1883 · Antoine Béchamp
Les microzymas
What this work is
Béchamp's summary of his doctrine. He holds that tiny granules he named microzymas, found in every animal and plant cell, are the basic living units: they carry out fermentation, can develop into bacteria when the surrounding medium changes, and outlast the organism they came from. The book draws on his sugar-solution experiments from the 1850s onward, in which mold growth and changes in the sugar were tracked in sealed and open flasks, and it disputes Pasteur's account that fermentation and disease come from germs arriving from the air.
Then and now
Béchamp showed that sugar changed only in jars where mold grew, and built his doctrine of living microzymas on it. The mainstream sided with Pasteur's germs and left Béchamp out of the history it teaches.
Verdict
SCIENTIFIC
The work follows the scientific method, and the paradigm it assumes passes. Both layers must pass. The verdict is scientific.
1·This work · inside the paradigm
SCIENTIFIC
Follows the scientific method within Terrain Theory.
2·Paradigm · Terrain Theory
SCIENTIFIC
Passes all three tests.
How the verdict is decided
The verdict grades both layers: the paradigm this work assumes, and how the work was carried out inside it. Both must be scientific for the whole thing to be scientific. A clean method inside an unscientific paradigm is unscientific. An unscientific method inside a better paradigm is unscientific. A split on either layer is mixed. The worse layer decides.
1·This work
Did this work test its claim with methods that are independent, falsifiable, and non-circular?
SCIENTIFIC
This work claims that mold growing in sugar water is what changes the sugar, and builds on that result a doctrine of microzymas, tiny living granules present in all organic matter. All three tests pass.
Independently Verifiable
Pass
Béchamp saw mold grow in sugar solutions and measured whether the sugar's optical properties changed. A stranger who rejects the microzyma doctrine can still see mold in a jar and still measure whether sugar changed.
Falsifiable
Pass
If sugar had inverted in solutions where no mold grew, the claim would have been disproven. The zinc chloride and calcium chloride controls were built into the design and could have produced that result.
Non-Circular
Pass
The observation of mold and sugar inversion did not require the microzyma model to exist first. The instruments were eyes and a polarimeter, not probes built from a prior sequence.
Why
Mold in a jar is visible, and a polarimeter measures the sugar's change without any biological theory. Sugar changing in a mold-free jar would have killed the claim, and the zinc chloride and calcium chloride jars gave that result its chance. The jars and the polarimeter were not built from the microzyma doctrine.
2·Paradigm · Terrain Theory
Does the framework this work assumes pass the three tests?
SCIENTIFIC
Independently Verifiable
Pass
The condition of the solution, the presence or absence of mold, and the change in the sugar's properties are all visible without accepting the terrain model.
Falsifiable
Pass
If the sugar had changed without mold, or if mold had grown without changing the sugar, the terrain claim would have been disproven and Béchamp would have had to abandon it.
Non-Circular
Pass
The terrain was observed directly. The conclusion that the terrain determines the outcome was built from what was seen, not from a model that defined the observation before it was made.
Why
Terrain theory holds that the condition of the medium decides what grows in it and what changes. In Béchamp's jars the sugar solution was the medium. When it let mold grow, the sugar changed. When zinc chloride, calcium chloride, or creosote changed the medium so mold could not take hold, nothing changed. A stranger sees that without any germ model. Sugar changing without mold, or mold growing without changing the sugar, would have ended the claim.
From the work
L'interversion eut lieu, mais je notais en même temps qu'il y avait une moisissure dans la solution
il n'y eut de moisissure ni dans l'une ni dans l'autre, et le sucre ne fut point interverti
l'eau froide n'opère aucune transformation du sucre de canne ; l'interversion n'a lieu que consécutivement au développement de la moisissure