Day 254 - 22 May 96 - Page 11
1 MS. STEEL: My question is: "So, is that what you are saying?"
2 A. No. What I am actually saying is that as soon as
3 people try to embark on experiments, which were in the
4 1970s, to confirm whether there was this relationship which
5 appeared to be so strong from the population studies which
6 had been carried out with the international studies, that
7 inconsistencies appeared then.
8
9 Now, initially of course, there were still the enthusiasm
10 for the results which appeared to be the case from the
11 international studies, and the first studies which showed
12 inconsistency, people said, "Well, maybe it is just the
13 study itself of which there was some methodological problem
14 concern" and so on, but it was only later on when more and
15 more studies were carried out that the body of evidence
16 grew that there was not just such a straightforward
17 relationship.
18
19 Q. When is "later on"?
20 A. This is a spectrum. It is something that begins and
21 then carries on. It is not something which suddenly on
22 Monday, 21st May one suddenly knows that this is the
23 situation. It as growing body of evidence. It is not
24 something which suddenly appears, that people began to
25 re-evaluate, look more carefully at the scientific evidence
26 that has been carried out, and then the studies where
27 people get together, lots of different studies, and some of
28 these statistical techniques which we call "net analysis",
29 or they have called it "pooled analysis" where the
30 statistics are able to gather together information from
31 lots of different trials.
32
33 These sort of methods have only appeared in the last 5 to 7
34 years where statisticians have felt happy about
35 amalgamating results from different trials, so that it is a
36 growing phenomenon, it is not something which suddenly
37 appears on one day. I appreciate it may be difficult but
38 that is just the way things work in the scientific
39 community, it does not just suddenly appear.
40
41 Q. I am not talking about asking you for a specific date, I am
42 asking for a specific or period of maybe a couple of years
43 when the tide began to turn in your view?
44 A. Well, I think ----
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you limit it to 2 years? That is the
47 first question?
48 A. I do not think I can limit it to 2 years, my Lord.
49
50 MS. STEEL: Can you give us some kind of idea about what time
51 period you are talking about?
52 A. Well, I am afraid I am going back to the time when the
53 original hypothesis was produced, because when a hypothesis
54 is produced, and that is what it was at that stage, one
55 then sets about trying to evaluate whether the hypothesis
56 are genuine or not, and whether the results can be
57 consistently shown to be reproducible and that is when the
58 difficulties began, that what appeared to be a clear cut
59 relationship has since become more and more confused as
60 time has gone on, and it has been a changing pattern. It
