Mandelbrot maintained that convergence to normality was a misinterpretation of the alpha estimates

Evidence

Mandelbrot agrees that Officer’s and similar work showed that “simple scaling did not apply.” However, he questions the conclusions drawn from that work (“They were hasty and indefensible”), and he regards the notion that “somehow things become Gaussian [normal]” as an “arrant” misinterpretation. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 512