Sezen Follow-up: Coffee & Espresso

Chemistry & Engineering News wrote a follow-up story on the Sames-Sezen retractions today. Although there is not much more in the way of details past what the New York Times wrote yesterday, I cannot resist including this quote from Bengü Sezen regarding the potential irreproducibility of her experiments:

"It is as simple as this: You can not make espresso without coffee beans. Prof. Sames and coworkers claimed in their retractions that they could not reproduce my recipe for espresso. And later (when I asked which brand of coffee beans they used), they stated that they did not have (and never had) coffee beans. Without having coffee beans, how can one try to reproduce the recipe?"

Maybe I don't take my coffee seriously enough, but what happened to apples and oranges? What a terrible metaphor.

The astute reader will also notice that C&E News referred to C-H activation as "a technique commonly used to functionalize hydrocarbons", whereas the New York Times thinks it is "an esoteric field." Common and esoteric - there's the eye of the beholder for you.

For more on this from the blogosphere, check out Paul Bracher's posts: Bypassing the ASAP System II, 3 + 4 = 7 Sames Retractions, New Sames-Sezen Links.