Re: clearing dichromate stain
On Jan 8, 2007, at 10:48 AM, Katharine Thayer wrote: On Jan 8, 2007, at 10:02 AM, Ender100@aol.com wrote:I would think a review of the historical literature would be quite interesting regardless of the fact that there might be inaccurate statements. Documentation of the changes in "accepted practice" over the years would be quite valuable, along with what caused those changes, especially if it included an evaluation of what turned out to be fact or myth. Chris should be applauded for taking on such a project!Yes, it's a very good thing to try to separate fact from myth; that's been my sole project in the now nearly nine years I've been contributing to this list. Perhaps it would be useful to put this into context, to show where it fits in my life. My entire life project, including my professional life as a statistican, has been to separate fact from myth in many different areas. The things that concern me most at the moment happen to be related to much larger issues about fact and myth in public life, in US educational policy, in the conventional wisdom that constitutes Zeitgeist, and other things that have a much greater impact on life and the future of civil society than does whether potassium metabisulfite washes out of paper faster, but it's all part of the same thing. The gum thing, and the alt-photo list, are in a tiny little corner of my universe of thought, but have been very interesting to me because in its tiny inconsequential way, it contains all the issues that I'm dealing with in a larger sense; it's a microcosm of the big issue. And I think it's a matter of practice too; if we don't practice being careful about facts in the small areas, then it seems like eventually we get to the place where we are now, where people seem to have a hard time separating fact from myth in the larger areas that really count. Katharine
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