Perhaps you missed this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=543368

That's just general skepticism, which is great, and certainly should be the default reaction to an article like this.

But when you said "It's not spam, it's just so very wrong." you made it sound like you must know of some hard evidence that actually debunked the article, rather than just the same general skepticism that tokenadult already expressed.

I'm pretty sure Femur was asking you for some more details of that evidence.

I think where you and I and Femur disagree is what constitutes skepticism.

For me an experiment who's results can't be replicated, indeed have not been replicated since 1924, is as wrong as wrong can be. It is 2 + 2 = 5

For you and Femur it is perhaps merely reasonable skepticism. Perhaps you were expecting some proof that it is wrong, not just lack of proof that it is right?

In science inability to reproduce is where the buck stops. There are no further attempts to actually prove wrongness.

If you had pointed to at least one attempt to reproduce these findings, which had failed, I would have understood your comment completely.

Well I suppose it is possible that it just fell through the cracks. And it is indeed a valuable scientific gem just wanting to be rediscovered.

Or it could be a website writing an article that just makes it look like that way in order to attract a lot of page views.

I'm afraid I have no hard evidence either way, only the soft suspicion it's the latter.

That is a cogent and lucid argument and I completely understand your point of view and agree with it.

If your original comment had resembled your above statement, I would have up-voted you and given you kudos!

I appreciate your correction. I value the more wordy opinions on HN, short ones tend to remind me of reddit, and I strive to stay away from pithy posts.

Except that while tokenadult suggested it might not have been reproduced, he didn't actually say that it wasn't.

It's too bad failed results are reported so rarely. We need a journal of failed experiments.

>I'm pretty sure Femur was asking you for some more details of that evidence.

Indeed I was.