As a self-declared "MAD Scientist" I suppose I should chime in.

The acronym "MAD" has indeed appeared by several different names in the 
literature.  Here is the "Google vote":
"multiwavelength anomalous diffraction" - 16500 articles in Google 
Scholar (including Yang et. al. (1990))
"multiwavelength anomalous dispersion" - 6890 articles
"multiple anomalous dispersion" - 3250 articles
"multiple anomalous diffraction" - 956 articles
"multiple anomalous difference" - 3 articles

Clearly, there are thousands of publications that have gotten this 
"wrong", but which thousands is uncertain.  I fully understand that 
Google Scholar is not the final authority on ... anything, and popular 
vote is not always the best way to settle scientific naming conventions 
either.  For example, I am still calling Pluto a planet.  I am also 
never going to call San Francisco's Candlestick Park by any of its new 
names (3COM Park, Monster Park, and now back to Candlestick!).  And the 
"Artist Formerly Known as Prince" was always "Prince" to me.  The reason 
for my personal inertia about name changes is that I need to hear a 
scientifically compelling reason for them.  Why do I care?  Because the 
scientific literature is supposed to be archival, and as a scholar who 
often finds himself going through this archive trying to find the 
original reference for various things, I find “nomenclature drift” 
endlessly infuriating.
Then again, the name given by the originating author is not always the 
best name either.  Nobody calls Patterson maps an "F-square synthesis" 
(as Patterson did).

Oh, and although many lemmings do drown in big rivers and even the 
ocean, their legendary periodic mass suicide runs have been greatly 
exaggerated.  A few years back, the Disney film crew who made the "White 
Wilderness" documentary admitted that the little guys did need some 
"encouragement" for the really good shots they wanted.

So, it would appear that even lemmings have some sense in their tiny 
little heads?  Do we?  Does anyone have a scientifically compelling 
reason to call MAD something other than "multiwavelength anomalous 
diffraction"?

-James Holton
MAD Scientist

On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Ethan Merritt 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Wednesday, 18 January 2012, Soisson, Stephen M wrote:
>> But if we were to follow that convention we would have been stuck with Multi-wavelength Resonant Diffraction Experimental Results, or, quite simply, MuRDER.
>
> You could switch that to Multiple Energy Resonant Diffraction Experiment
> but I don't think that would help any.
>
> As to "anomalous" - the term comes from the behaviour of the derivative
>  delta_(optical index) / delta_(wavelength)
> This term is positive nearly everywhere, but is anomalously negative
> at the absorption edge.
>
>        Ethan
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jacob Keller
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 3:13 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Merging data collected at two different wavelength
>>
>> This begs the question* whether you want the lemmings to understand
>> you. One theory of language, gotten more or less from Strunk and
>> White's Elements of Style, is that the most important feature of
>> language is its transparency to the underlying thoughts. Bad language
>> breaks the transparency, reminds you that you are reading and not
>> simply thinking the thoughts of the author, who should also usually be
>> invisible. Bad writing calls attention to itself and to the author,
>> whereas good writing guides the thoughts of the reader unnoticeably.
>> For Strunk and White, it seems that all rules of writing follow this
>> principle, and it seems to be the right way to think about language.
>> So, conventions, even when somewhat inaccurate, are important in that
>> they are often more transparent, and the reader does not get stuck on
>> them.
>>
>> Anyway, a case in point of lemmings is that once Wayne Hendrickson
>> himself suggested that the term anomalous be decommissioned in favor
>> of "resonant." I don't hear any non-lemmings jumping on that
>> bandwagon...
>>
>> JPK
>>
>> *Is this the right use of "beg the question?"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Phoebe Rice <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Can I be dogmatic about this ?
>> >>
>> >>I wish you could, but I don't think so, because even though those
>> >>sources call it that, others don't. I agree with your thinking, but
>> >>usage is usage.
>> >
>> > And 10,000 lemmings can't be wrong?
>>
>>
>>
>>