate … darn, it’s locked, gotta keep going. Oh. Crap. We’re going downhill now, which means only one thing. There’s another up hill. And it’s short, and kind of steep. Well, steep for a person who’s pretty well maxed out, anyway.
Over the top and onto that flat road, the six-mile marker comes after an agonizingly long time. This last “half mile” has taken too long. Like forever. And now there’s only two-tenths to go. But like the Eveready Bunny, this last part just keeps going and going and going and … well, you get the idea. Finally. Over. Check the watch. Fifty three minutes. Not bad for a guy who only runs once or twice a week.
More important, as I’m catching my breath: Where’s my wife? She’s the real runner in the family. My goal: Only lose one minute per mile to her during today’s race. Finally we find each other. Her: calm and relaxed. Me: Sweaty from head to toe and still recovering. She’d gotten in about 6 minutes before. Looks like I made my goal (with two seconds to spare, as it turns out, the official difference: 6:10 — Mrs. Rant: 46:43, Rant: 52:53). Props to my wife, who finished in the top 10 percent of her age group. Me? Well, I have a ways to go before I crack the top 50 percent of mine.
OK. Now that the race report is done, onto the meat of today’s story.
The Old Using Someone Else’s Urine Trick
Jean C pointed me to an article a couple of days ago about seven Russian athletes who have been suspended for doping violations just eight days before the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Five of the athletes — all from the world of track and field — are Russian Olympians. Under the rules, the Russians will not be able to replace those five athletes, which may affect how well the Russians do, medal-wise, at this year’s event. Included among those accused of doping are Yelena Soboleva, curently the fastest woman in the 800 and 1,500 meter events, and Tatyana Tomashova, a silver medalist in the 1,500 meter event at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Other Russian Olympians implicated in the scandal are hammer thrower Gulfiya Khanafeyeva, discus thrower Darya Pishchalnikova, and Yulia Fomenko, who also competes in the 1,500 meter event.
I just dug up an article in the New York Times, which adds more details to the story Jean C pointed to in L’Equipe. Turns out, the Russian athletes were caught in a sting operation, after IAAF officials became suspicious of the uniformly negative out-of-competition test results. As a result of the investigation, the IAAF believes that the seven athletes managed to avoid testing positive by using an old-fashioned technique: using urine from someone who is not taking performance-enhancing drugs.
This was a technique used in the early days of anti-doping testing, especially by teams who had yet to figure out just how to beat the anti-doping tests. The Times article describes a couple of ways that this can be accomplished, if you’re interested.
But back in the 1970s and 1980s, when this technique was more commonly used, the anti-doping world didn’t have DNA testing to determine whether or not the urine belonged to the athlete being tested. This is, according to the Times article, how the Russian athletes were discovered. If the charges are proven, it may point to a more organized effort to evade doping tests, and as the Times article notes raises
“troubling questions about possible ineptitude or corruption in Russian drug-testing procedures and also prompted concerns about whether a deliberate, systematic attempt was made by coaches or officials to undermine drug-testing protocols.”
Times’ reporter Jere Longman’s story goes on to say:
The Russian case also illustrates that increasingly sophisticated methods are required to catch violators of drug-testing rules, in particular those athletes who have not failed drug screenings. A track official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the I.A.A.F. had grown suspicious of Russian drug-testing results as far back as 2006. The tests, given out of competition, were so tidily and uniformly negative that “it was almost too good to be true,” the official said.
In 2007, from March to July, the I.A.A.F. began to store out-of-competition tests given to Russian athletes. Those tests from 2007 were later compared using DNA analysis to tests given during competitions this year.
“They were obviously giving someone else’s samples,” the track official said.
While this certainly is a sensational case, especially on the eve of the Olympics, and it harkens back to an earlier era in the history of sports doping, Longman includes an interesting observation about the prevalence of doping in sports, with comments by Dr. Gary Wadler, a member of WADA, who also is a professor of medicine at New York University.
Worldwide in 2007, 174,483 drug screenings were given in Olympic-related sports, turning up 3,375 so-called “adverse” or questionable results (1.93 percent), Wadler said.
“The low number of violations puts into perspective that most athletes are drug-free,” Wadler said. “But you hear about the celebrated doping cases, and the notion becomes that this is a useless battle. Quite the opposite. I think this is all positive in doping reform.”
There will be quite a few stories about doping in sports over the coming weeks. I suspect we’re only just getting a preview of coming attractions.
OK, now that I’ve gotten my regular fix of doping stories, time to catch up on a few responses to previous posts.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown by sport of the figures from Wadler’s quote above. My guess is that by and large, the figures for individual sports would not be too far off the general figures cited.
What this really indicates, however, is a different story. Wadler thinks these figures show that anti-doping efforts are working. Others might interpret them to indicate that doping tests are doing a poor job of catching guilty parties, with many being able to avoid detection by various means.
As far as I know, the anti-doping efforts are not based on testing a statistically valid sample. This makes efforts to extrapolate figures from the sample to the general population questionable. But there’s another issue here too. What level of drug use do we except as acceptable? Is less than 2% and acceptable figure, assuming that represents the large part of the total guilty population?
Damsgaard’s remarks come into play here. It is easy for him to make such comments, I for one would like to see some evidence. He should bring out some data, suitably protected so as to preserve confidentiality, and tell why he thinks there is evidence of EOP use and why WADA rules do not allow making such a determination. Then other experts could make judgement of his ideas.
Hey William
If the “anti-doping” movement WAS actually based on good science – I could see your comment – otherwise – why bother? It makes no sense to expect clarity from a system that is built to support a political stand rather then to ACTUALLY control doping/cheating.
Morgan:
Sort of the point I was trying to make. Figures like these are actually sort of a Rorschach test: people interpret them so as to support whatever theory they have regarding doping in sport. See also Larry’s posts in another blog he mentions in another thread here regarding whether or not the performance of riders in this year’s TdF are truly an indication of a cleaner race.
Pro cycling has been reputed to be a “dirty” sport. Whether this is true is up for debate; I think there are a number of other sports where doping is as prevalent, but have had better PR, or at least not as much negative PR.
The anti-doping system is clearly not designed to indicate the nature and extent of doping in sports. The whole idea is apparently to catch some athletes (who may or may not necessarily by really guilty) and then inflict a harsh punishment in hopes others will be deterred.
William,
…I knew that…(:-)) – to quote.
Meanwhile the issue of the athletes “individual” rights are being completely ignored.
The question of the “fairness” of the “process” in place are being – completely ignored.
Why is that?
To quote you — “The anti-doping system is clearly not designed to indicate the nature and extent of doping in sports.”
“The whole idea is apparently to catch some athletes (who may or may not necessarily by really guilty) and then inflict a harsh punishment in hopes others will be deterred.”
I completely agree – and go one step further – I ask myself – WHY such apparent “inconsistencies” are themselves – not the “hot button” topics?
For a short while – it had seemed that the answer lay in the philosophy of the “end justifies the means,” – Unfortunately – I think there is something much more banal involved in the real “reasoning” behind this “state of affairs.”
Morgan, William, we could spend the next year looking at this year’s Tour from the doping perspective. I’m still gathering data.
My guess is that this year’s Tour probably WAS cleaner than usual. When I say “cleaner”, I’m saying that there probably was a fair amount of doping, but it was more cautious than in previous years (like the race itself was a lot more cautious). Between the biological passport and the AFLD “targeted testing”, the cyclists seem to notice that the doping police were present in greater numbers than before. This being an Olympics year, one might also expect a greater than usual effort by the ADAs (remember, Tyler Hamilton was busted during an Olympics year). So, we might expect that doping riders and doping teams would behave more cautiously this year … sort of like street criminals might do in response to a police crackdown. This would be a good year not to experiment with new drugs, but stick to the tried and true methods of doping, in moderation.
One reason to suspect that this was a cleaner Tour than usual is that the so-called “clean” teams (Garmin-Chipotle, Columbia and CSC) did very well. Of course, as Ludwig has argued here, we don’t know that these teams are REALLY clean. But we have little information to go on, and if we wait for 100% scientifically reliable data, we’ll wait forever. I’m willing to assume that these three teams are riding clean, or reasonably close to clean. All three teams were able to compete.
So, with the crackdown and the success of the “clean” teams, this probably WAS a cleaner Tour than usual. But there’s no reason to believe that cyclists stopped doping altogether. I would argue that if this year’s Tour was a lot cleaner than last year’s, then we would have seen a great deal more unpredictability, as some of the cyclists who had doped and performed well in prior years would have been adversely affected by the lack of doping this year. In fact, I think the results were fairly predictable: the riders picked to perform well mostly did perform well, and we did not see any rider whose performance suffered dramatically compared to prior years. I think we also have to consider that many forms of doping remain undetectable by the WADA tests — I saw estimates that there are 20 forms of EPO out there that cannot be detected. It is hard for me to believe that there are not cyclists out there taking advantage of these undetectable performance-enhancing drugs.
No, instead I think what we saw was consistent with how you’d expect a group of people to behave who are all under suspicion and are being watched more carefully than usual by the police. If you know you’re being watched, you behave more cautiously. If I see the Highway Patrol in my rear view mirror, I drive differently (ESPECIALLY if I’ve been speeding, but even if I haven’t been speeding). This year, the peloton WAS watched more closely (if not more effectively) by the ADAs. Moreover, the AFLD was pretty clear that it would target anyone who rode a stage in an exceptional way (we saw this not just with Saunier-Duvall, but also with the way the Schlecks were targeted). If you know that the police are suspicious of anything exceptional, you will tend not to ride in an exceptional way (ESPECIALLY if you’re doping, but even if you’re not).
The efforts of the ADAs probably did reduce doping in this year’s Tour, but I think they also got the riders to ACT as if they were not doping, which probably gave this year’s Tour a cleaner appearance than it had in fact.
As to whether any of this will carry forward to future years … it’s very hard to say. I’ll again point to the prevalance of allegedly undetectable performance-enhancing drugs, which seems to set up an environment just like the one that existed in the 1990s, when doping was arguably more the rule than the exception. If this year saw some progress in the fight against doping, it’s hard for me to imagine how the ADAs will sustain this progress, or even hold onto the gains they made this year.
Yes! They got the dirty little mountain goat! C’est la, Sella.
Just one question – anyone know why the hell CSF Navigare are registered in Ireland? No Irish riders, no Irish staff, no Irish sponsors. I know the Irish and Italian flags look a lot alike but …
According to Cyclingnews
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2008/aug08/aug06news3
“There is not proof that Sella used EPO during the Giro d’Italia, May 10 to June 1, but there is the possibility McQuaid will order his Giro samples tested in the same Paris lab that detected CERA in the July 23 control.”
Q: Can they do that? If the samples were already tested and found negative? What are the WADA rules regarding this?
Dave,
WADA rule #1 – “Anything we want to do to make sure that we “nail the cheating/doping bastards!”
Exactly. This (testing B samples with no A sample AAF) was what they did to Landis. I think that officially, the Malibu artibration said the original A sample AAF was no good, threw it out, but then said the S17 B sample was enough to nail Landis with, so they apparently didn’t pay attention to the additional tests. But there is no telling how much behind-the-scenes role they play in making the decision. Then CAS basically said, “If LNDD said it, it must be true”, so again that didn’t officially play a part. But again, no telling to what extent it might have played a role. Even if USADA didn’t bring those results into evidence, I am sure the arbitrators were aware of them.
Makes me wonder: by and large, prior to Malibu, the media here is the US (and probably the the rest of the world) had Landis as being guilty, and my guess is that out of the population that was aware of the case, the majority probably had Landis guilty too. What if the media had played it differently? Taken the line that Landis was the victim of a flawed system and flawed lab work? Collateral damage in the “war against doping”? And what if then, popular opinion was in Landis’ favor? Would the results of the May 2007 hearing have gone the other way?
From Nature today…
The science of doping
Recently, the international Court of
Arbitration for Sport upheld doping
charges against cyclist Floyd Landis,
stripping him of his title as winner of the 2006
Tour de France and suspending him from competition
for two years. The court agreed with
the majority opinion of a divided three-member
American Arbitration Association (AAA)
panel and essentially placed a stamp of approval
on a laboratory test indicating that Landis had
taken synthetic testosterone. Although Landis
asserts his innocence, his options for recourse
have all but dried up.
Already, in the run-up to this year’s Olympic
Games, vast amounts of time, money and
media coverage have been spent on sports doping.
Several doping experts have contended
that tests aren’t sensitive enough and let dozens
of cheaters slip through the cracks. And some
athletes are facing sanctions. Upon testing
positive for clenbuterol, US swimmer Jessica
Hardy was held back from the Olympic team
and faces a two-year ban from the sport. She
is attesting her innocence. China has already
banned several athletes, some of them for life,
on doping charges. Indeed, many world-class
athletes will find their life’s accomplishments
and ambitions, their integrity and their reputations
hinging on urine or blood tests. But when
an athlete tests positive, is he or she guilty of
doping? Because of what I believe to be inherent
flaws in the testing practices of doping
laboratories, the answer, quite possibly, is no.
In my opinion, close scrutiny of quantitative
evidence used in Landis’s case show it to
be non-informative. This says nothing about
Landis’s guilt or innocence. It rather reveals
that the evidence and inferential procedures
used to judge guilt in such cases don’t address
the question correctly. The situation in drugtesting
labs worldwide must be remedied.
Cheaters evade detection, innocents are falsely
accused and sport is ultimately suffering.
Prosecutor’s fallacy
One factor at play in many cases that involve
statistical reasoning, is what’s known as the
prosecutor’s fallacy1. At its simplest level, it
concludes guilt on the basis of an observation
that would be extremely rare if the person
were innocent. Consider a blood test that
perfectly matches a suspect to the perpetrator
of a crime. Say, for example, the matching profile
occurs in just 1 out of every 1,000 people.
A naive prosecutor might try to convince a
jury that the odds of guilt are 999:1, that is, the
probability of guilt is 0.999. The correct way
to determine odds comes from Bayes rule2–4
and is equal to 999 times P/(1−P) where P is
the “˜prior probability’ of guilt. Prior probability
can be difficult to assess, but could range
from very small to very large based on corroborating
evidence implicating the suspect.
The prosecutor’s claim that the odds are 999:1
implies a prior probability of guilt equal to 0.5
(in which case P and 1−P cancel). Such a high
value of P is possible, but it would require substantial
evidence. Suppose there is no evidence
against the suspect other than the blood test:
he was implicated only because he was from
the city where the crime occurred. If the city’s
population is one million then P is 1/1,000,000
and the odds of his guilt are 1001:1 against,
which corresponds to a probability of guilt of
less than 0.001.
The prosecutor’s fallacy is at play in doping
cases. For example, Landis’s positive test result
seemed to be a rare event, but just how rare? In
doping cases the odds are dictated by the relative
likelihood of a positive test assuming the
subject was doping (“˜sensitivity’) against a positive
result assuming no doping (which is one
minus “˜specificity’). Sensitivity and specificity
are crucial measures that must be estimated
with reasonable accuracy before any conclusion
of doping can be made, in my opinion.
The studies necessary to obtain good estimates
are not easy to do. They require known
samples, both positive and negative for doping,
tested by blinded technicians who use the same
procedures under the same conditions present
in actual sporting events. In my view, such studies
have not been adequately done, leaving the
criterion for calling a test positive unvalidated.
Laboratory practices
Urine samples from cyclists competing in
the 2006 Tour de France were analysed at
the French national anti-doping laboratory
(LNDD) in Châtenay-Malabry. This is one of
34 laboratories accredited by the World Anti-
Doping Agency to receive and analyse test
samples from athletes. The LNDD flagged
Landis’s urine sample following race stage 17,
which he won, because it showed a high ratio
of testosterone to epitestosterone.
Based on the initial screening test, the LNDD
conducted gas chromatography with mass spectrometry,
and isotope ratio mass spectrometry
on androgen metabolites in Landis’s sample.
Such laboratory tests involve a series of highly
sophisticated processes that are used to identify
the likelihood of abnormal levels of plantbased
androgen metabolites (from dietary or
Floyd Landis (centre) was disqualified after winning the 2006 Tour de France.
P. DEJONG/AP
692
Vol 454|7 August 2008
COMMENTARY
pharmaceutical sources) in a urine sample. The
goal is to differentiate from endogenous androgen
metabolites normally found in urine.
Mass spectrometry requires careful sample
handling, advanced technician training and
precise instrument calibration. The process is
unlikely to be error-free. Each of the various
steps in handling, labelling and storing an athlete’s
sample represents opportunity for error.
In arbitration hearings, the AAA threw
out the result of the LNDD’s initial screening
test because of improper procedures. In
my opinion, this should have invalidated the
more involved follow-up testing regardless of
whether or not sensitivity and specificity had
been determined. Nevertheless, the AAA ruled
the spectrometry results sufficient to uphold
charges of doping.
During arbitration and in response to appeals
from Landis, the LNDD provided the results of
its androgen metabolite tests for 139 “˜negative’
cases, 27 “˜positive’ cases, and Landis’s stage 17
results (see Fig. 1). These data were given to me
by a member of Landis’s defence team. The criteria
used to discriminate a positive from a negative
result are set by the World Anti-Doping
Agency and are applied to these results in
Fig. 1b and d. But we have no way of knowing
which cases are truly positive and which
are negative. It is proper to establish threshold
values such as these, but only to define a
hypothesis; a positive test criterion requires
further investigation on known samples.
The method used to establish the criterion
for discriminating one group from another
has not been published, and tests have not
been performed to establish sensitivity and
specificity. Without further validation in
independent experiments, testing is subject to
extreme biases. The LNDD lab disagrees with
my interpretation. But if conventional doping
testing were to be submitted to a regulatory
agency such as the US Food and Drug Administration5
to qualify as a diagnostic test for a
disease, it would be rejected.
The problem with multiples
Landis seemed to have an unusual test result.
Because he was among the leaders he provided
8 pairs of urine samples (of the total of
approximately 126 sample-pairs in the 2006
Tour de France). So there were 8 opportunities
for a true positive “” and 8 opportunities for
a false positive. If he never doped and assuming
a specificity of 95%, the probability of all 8
samples being labelled “˜negative’ is the eighth
power of 0.95, or 0.66. Therefore, Landis’s
false-positive rate for the race as a whole would
be about 34%. Even a very high specificity of
99% would mean a false-positive rate of about
8%. The single-test specificity would have to
be increased to much greater than 99% to have
an acceptable false-positive rate. But we don’t
know the single-test specificity because the
appropriate studies have not been performed
or published.
More important than the number of samples
from one individual is the total number of samples
tested. With 126 samples, assuming 99%
specificity, the false-positive rate is 72%. So, an
apparently unusual test result may not be unusual
at all when viewed from the perspective of
multiple tests. This is well understood by statisticians,
who routinely adjust for multiple testing.
I believe that test results much more unusual
than the 99th percentile among non-dopers
should be required before they can be labelled
“˜positive’.
Other doping tests are subject to the same
weak science as testosterone, including tests for
naturally occurring substances, and some that
claim to detect the presence of a foreign substance.
Detecting a banned foreign substance
in an athlete’s blood or urine would seem to be
clear evidence of guilt. But as with testing for
synthetic testosterone, such tests may actually
be measuring metabolites of the drug that are
naturally occurring at variable levels.
Whether a substance can be measured
directly or not, sports doping laboratories must
prospectively define and publicize a standard
testing procedure, including unambiguous criteria
for concluding positivity, and they must
validate that procedure in blinded experiments.
Moreover, these experiments should address
factors such as substance used (banned and
not), dose of the substance, methods of delivery,
timing of use relative to testing, and heterogeneity
of metabolism among individuals.
To various degrees, these same deficiencies
exist elsewhere “” including in some forensic
laboratories. All scientists share responsibility
for this. We should get serious about interdisciplinary
collaborations, and we should find out
how other scientists approach similar problems.
Meanwhile, we are duty-bound to tell other scientists
when they are on the wrong path. â–
Donald A. Berry is head of the Division of
Quantitative Sciences, chair of the Department
of Biostatistics and Frank T. McGraw Memorial
Chair of Cancer Research, MD Anderson Cancer
Center, University of Texas, 1400 Pressler Street,
Houston, Texas 77030-1402, USA.
e-mail: dberry@mdanderson.org
1. Buchanan, M. The prosecutor’s fallacy. The New York Times
(16 May 2007).
2. Berry, D. A. Stat. Sci. 6, 175–205 (1991).
3. Berry, D. A. Statistics: A Bayesian Perspective (Duxbury
Press, California, 1996).
4. Berry, D. A. & Chastain, L. A. Chance 17, 5–8 (2004).
5. http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/osb/guidance/1620.pdf
Donald Berry testified for the defence team of 1996
Olympian Mary Decker Slaney before a doping
hearing board in 1997. He was paid for his time.
Hey BSMB!
Nice piece of information – THIS IS the “hot button issue” in my opinion. This is what we should be really incensed about!
For those who would call into question DB’s testimony – on the basis that he was “paid for his time” – I would only say that to assume that someone, who is a specialist in their field, should “donate” his time and knowledge in order to be considered true is shear idiocy.
Do we think that a “pro” should perform for the masses for free in order to prove his aptitude and superior skills or knowledge?
I know of only ONE ORGANIZATION that would have us all believe in this fairy tale idea – the IOC, and this is only to “maintain” their “ideal” that sport in someway is PURER when the athlete is not paid for his performance.
CONVENIENT THIS – since they are the BIGGEST PROMOTERS of sports that have athletes performing in their venue without having to PAY THEM A CENT! Meanwhile – THEY RAKE IN BILLIONS IN PROFITS!
PEOPLE NEED TO think just a little deeper – they must understand that the “Olympic Ideal” HAS BEEN STOLEN and is being used as a smoke screen BY AN INTERNATIONAL “governing body” to make a fortune at the expense of all the “performers” in the Games!
All they need to be able to pull off this scam is “your belief” that “ONLY AN UNPAID ATHLETE” is pure and above suspicion. Yeah – and I just fell of the “turnip cart”!
About the retesting of Giro’s Sella samples:
I don’t know if it could be used as an AAF on GIRO but it can make his current AAF stronger!
Every rider who were second of the stage won by Sella has very probably been stolen. Should we fix it or say to the victims: “You were victim but we can do nothing. Accept it. That is the Justice. Thanks!”
About Berry’s publication, I don’t see a new point.
As he said, Landis case is not similar to the blind DNA testing of 1000 from a city to find a criminal. It’s more like to test the people who have been seen on the place of the crime. Samples were tested more than one times. There is also evidences in that case like the other samples of different stages, the doubts raised by that kind of performance after a big bonk.
Dave,
Under the precedent established when USADA was able to test Floyd Landis’ other samples from the 2006 Tour, they could do that. Whether they can build a doping violation from the test results, as best I can tell, may still be an open question. Jean C alludes to the decision by the AAA arbitrators in Landis’ first hearing to allow such testing, and to enable USADA to use any positive results to bolster their case. But when they issued their ruling in September, they chose to ignore the test results and focus on only the Stage 17 results. So it’s about as clear as mud.
BSMB,
Is that the whole article from Nature? Or just parts of it?
Rant and others:
TBV has a link up now to the whole nature article, from which you can also link to an editorial rather supportive of Berry.
Thanks, William. I’ll be looking at that shortly …