The meat of Clausen's paper isn't really wrong - he just drew the wrong conclusions by making an unwarranted inference. He showed that Hedysarum mackenziei / a

The meat of Clausen's paper isn't really wrong - he just drew the wrong conclusions by making an unwarranted inference. He showed that Hedysarum mackenziei / alpinum do not contain significant levels of alkaloids, and that they do not inhibit bacterial growth. He deduced that this "strongly suggested" they were not toxic. He was wrong because the plants contain a non-alkaloid compound that is toxic to mammals (and presumably not bacteria). So there is a lesson here about what kind of conclusions you can draw from scientific data.