After doing some additional reading about various fusion projects (as a follow up to this article on Michio Kaku's book), I've uncovered my own misunderstanding. I've always taken "cold fusion" to mean "controlled fusion"; that is, I understood "cold" to essentially mean "not a bomb". But I was wrong. "Cold fusion" actually refers to room-temperature fusion; Prof. Kaku was clearly referring to "controlled fusion at high temperatures" as being possible within a few centuries. I've made edits to my original article to rectify this.
On the other hand, I'm glad for my mis-labelling, because it seems to have attracted an actual cold-fusion crank, Jed Rothwell, which has been an interesting diversion. While I am no where near qualified (as evidence I give you the first paragraph of this post) to judge the scientific merits of the research he is propagandizing, I can still point out several characteristics that smack of quackery to me.
Despite my having said (incorrectly) that cold fusion might be possible in a century or two, Jed leapt right on and proclaimed:
"Cold fusion is not impossible. It has been replicated by over 200 world class laboratories such as Los Alamos, and these replications have been published in hundreds of peer-reviewed journal papers...experiments prove that it does exist, so any theory that says it cannot exist must be wrong."
As I pointed out in my comment-response, this seemed like a surf-by spamming, since I was able to find similar comments left by Mr. Rothwell on other blogs referencing cold fusion1. He admits this is the case. Researchers with valid data and theories rarely have to resort to such tactics. The next hallmark of pseudo-science is a persecution complex, and we see:
"Many cold fusion researchers do feel persecuted, but this is not a complex or an imaginary feeling. They actually are persecuted. The Washington Post and many other major newspapers have regularly accused them of being lunatics and criminals, which has greatly harmed their careers. They have never been allowed to respond. Many of them have been demoted or fired. "
Yet another characteristic of pseudo-science is that criticism is very often conflated with persecution, as we see with the newspaper claims in the quote above. I have not been able to find out a primary reference for anyone being fired or demoted for their cold-fusion work. To me, this claim seems precisely the same as that made by the intelligent design idiots. They confuse their own ability to generate research and extend knowledge with persecution, and some mythical "The Man" keeping them down. As if there were a "Big Science" committee somewhere deciding what is "approved research" or not (this committee apparently covers at least biology and physics).
A third signature of quackery is also on display here. Note the internal inconsistency in the previous two quotes. Which is it? Persecution or hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and lab research? If there is so much research and publication going on, it is clearly a most ineffective persecution. I shall have to point out this failure to fully suppress this research at the next Big Science Committee Meeting.
Lastly, there is tons of real fusion research going on all over the world. Stanford (here) and UC-Berkeley (here) both have active research programs into (hot, plasma) fusion, and ITER is an international project to build a very large fusion reactor. I'd love to hear the reasoning behind why Big Science would be suppressing cold fusion while apparently embracing hot fusion. Apparently, all physicists embrace one particular form of fusion while being completely blind to (according to this crank) the most obvious form. I have no idea what the explanation for this is.
1Mr. Rothwell claims this isn't spamming since he did it manually.
15 comments:
Fusion is easy. Net energy is hard.
This may be 5 years away from a working reactor:
WB-7 First Plasma
To be completely pedantic: Sure, fusion is easy. Even net energy is easy -- we've had that technology for 50 years. We call it a thermonuclear bomb :P
Controlled, net energy is hard...
You wrote:
"Yet another characteristic of pseudo-science is that criticism is very often conflated with persecution, as we see with the newspaper claims in the quote above. I have not been able to find out a primary reference for anyone being fired or demoted for their cold-fusion work."
Then you did not look very hard. Go to the LENR-CANR library and read the paper by Schwinger that I reference previously, or my introduction to the work of Miles, or papers by Bockris, or the books by Beaudette or Mizuno.
Furthermore, the media does not publish "criticism" in the normal sense. They are not saying that the research was done incorrectly. The Post called it a "scientific misdeed." (Kevles) and "delusion, an error, [and] fraud' (Close), and the
DoE officials charged with investigating cold fusion said "Just by looking at Fleischmann and Pons on television you could tell they were incompetent boobs." An official at the APS wrote that researchers are "a cult of fervent half-wits" who "pursue their illusion of fusing hydrogen in a mason jar. . . . with Branch Davidian intensity."
Such charges are not normal scientific criticism, and it is difficult to imagine how a researcher could answer them, even if researchers were allowed to publish responses.
If you think that attacks of this nature in major newspapers do not have a deleterious effect on people's careers, you are living in a dreamworld.
. . . "The Man" keeping them down. As if there were a "Big Science" committee somewhere deciding what is "approved research" or not (this committee apparently covers at least biology and physics)."
This is nonsense. There is no such committee and no conspiracy against cold fusion. As I noted previously, and your yourself reiterated, hundreds of peer-reviewed papers have been published and research is still conducted, so there is some limited mainstream support for cold fusion. However, there is also widespread opposition by major institutions, such as the DoE and the APS, and many attacks in major newspapers. In short, it is an academic dispute.
Unfortunately, people who oppose the research often resort to unfair tactics such as ad hominem attacks in the newspapers, and firing professors who publish positive results. This kind of behavior is common in academic science, unfortunately. There are hundreds of well documented examples in physics, biology an other fields. For example, a medical researcher who found that the symptoms of AIDS in women are substantially from those in men was fired for her trouble, because this went against mainstream thinking.
I strongly suggest you stop trying to judge cold fusion based on your confused and incomplete knowledge of the academic politics surrounding the dispute, stop guessing and jumping to conclusions, and instead concentrate on the actual content of the scientific papers, especially calorimetry, tritium detection and mass spectroscopy. You will see why thousands of highly qualified researchers are convinced that cold fusion is real.
I also recommend that you stop writing messages about me, and your impressions of me, and concentrate on the science instead. As I said, I am not a researcher, and I am not the issue. There is no point in personalizing this discussion. Or, if you do want to personalize it, I suggest you review the qualifications of the cold fusion researchers, because they include hundreds of the world's top experts in physics and chemistry, such as Atomic Energy Commission members in France and India, and the publishers of three leading plasma fusion journals. I expect they know much more about these subjects than you do, so I do not think you should dismiss them as cranks or creationists.
- Jed Rothwell
*sigh*. Around and around we go.
Again, I'll point out that a genuine research program wouldn't bother with propagandizing on a blog read by about 5 people, 4 of which I have to pester on a daily basis to do so. But anyway...
I said: "I have not been able to find out a primary reference for anyone being fired "
to which Jed replied: "paper by Schwinger that I reference previously, or my introduction to the work of Miles," etc
Jed, I said PRIMARY source, and you provided a link to your source, which I've already read and discarded as biased. Second, I don't find Schwinger's speech that you have apparently transcribed very persuasive since it contains this gem:
"Intermittency is the hallmark of cold fusion. It incorporates irreproducibility as a circumstance in which the time intervals between bursts significantly exceed the duration of the observations."
How can you expect to be taken seriously as a scientist when you admit you have very little reproducibility? Science depends on reproducibility.
You haven't given me reason to doubt either the DoE's or the APS's judgement in this manner. You seem like a cult member to me. What can I say?
You say: "Such charges are not normal scientific criticism, and it is difficult to imagine how a researcher could answer them even if researchers were allowed to publish responses."
Sheesh, here we are again. If there is no science to criticize, what else can be said other than this seems like a cult? Difficult to imagine how a researcher could answer the charges? How about reproducible results? And you continously claim that there are hundreds of peer reviewed papers, and then turn around and claim "researchers not allowed to publish responses." Make up your mind.
All your other claims of discrimination are baseless without PRIMARY REFERENCES. Another hallmark of crackpottery. I've already said I have no basis for judging whatever science is behind this, all I can judge are your behavior and what I can tell of the cold fusion community.
I fail to see a motivation for anyone to suppress any type of research.
In any case, if you (and others) find it so promising and revolutionary, please, by all means, make it happen, become billionaires, and win Nobel prizes. It's a free country and/or world. It seems like Japan is funding this kind of thing. I don't understand your complaints at all. Please, by all means, be the next Galileo.
You wrote:
"Jed, I said PRIMARY source, and you provided a link to your source . . ."
This is a primary source. It was written by Schwinger about his own work and experiences. A secondary source would be a paper by someone else quoting or describing what he wrote.
This is not my source. As noted in the index, it is from Evol. Trends Phys. Sci., Proc. Yoshio Nishina Centen. Symp., Tokyo 1990, 1991. 57: p. 171. Everything at LENR-CANR.org was published elsewhere (except for a few reference documents by Storms and me). The site contains hundreds of original source papers reprinted from journals and proceedings, with permission.
". . . which I've already read and discarded as biased."
Have you? So you think that Schwinger deserved to be censored? How many of his theory papers did you read?
"Second, I don't find Schwinger's speech that you have apparently transcribed . . ."
I did not transcribe it. It was published in the proceedings, and he sent me a copy, which I reprinted.
". . . very persuasive since it contains this gem:
'Intermittency is the hallmark of cold fusion. It incorporates irreproducibility as a circumstance in which the time intervals between bursts significantly exceed the duration of the observations.'"
This seems like common knowledge to me. But in any case, cold fusion can now be reproduced nearly 100% of the time, by experts.
"How can you expect to be taken seriously as a scientist when you admit you have very little reproducibility? "
No one "admitted" that. Schwinger stated it as a fact, and it was common knowledge when he said it. I think most people took Schwinger seriously.
"Science depends on reproducibility.
No it does not. The success rate for transistors in 1952 was lower than cold fusion was in 1989. The success rate for cloning remains at about 0.1%. The top quark has only been observed once (apparently) and the "success rate" is astronomically low. Many astronomical phenomena, such as supernovas, are extremely rare and of course they cannot be reproduced on demand. But no one has ever claimed that transistors, cloning or the others are "not scientific" or that they do not exist because they are very difficult to reproduce, or intermittent. Easy reproducibility has NEVER been held as a standard of believability or legitimacy in science. You and others invented that criteria and applied it cold fusion alone.
Of course, improved reproducibility is the goal of many research projects, and it is valuable; and it has been achieved in cold fusion. But it has no bearing on the validity of a claim.
- Jed Rothwell
1) You still haven't provided a motive for this suppression.
2) I asked for primary sources for other people who have been fired/censored/whatever for their views on cold fusion. Newspaper articles documenting at least some of the facts, press releases from the related institutions, etc. You know, something I can verify independent of you.
3) Schwinger's paper that you repeatedly reference only mentions that he had articles rejected for what he claims were invalid reasons. I have no reason to accept this assertion without details about the paper, or what the criticisms were. I wouldn't be able to judge the scientific merits of his arguments anyway. So, without you at least suggesting a motive for why he would be falsely rejected, what else can I say?
4) Scwinger wasn't censored; being rejected from refereed publications is not censorship. From what I can tell, his academic position at UCLA was unaffected by his cold fusion ideas. He retained his position until he died. In what way was he opressed?
5) Scientific results must be reproducible independent of the experimenter and location -- not necessarily reproducible from test to test, certainly not while new. That is, with your transistor example, while the process for creating transistors was not perfect for a long time (it still isn't), it could at least be duplicated by other people who were unconnected with the initial results and did not have a vested interest in seeing positive results. This is called objectivity. The same is true of your other examples. That does not seem to be the case with cold fusion. Until you provide a motive for WHY anyone would be unfairly biased against cold fusion, I'm left with the conclusion that it is pseudo-science.
> The success rate for transistors in 1952 was lower than cold fusion was in 1989.
This a laughable assertion considering bipolar junction transistors were in mass commercial production in 1952.
For example, Raytheon built special models for hearing aids
You wrote:
"1) You still haven't provided a motive for this suppression."
The people who are suppressing cold fusion say they are doing it because they believe the researchers are lunatics, frauds and criminals. That is their motivation. That is what they say in the WaPost, Time Magazine, and in DoE memos and so on. I think they are wrong, but I am sure they sincerely believe they are right.
"2) I asked for primary sources for other people who have been fired/censored/whatever for their views on cold fusion."
I listed several. See also Srinivasan and some quoted by Krivit. For that matter, ask any researcher. I have met hundreds and they all agree their careers have been blighted by attacks in the mass media and other unfair tactics. Here is an example of DoE memos that they consider unfair -- however, if you agree with the DoE, you might consider this fair:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf
"Newspaper articles documenting at least some of the facts, press releases from the related institutions, etc."
I cited these already, in the WaPost and New Scientist. Google will find hundreds more examples of ad hominem attacks written by people who have read no papers and know nothing at all about the research, and yet who attack it. Heck, you yourself are a good example! Here is another good one from the Sci. Am.:
http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#SciAmSlam
"You know, something I can verify independent of you."
Every document at LENR-CANR can be verified independently of me. They all come from the libraries at Los Alamos and Georgia Tech (where we copied them) or from institutions such as China Lake or BARC. The source of every document is listed in the index.
"3) Schwinger's paper that you repeatedly reference only mentions that he had articles rejected for what he claims were invalid reasons. I have no reason to accept this assertion without details about the paper, or what the criticisms were."
Well, if Schwinger were the only one making this complaint, you might have doubts about it, but hundreds of other professional scientists in this field have complained about this. Perhaps they all made mistakes and wrote bad papers, and they do not deserve to be published but that seems highly unlikely to me, for three reasons:
1. I can evaluate many of these papers and they are excellent in my opinion.
2. Hundreds were ultimately published, albeit after years of peer-review and many vicious rejections. Obviously some of the editors at some leading journals believe that cold fusion has merit, even though others do not.
3. It seems highly unlikely that hundreds of distinguished professors, Nobel laureates, the head of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission would suddenly, late in their careers, start making huge blunders or that they are lunatics and criminals, as the Washington Post asserts.
"I wouldn't be able to judge the scientific merits of his arguments anyway."
In that case, I recommend you stop saying that these researchers are "quacks" or cultists. You have no knowledge of their research, and you know nothing about what happened to them, other then the attacks in the Washington Post and other mass media. I do not think you should believe the mass media. I think you should read peer-reviewed, original source scientific papers instead. If you will not do this, or you cannot, then you should reserve judgment.
4) Schwinger wasn't censored; being rejected from refereed publications is not censorship.
He was rejected from refereed and non refereed publications and meetings. He was mocked publicly, and -- albeit after he died -- he was accused of being a senile lunatic and a liar in front of a large crowd of people at the APS, which cheered in response. I saw that myself. If you will read what the researchers wrote, and talk to them, you will see that many other suffered similar experiences.
In what way was he oppressed?
If your reputation is ever dragged through the mud by the Washington Post, and you are accused of being a criminal fraud, you will learn how and why this is oppression. Unless you have tenure and political power, I guarantee you will lose your job that day.
5) Scientific results must be reproducible independent of the experimenter and location -- not necessarily reproducible from test to test, certainly not while new. That is, with your transistor example, while the process for creating transistors was not perfect for a long time (it still isn't), it could at least be duplicated by other people who were unconnected with the initial results and did not have a vested interest in seeing positive results. This is called objectivity.
Yes, but not EASILY and not in the initial stages. Cloning is still very difficult to learn how to do. As you point out, transistors still require expertise. Furthermore, you are overlooking the fact that cold fusion WAS REPLICATED BY HUNDREDS OF LABS. It took a few years, but Los Alamos, Amoco, SRI, Mitsubishi and many others ultimately published replications.
You are also ignoring the fact that reproducibility increased a great deal, as more was learned about the effect. Mitsubishi and the Italian National Labs can now reproduce the effect on demand, 100% of the time. Their equipment costs millions of dollars, which is why it always works, but if other labs will build similar equipment, and spend a few years learning how to use it, I am sure they will also make it work on demand.
The same is true of your other examples. That does not seem to be the case with cold fusion. Until you provide a motive for WHY anyone would be unfairly biased against cold fusion, I'm left with the conclusion that it is pseudo-science.
You have no basis whatever for reaching this conclusion. You have evidently not read a single techinical paper, and you have not offered any valid technical objections to the experimental methods or data. A negative opinion does not get a free pass. You must propose a valid reason why the tritium at BARC or the excess heat measured at SRI is an experimental error, or you lose. All you have done is make statements about your impression of me, and I am not a researcher, and not the issue -- as I said. I could be barking mad but that has absolutely nothing to do with Srinivasan's x-ray film images, which you will find in the BARC section of LENR-CANR.org. He made hundreds of exposures, and they all showed massive amounts of tritium. (And, despite what you and Washington Post assert, he is not a lunatic, criminal, quack or pseudo-scientist.)
- Jed Rothwell
Robert O said...
"'> The success rate for transistors in 1952 was lower than cold fusion was in 1989.'
This a laughable assertion considering bipolar junction transistors were in mass commercial production in 1952."
That's true. Some types were in commercial production, and the yield was higher than cold fusion. With others, the failure rate was high, and difficult to reduce. See the book "Crystal Fire" for examples.
An engineer from that era told me that entire batches would sometimes fail for reasons they never figured out. They eventually learned how to improve purity and the problems ebbed away. (The engineer in question is now working on cold fusion, and he said the problems are similar.)
By the way, I apologize for these strange spaces that show up in my messages.
*sigh*
Jed, you are tedious and boring. I ask for primary references, and again you refer back to your website. Saying that you took the materials from primary sources doesn't help. I don't care. I'm not going to track down your primary sources for you.
Second, this is pointless. I'm not a physicist, my opinion matters not at all. I believe I've made my case -- you ACT like a crackpot. There is very little point in arguing with crackpots in what is essentially a private forum. I like to debunk stuff like this, but only in public -- where observers can be convinced.
That being said, if anyone who happens to read this blog want to chime in and say that I haven't made my case, and that I should continue to rebut you, I'd be happy to address your repetitious arguments at that time.
But, since I doubt there is anyone who reads and cares, there's no point in continuing. Get a life, man.
Sorry to nitpick but . . . I wrote:
"You are also ignoring the fact that reproducibility increased a great deal, as more was learned about the effect."
To be more accurate, I should have said "as more was learned about materials." Materials are they key to cold fusion, as they are with many similar solid state and catalytic effects.
By 1996, the success rate at China Lake was 28 out of 92, but this number does not tell the whole story. For some types of palladium alloys, the success rate was zero. For others -- especially materials produced by the NRL or J-M Type A palladium -- the success rate was nearly 100%. See Table 10 in this document:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesManomalousea.pdf
The detailed reasons for these variations were also well understood by that time.
Of course you can only achieve this level of success with the proper equipment and expertise. The material is necessary but not sufficient. It is a very difficult experiment, as Fleischmann and others have said many times. One of the strangest myths that have circulated about cold fusion is that the experiment is "easy" or "simple." I can't imagine why anyone thinks this!
- Jed Rothwell
You wrote:
"I ask for primary references, and again you refer back to your website."
I did not! I referred you to the libraries at Los Alamos and Georgia tech, where we got the documents. You will find them at any university library. Some are on-line, such as the U.S. Navy publications, as noted in our copy of the documents.
"Saying that you took the materials from primary sources doesn't help. I don't care. I'm not going to track down your primary sources for you."
You don't have to track anything down! The publication, author, title and date are listed right there in our index. I have indexed 3,000 research papers for you! You can march right into a library and see the original copies. How could I make it any easier for you? Do you want me to mail you xerox copies? Should I drive you to the library?
Can you think of any other way for you to see the original papers?
"Second, this is pointless. I'm not a physicist, my opinion matters not at all."
If you are not a physicist then how on earth do you get off claiming that cold fusion researchers are quacks or cultists? What is the basis for you opinion?
My guess is that you know nothing about the research, and you are merely parroting the scurrilous attacks published by the the Washington Post, or by some Internet rumor-monger. Do you also claim that physicists working on the top quark are quacks? Do you often go around insulting random groups of 2,000 professional scientists without knowing anything about their research? You don't think that's a strange thing to do? And you call me a quack!
"I believe I've made my case -- you ACT like a crackpot."
I do not think I do, but I am not a scientist, so that has no bearing on the discussion. You do not "prove" that Fleischmann or Schwinger is a crackpot by saying that Jed Rothwell is a crackpot. I am not them. They have no responsibility for what I say.
- Jed Rothwell
I did not (and do not want) primary references for any "scientific" papers -- so going to the Navy, Georgia Tech, Los Alamos libraries or wherever else is not going to help.
You do not help your case of oppression by saying that I should go visit Los Alamos. If Los Alamos is/was doing "cold fusion" research, then I would find that evidence of not being pseudoscience, and if they stopped, well, I find that indicative as well.
You keep repeating both the assertion:
"Hundreds of researchers have had their careers ruined"
and
"Hundreds of researchers are working in this field"
Which I find mutually contradictory.
I've asked for references for the first, and all you've provided are links to your website. Surely, if this oppression is so widespread, you could fine one objective online source for this.
Second, I haven't called anyone a crank, except you, and that judgement is based on your behavior. I don't even know the names of any scientist to criticize, other than this Schwinger chap. I did criticize him about the reproducibility statement, which I stand by. But based on his career, he does not seem like a crank -- merely wrong. And again, that's not a judgement I'm even qualified to make. I admit this freely.
Now, I'm done. I really don't see the issue here -- I'm not stopping anyone from doing any research they can get funding for, and I'm not advocating oppression of any kind. People who think cold fusion is good science are free to pursue it. Based on what I've seen, it was pursued by the scientific community in general in the 1990's, and then dropped for lack of evidence. I don't have anything to add to that. Like I said, please, if you've got cheap clean energy, make money and win a Nobel prize.
I'm really done with this thread until you say something *new*, or someone who happens to be reading thinks that I haven't made my case.
You wrote:
"I did not (and do not want) primary references for any "scientific" papers -- so going to the Navy, Georgia Tech, Los Alamos libraries or wherever else is not going to help."
Oops. Sorry. I misunderstood. The library has technical papers only. We do not upload copies of the personal stories or letters from the researchers describing what happened to them, except in a few cases that I listed (Bockris, Miles, Srinivasan etc.). For that, you should go to the University of Utah cold fusion collection, especially the Beaudette collection there. I have not been there, but I have a lot of copies from Beaudette and I am talking to the U. Utah librarians about putting more of the material on line.
"If Los Alamos is/was doing 'cold fusion' research, then I would find that evidence of not being pseudoscience . . ."
They did and they still are. See Storms and Claytor. Their papers are uploaded at LENR-CANR, published in journals, and available directly from Los Alamos.
"You keep repeating both the assertion:
'Hundreds of researchers have had their careers ruined'
and
'Hundreds of researchers are working in this field'
Which I find mutually contradictory."
Why? There is no contradiction. Obviously I mean that hundreds of researchers are working in the field, and their careers have been hurt -- or ended abruptly in some cases. Congressmen have called them in and raked them over the coals, demanding imaginary evidence that they faked results. Major newspapers have called them lunatics. If you don't think that hurts a person's reputation, you have no clue how the world works! Their funding was cut off, they were ridiculed, reassigned to menial jobs and so on.
This is what happens to people who do unpopular research. It happens all the time. Look up "academic suppression" and you will find thousands of examples. It is happening on a large scale just down the street from me, at the CDC. Look up
"Katrina formaldehyde cdc" for the ugly details.
"I've asked for references for the first, and all you've provided are links to your website."
EVERYTHING on my website comes from somewhere else!! I ALWAYS supply the link.
"Surely, if this oppression is so widespread, you could fine one objective online source for this."
I did! Look up the quotes from the Washington Post! Look at the Sci. Am. column I pointed you to. Use Google and you will find thousands of ignorant, baseless attacks on cold fusion. Thousands and thousands of people have said it is pseudo-science, fraud, creationism, and bla, bla, bla -- just as you yourself said. All of these people, including you, do not have the slightest idea what they are talking about. They have never read a paper. Heck, the editors at Sci. Am. brag about that! They say reading papers is not their job. (See their letters to me, or ask them yourself.) The result of these unfounded attacks is the suppression of research and the destruction of academic freedom.
Every time a researcher tries to get an experiment funded, or tries to publish a factual account of the research in the mass media, he is buried under a mountain of garbage and false accusations. No institutional decision maker at a university or Washington agency will fund the research because he will know that the Washington Post, Congressman Brad Miller, and a thousand others are standing by, with knives drawn and ready, and they will eviscerate his reputation by accusing him of fraud. When the mass media accuses you of fraud in the morning, you will fired by noon.
The only people who were free to do cold fusion research were older, powerful, tenured profs., and even they were hauled before committees and subject to abuse by the mass media, as described by Bockris and others. Unfortunately most of those older people have retired, or died.
"But based on [Schwinger's] career, he does not seem like a crank -- merely wrong. And again, that's not a judgement I'm even qualified to make. I admit this freely."
If you are not qualified to make that judgement then WHY DO YOU THINK he was "merely wrong"? What mistake did he make? What about the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin -- is he also "merely wrong"? The Atomic Energy Commissioners in India in France? The other 2,000 professional scientists in our database? Do you think they are all "merely wrong"? Based on what, ESP?
Frankly, you are impudent. Who the hell do you think you are, making that determination? You dismiss thousands of papers and thousands of man-years of research, without reading the papers, and without knowing the first thing about them! You, the Washington Post, and ten-thousand other ignorant people casually destroy the reputations of scientists you know nothing about by posting false statements on the Internet. Together you form an unstoppable force for ignorance, calumny and the suppression of academic freedom, just as Schwinger said.
Words have consequences. When you ridicule and condemn cold fusion as "pseudo-science" or creationism, this causes harm. You should STOP and THINK and LEARN and take responsibility, instead of trashing honest, hard-working scientists you have never even heard of.
- Jed Rothwell
FFS, Jed, you still expect me to do your googling for you. Nope. You point me to one, single, primary reference of someone getting fired for their cold fusion interests. Come on. You can do it.
You keep saying that I've dismissed and insulted hundreds of genuine scientists when, in reality, I've only dismissed you. I have ZERO physics background, so when it comes to making judgements, I've said time and again, "I have no qualifications to make judgements", EXCEPT ABOUT YOU, because you are acting like a crank and referring me in circles to your own damned website. "Hundreds of researchers" have ruined careers and jobs, and yet, all you can point to is a Scientific American article that is critical of cold fusion. Criticism is NOT persecution. From where I sit, it seems more likely they are correct, and you are wrong.
I was taking this conversation seriously, but now it's just laughable. Every post of yours is the same thing: "Hundreds of researchers are doing work on this" and "Hundreds of researchers have been ruined". I don't get it. If Los Alamos is doing cold fusion research now: WHATS YOUR BEEF?
It's a federally funded lab so either cold fusion research is alive and well there, and legitimate researchers are doing it, or they're not doing research in which case I find that evidence of crankery.
All you've convinced me of is the following:
1) You are nuts.
and, pick one (only one) of the following:
2a) Los Alamos National Lab is doing cold fusion research now, in which case the federal government is paying for it, which negates your claim of persecution.
--OR--
2b) Los Alamos National Lab isn't doing cold fusion research, but was in the past, in which case they abandoned it due to being false, in which case I have no good reason to reject that judgement over some random dude on the internet.
If your next post doesn't contain a primary reference to someone being fired or otherwise actually persecuted, I'm banning you from commenting on my blog.
Being denied funding is not persecution. Funding agencies and organizations have the right to fund research of their choice, and either they are qualified to make those choices, or they'll lose the benefit of the research. Again, I'm not competent to make a judgement on it.
You repeatedly accuse me of being arrogant, yet you have no scientific background yourself, but apparently you are qualified to make scientific judgements. I find that telling of your sanity.
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