Digital BW, The Print

I keep hearing that the metamerism is caused by the yellow ink, and 
that the IP RIP (and others) reduce/remove the metamerism by not 
using that particular ink.  I also heard once that is was the magenta 
ink that was the issue, but that view seems very much in the minority 
these days.  

In support of the "yellow=bad" crew, I've seen posts that say that IP 
prints have been looked at very closely under a loupe and that no 
yellow ink is used.  The same people say that metamerism is gone.  
Where I begin to lose faith is when people link the two.  Soooo, 
we're not using yellow ink, and we have no metamerism, therefore the 
yellow ink must have caused the metamerism!!!  YAY!!!  Problem 
solved!!!!!

Using similar logic, I drank some Hales Cream Ale tonight (very nice 
beer BTW) and I did not suffer from a major heart attack.  So 
therefore I logically conclude that the beer saved me from dying.  
Riiiight.

When people have asked WHY not using the yellow ink prevents 
metamerism we start to throw scientic terms around and nobody wants 
to admit that they don't know what's going on.  Apparently, the 
yellow ink has a "peaky spectral response".  Lovely.  Everyone nods 
their heads and mutters "yes, peaky spectral response - that makes 
sense".  Does it though?  Does this really mean that the yellow ink 
goes magenta in tungsten light and green in daylight?  Anyone printed 
a yellow test strip and done some kind of scientic measurement on 
it?  Or perhaps the yellow ink reacts to other inks when used 
together and makes the other inks change colors in different 
conditions.  Who knows...  Peaky spectral response?  Sure.

I'm a scientist by nature.  I like to know WHY things happen.  
Unfortunately, I'm not satisfied with "peaky spectral response".  
Could someone please tell me (and everyone in this group) how this 
relates to metamerism in this case.  Be very specific, because there 
are a lot of smart people in this group.  

Finally, I'd like to propose the crazy, insane theory that the lack 
of yellow ink has nothing to do with the reduction in metamerism.  
Perhaps producing a neutral(ish) print with the blank and light-black
(dark yellow!) inks really doesn't need yellow ink.  Maybe there's 
more yellow than we can eat, and putting more down would just make 
everything look, well, yellow?

It may sound like I'm annoyed about all this.  In fact, I'm not.  
I've been contributing to this group a little over the past few 
weeks, but have mostly been lurking and learning.  I have MIS VM inks 
on order and Paul's curves waiting in anticipation for use on my old 
1280, so I think I'll be just fine.  :)