Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
At 05:22 PM 12/3/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: 2. In theory papers I do not recall seeing a section titled predictions or something like that. To be fair, in LENR, so little is known with solidity about what's going on that even if a theory is correct in general outlines, it could be difficult to make accurate predictions based on it. However, sometimes predictions are fairly obvious. When I first asked about Takahashi's TSC theory here, I hadn't read all his material, and I sort of assumed that it would predict 23.8 MeV alphas. I.e, if that Be-8 nucleus decays within a femtosecond, it wouldn't have time to do anything else with the energy, eh? It wasn't a conscious assumption, just the fact that Be-8 is known to spontaneously decay into two alphas. But the Be-8 nucleus is quite excited, I don't know the value, and in an earlier paper Takahashi described the expected emission of energy as photons. There are specific frequencies he describes, and this is essentially a prediction; unfortunately, translating that to experimental results may not be easy, because of the rapid absorption of these photons. Horace described a cathode that would be built upon a base full of tiny holes that would allow the escape of EUV photons, so maybe they could be detected. The holes would be so small that surface tension would prevent escape of the electrolyte through them. And, I'll add, not knowing the absorption of EUV by air, the space beyond the cathode (outside the cell) might be evacuated, with the detector being in that vacuum. There are other possible ways of detecting that radiation, I'd think, or possibly of detecting the transient presence of Be-8, though the quantity there could make it *really* difficult. It may also be possible to look for other associated conditions, such as the incidence of D2 molecules just below the surface of the cathode. Whatever theories are to be worked on, they should explain the common heat/helium ratio at roughly the Q factor for d-d - He4, even if that isn't the actual reaction all the time. Direct transfer of energy from d-d fusion to the lattice leaves out the problem of branching ratio, so first of all the theory should explain why the otherwise very rare pathway of - He4 predominates, and then what the hell happens to the energy, where are the gammas? Takahashi does apparently answer this. What's known about Be-8? What's known to happen when Be-8 is formed by other means, such as collision of two alphas?
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
At 02:45 PM 12/2/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Simon is interested in the process of closure. And what he comes to with Undead Science is that there can be an apparent closure where an apparent scientific consensus arises, but there is life after death, hence, undead science. This is like saying there is no apparent scientific consensus about evolution because the creationists disagree. Jed, I think you have some axe to grind here, because you aren't reading carefully. Your analogy is actually opposite to what I wrote. The parallel with evolution is that an apparent scientific consensus formed that evolution is real. To some extent, work on alternate theories, if they can be justified by that name, continued. So we could call creationism undead science. But the analogy breaks down, because there is very, very little creationist science, it is mostly criticism or polemic about the mainstream theory. Whereas with cold fusion, the zombies are actually walking the streets. Scientists are performing real scientific experiments, doing standard analysis, reporting their work, verifying and validating each other. Supposedly cold fusion was dead, but it wasn't. There *was* an apparent scientific consensus. That isn't to be denied. But was there a *real* scientific consensus. It's obvious that there was not. That would be a consensus rigorously based on scientific principles, and such a consensus would be far more widely accepted. Cold fusion was always a factional dispute, and that one faction had serious political power and the other didn't has no bearing. Had it been a real consensus, it would have continued to spread rather than merely influencing general opinion. Cold fusion researchers would have increasingly abandoned their efforts, not merely because of the obvious difficulties, but because they had become convinced that the effect was an illusion, probably by some conclusive demonstrations that the reported experiments had other explanations than LENR. The argument is valid but a red herring that it's impossible to prove a negative. Rather, we suspect LENR because of certain positive signs. If those signs are shown to have other causes (not merely possible explanations), as happened with N-rays, for example, LENR would not have been disproven, as such, but it would most definitely had the rug pulled out from under it. There would be no reason to believe that it was real. That would take new evidence. In the cold fusion dispute, by late 1990 we had one side is playing by the rules, publishing papers and data, and making a solid case. The other side had run off the rails, abandoned the scientific method, and they were engaged in academic politics or in some cases a weird new form of religion. They have no legitimacy, and no right to be call themselves scientists any more than the flat-earth society or creationists do. The two sides are well represented in the debate between Morrison and Fleischmann: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf Yes. Except I wouldn't put it in quite such stark terms. It's obvious that the quality of Fleischman's reply greatly exceeded the quality of Morrison's critique. In particular, I was struck by Morrison's facile introduction of the palladium cigarette lighter, which released significant energy through, first, relaxation of pressure, the lighter being a rod of palladium pressurized with hydrogen gas, then through ignition of the hydrogen. But there was no pressurization in the experiment being criticized. So no initial temperature rise. And there would be little or no oxygen available to burn the evolved deuterium gas, at the cathode. At the same time, much deuterium gas would be being evolved by electrolysis as the cell approached boil-off. Certainly consideration of recombination is in order. But the cigarette-lighter effect falls into the category of a highly speculative explanation, one which raised far more questions than it answers. It's a bit like Shanahan's calibration constant shift. Sure, a possible source of error. However, large enough to explain the results across a wide range of experiments using different techniques? Critics like Shanahan become sources of persistent invention of critiques. It's just as offensive as naive belief on the other side. Indeed, though, both belief and skepticism are essential to scientific progress. For public policy decisions, though, the search should, at each point, be for the most likely explanation. To determine that, it is not necessary to rule out and disprove completely every possible objection, and, indeed, there is no end to such possibilities, depending on how outrageous we are willing to be in proposing them. Proving LENR is the wrong approach, in fact. Rather, there are these effects, reported by so many researchers. What's the *most likely* explanation for them? Given the body of evidence, the
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: There *was* an apparent scientific consensus. That isn't to be denied. But was there a *real* scientific consensus. It's obvious that there was not. That would be a consensus rigorously based on scientific principles, and such a consensus would be far more widely accepted. Ah. I see what you mean. Proving LENR is the wrong approach, in fact. Rather, there are these effects, reported by so many researchers. What's the *most likely* explanation for them? Given the body of evidence, the streams of evidence that converge, it's obvious. Yes, that is what Melich and I concluded: We do not assert that cold fusion is unquestionably a nuclear effect and only a nuclear effect. As noted already in this Appendix, we assert that a chemical effect or experimental error is ruled out, and that the heat beyond the limits of chemistry, helium commensurate with a plasma fusion reaction, tritium and heavy metal transmutations all point to an unknown nuclear reaction. In short, the nuclear hypothesis best fits the facts, but until a detailed nuclear theory is worked out and broadly accepted, this will remain only a working hypothesis. It is conceivable that cold fusion is caused by an unknown effect even more powerful than nuclear fusion that triggers some nuclear changes as a side effect of the main reaction, just as fission reactor heat triggers chemical changes as a side effect of fission. . . . Krivit's latest blog entries say he thinks cold fusion is not fusion: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/blog/http://newenergytimes.com/v2/blog/ QUOTE: But 'cold fusion' doesn't look like fusion. It sure looks like fusion to me! Frankly, I do not have the foggiest idea how he reached that conclusion. Plus I do not know any researchers trying to squelch the Windom-Larsen theory, or any theory. They ignore theories they do not believe in. Theories are a dime a dozen in this business. As far as I know none of them makes useful predictions -- or even testable predictions! So they are useless. Heck, they aren't even theories, just speculation. A theory is not viable unless it can be tested and falsified. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
On 12/03/2009 04:57 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Theories are a dime a dozen in this business. As far as I know none of them makes useful predictions -- or even testable predictions! So they are useless. Heck, they aren't even theories, just speculation. A theory is not viable unless it can be tested and falsified. If I recall correctly, Hagelstein's theory based on phonon coupling to the lattice made testable predictions. However, that was a number of years ago, and since the theory seems to have sunk without a trace, I'd have to guess that it was, indeed, falsified, so to speak.
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Theories are a dime a dozen in this business. As far as I know none of them makes useful predictions -- or even testable predictions! . . . If I recall correctly, Hagelstein's theory based on phonon coupling to the lattice made testable predictions. However, that was a number of years ago, and since the theory seems to have sunk without a trace, I'd have to guess that it was, indeed, falsified, so to speak. You are probably right. I spoke rather harshly. To be honest, I can seldom follow lectures about theory long enough to see if they make predictions. However: 1. At conferences I sometimes follow Ed Storms around as he asks the theorists, Okay, so what testable predictions do you make? How can I use this theory to improve my experiments? They seldom give a satisfactory answer. Except in one instance, with Hagelstein's theory about laser stimulation. Hagelstein predicted it would work at specific wavelengths (with 2 lasers) and by gum, it seems to do that. So says Cravens. 2. In theory papers I do not recall seeing a section titled predictions or something like that. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
At 05:42 PM 12/2/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: I meant to say: Simon is interested in the process of closure. And what he comes to with Undead Science is that there can be an apparent closure where an apparent scientific consensus arises, but there is life after death, hence, undead science. This is like saying there is no apparent scientific CLOSURE about evolution because the creationists STILL disagree. Closure does not mean that a large group of people come down on one side or another. It shouldn't mean that, anyway. Glad you stated that, Jed. Now, the attempt is to deal with sociology as a science, it's not a hard science, at least not yet!, but, still, one can attempt to approach it objectively. What's the proper field of study in sociology: what is, as can be observed, measured, reported, as to the topic (which is society, Jed, not cold fusion), or what should be? Tell me, in the field of condensed matter nuclear science, what would we report, the design of experiments and their results, or what those results should be? In a few cases, sure, a theoretical paper, we'd report something like, According to this analysis, measurement of neutrons at low levels should be possible. But that's theory, not actual experimental report. The closer that Simon is talking about, and where he shares language with other sociologists of science, is indeed about a group of people coming down on one side or another. Closure is a social phenomenon, and is not contingent upon the apparently closed fact. I.e., by the standards of sociology, the cold fusion issue was closed by 1990. Simon is pointing out the contradiction, the existence of non-closure in spite of apparent closure. And, again, this is not dependent upon the fact. All those scientists who continued to work in the field could be wrong, not the mainstream. Unlikely, from the perspective of what we know. But Simon is interested in how they did it. How did they manage to continue in spite of heavy obstacles placed in their way by the general conclusion? By traditional standards, closure happens when a definitive experiment is performed. Whether anyone pays attention to that experiment or not is irrelevant. Absolutely incorrect, Jed. You are again confusing what should be with what is. Closure is a social phenomenon, not a matter of absolute truth. A sociologist can't actually compare a consensus with truth. Nor can a sociologist judge whether or not an experiment is definitive. All that a sociologist can do is to research and report what people think about it, and what they do about it. There really aren't traditional standards for closure, though there are processes which sometimes worked, i.e., the apparent consensus was real and reflected the opinion of the knowledgeable, and presumably including some of those who stuck their feet in their mouths approving of N-rays or polywater. While opinion may bounce for a time when there is a definitive experiment, definitive, sociologically, must mean nothing other than convincing, and the convincing must be the convincing of a defined population. It's about people, and only indirectly about science. There is the scientific method, which you correctly observe was not followed, and there is science as a body of knowledge held and shared by more than isolated individuals. We can call the opinion of an isolated individual science, but you surely know that such opinions aren't very reliable in themselves. Science, in terms of knowledge, more properly refers to shared knowledge, where the foundations of the knowledge are well understood. The edges of science are areas where there is speculative knowledge, partial knowledge, inference, and, yes, opinion. It's possible that everyone agrees on something that is an error. However, it's unlikely that the knowledgeable will so agree, as long as the knowledge is sufficiently comprehensive. And if I find that my own opinion in a field is rejected by everyone but me, I should think long and hard about how solid my knowledge is before I proceed with an assumption that I'm right, and I should be prepared, if I proceed on that assumption, for opposition. But, of course, there never was a real scientific consensus on cold fusion, just the opinion of a politically powerful faction that was able to sway the rest of science, i.e., the community of scientists who *aren't* familiar with the specific field. Once one has sufficient knowledge of the literature, it's trivial to see the errors and false assumptions of the expert critics. They aren't familiar with the actual evidence, but maintain *belief* as not only the evidence but also as to what those convinced that CF is real believe and claim. They are not familiar with the present field, though they may have substantial knowledge of the early history of it. For them, the topic closed, and was no longer worth the effort of consideration. People have to
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Simon is interested in the process of closure. And what he comes to with Undead Science is that there can be an apparent closure where an apparent scientific consensus arises, but there is life after death, hence, undead science. This is like saying there is no apparent scientific consensus about evolution because the creationists disagree. In the cold fusion dispute, by late 1990 we had one side is playing by the rules, publishing papers and data, and making a solid case. The other side had run off the rails, abandoned the scientific method, and they were engaged in academic politics or in some cases a weird new form of religion. They have no legitimacy, and no right to be call themselves scientists any more than the flat-earth society or creationists do. The two sides are well represented in the debate between Morrison and Fleischmann: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf Or look at the DoE 2004 Reviewer #15. If that sounds elitist, I make no apologies. I am an elitist when it comes to technical expertise. Legitimate experts often disagree about complex subjects, but this is not a particularly complex subject. When it comes to calorimetry, for example, it makes no sense to give equal weight and equal respect to Duncan and Garwin (as they did on 60 Minutes). Garwin is talking nonsense and lying though his teeth about his own Pentagon report. See: http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#CBS60minuteshttp://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#CBS60minutes It's not the job of a sociologist to determine what ratio to background is or is not disputable. Imagine Simon were writing about biology, and he casually mixed together claims by biologists with those of creationists, giving them equal weight as if both were legitimate science. His book would be panned. He should at least make it clear that his book is not about an actual, legitimate scientific dispute: it is about a dispute between scientists and a group of irrational nitwits. Anyone who takes seriously the notion that tritium at 50 times background is marginal is more or less as ignorant as a creationist who thinks that Darwin claimed monkeys sometimes have human children. (That is an actual claim, albeit from the fringe of creationism. In my opinion, the misunderstandings and ignorance of people like David Lindley of Nature are as bad as this.) - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
I meant to say: Simon is interested in the process of closure. And what he comes to with Undead Science is that there can be an apparent closure where an apparent scientific consensus arises, but there is life after death, hence, undead science. This is like saying there is no apparent scientific CLOSURE about evolution because the creationists STILL disagree. Closure does not mean that a large group of people come down on one side or another. It shouldn't mean that, anyway. By traditional standards, closure happens when a definitive experiment is performed. Whether anyone pays attention to that experiment or not is irrelevant. Townes proved that masers can exist, and even though no one believed him at first, the issue was still closed. In my opinion, Simon is trying to overthrow traditional standards and substitute a blurry new-age version of scientific closure. An experiment is objective proof that stands outside the human imagination. Simon would replace it with mere opinion. He does not even acknowledge that what he is describing -- closure, as he defines it -- is ersatz. It is a poor substitute that we must settle for when we cannot understand the experiments, or the experiments remain inconclusive, or no one tries to replicate them. Real closure is what happened at BARC when developed the autoradiograph x-ray film. Bingo! There's your answer. Case closed. Many aspects of science are revolutionary, but one that appeals to me most -- that Francis Bacon emphasized -- is that it takes place outside our minds. It was the first great institution in which disputes are judged by standards divorced from culture and the human imagination. No individual or large group of individuals can appeal the judgement. A thermocouple reading, or a humble piece of x-ray film, outweigh the opinions of ten thousand scientists. Even if the x-ray film is lost, or suppressed, ridiculed and eventually forgotten, it will remains eternally right, and the scientists will be eternally mistaken. Ideally, that is how it works. In actual practice we cannot escape from people's opinions and influence, but we strive to meet the ideal. Look back at earlier institutions. Even the ones that depended on objective criteria, such as ancient Roman aqueduct technology, were still largely ruled by the opinions of powerful men and laws set by legislators. Where, when and how aqueducts were built was as much a political decision as a technical one. Power, money and influence held sway. The same is true of modern infrastructure and projects such as highway construction, the Space Station, a Tokamak, or a new weapon system. Objective criteria play only a small role. It does not matter whether a fighter airplane works well, or would be of any use in war. What matters is which congressional districts get the funding to build it. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
At 06:01 PM 11/30/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Simon is a *sociologist,* Jed, not a chemist or physicist. Opinions (especially collective opinions) and process are what the book is about, not cold fusion. Or calorimetry. If it is about opinions then we can conclude that opinions have no bearing on cold fusion. Plus we can conclude that sociologists are unqualified to write about calorimetry, and they make fools of themselves when they try. Anyway, I also disagree with Simon with regard to opinions and philosophy of science. It's a sociological study, Jed, not a book on physics or chemistry or calorimetry. It's quite clear that Simon is sympathetic to cold fusion, but his obligation as a sociologist is to stay away from that. I'd suggest that you get more specific about what you disagree with. I've reviewed what Simon writes about calorimetry. His treatment is highly favorable to cold fusion, while still attempting to describe the criticisms. Reading Simon, the criticisms seem weak and unfair. Simon's goal, though, is not to lead the reader to a conclusion about cold fusion itself, but to an understanding of the social dynamic involved. So, Jed, what's your problem with Simon's treatment of calorimetry? Is it your position, Jed, that the press conference was beyond any reproach? Not a mistake? I do not think it was a mistake. I think it was necessary to call a press conference. They did the best they could, and I doubt anyone could have done a better job. That's highly unlikely, Jed. *Somebody* might have done better, almost certainly. That isn't the same as to say they did a bad job. But I haven't reviewed that original press conference recently. What seems to be more of a problem than the press conference is the neutron report, as well as some difficulties in reporting the neutrons. When you become as visible as they became, in the presence of such controversy, every action will receive close scrutiny. The standards are different, mistakes are less easily forgiven. These people were on the losing side of history. They were doomed, as Fleischmann well knew. Perhaps. Perhaps mistakes they made allowed the other side, with certain tactical and political advantages, to prevail. Simon covers all this quite well, I'd say. Compare Simon to Charles Sefe, Sun in a Bottle. Sefe, again and again, doesn't get the science right. He misunderstands the meaning of breakeven, and makes the mistake over and over and over, really irritating. Sefe does acknowledge an ongoing controversy, but fails to present the evidence on the cold fusion side, completely missing most of the major points, misunderstanding the rest. He ascribes positive press reports to: Reporters seem genetically predisposed to take the side of the underdog So he's set up that background in reporting the esteemed science journallist Sharon Begley, quoting her, Cold fusion today is a prime example of pathological science, but not because its adherents are delusional The real pathology is the breakdown of the normal channels of scientific communication, with no scientists outside the tight-knit cold-fusion tribe bothering to scrutinize its claims. Of course, this was in 2003. It was never really true, but the *attitude* was everywhere that it was true. Sefe dismisses the 2004 DoE panel as have many others: The conclusions were much the same as they had been a decade and a half earlier. Which is preposterous, if you actually read and compare the two reports, they are like night and day. That much the same comment is a summarizing comment by the DoE bureaucrat putting the report together, and was not by the review panel itself; the similarity was in the recommendation regarding research, not in attitude toward the science. Even with the presence of some reviewers who were clearly prejudiced from the outset against cold fusion, and not willing to examine the evidence, and with all the errors in the report (such as the drastically mangled reporting of the heat/helium results, the most conclusive evidence for fusion present up to that time), the panel still came to an even division on the question of anomalous heat, with one-third somewhat convinced that it was nuclear in origin. Today, with the SPAWAR neutron results, that last number would be still higher, and if the heat/helium results had been given due consideration, it should have been higher in 2004. The heat/helium ratio, found across multiple reports, validates both the heat and helium measurements, and helium found in this way, being a nuclear ash, is just as convincing as neutrons, because helium would come from a neutron-free reaction, leaving only one problem, the missing gamma, which Takahashi seems to have handily explained; it's not d-d fusion at all, not directly. If he's right. Simon covers the heat/helium controversy quite well. I don't think it's possible to read Simon
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
At 09:09 PM 11/30/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: I wrote: If it is about opinions then we can conclude that opinions have no bearing on cold fusion. Plus we can conclude that sociologists are unqualified to write about calorimetry, and they make fools of themselves when they try. To put it more charitably, I guess what I am saying is that an analysis based on sociology alone can only go so far. At some point you have to have subject-specific knowledge. Let me illustrate this with an example from anthropology, which I know a lot more about than sociology. Simon is interested in the process of closure. And what he comes to with Undead Science is that there can be an apparent closure where an apparent scientific consensus arises, but there is life after death, hence, undead science. Cold fusion did not die, in spite of massive opinion that it did. Simon published in 2002. The book contains some very good material on the history of cold fusion, and he does generally get the science right; in fact, I've seen no example where he failed. Do you have any? Just remember, his goal is not to come to a conclusion about the reality of cold fusion. He's interested in the social process, or, more accurately, that's what he was writing his paper about, originally. In college I took several semesters of anthropology, as you might expect relating to Asia: India, China and Japan. This was a narrow specialty so there usually a dozen grad students and undergrads. The grad students had years of anthropology in various other societies and periods which gave them some advantages. They already knew that there a range of different ways of classifying relatives or paying for a new barn. In China or Japan they have a rotating loan to village members and they also used to turn out the whole village to help major construction (roof raising), the way American farmers used to do. If you want to understand the dynamics of traditional agriculture in Japan, general knowledge of anthropology is helpful. But knowing conditions on the ground in rural Japan, and knowing how to speak Japanese is a whole lot more helpful! I found it even helped in understanding China, although the two countries are as different as England and Italy, and I speak no Chinese. My point is, you cannot divorce the study of anthropology from a specific culture, place and time. It is never about things in general, but always about how people act in some decade in some country. That's one perspective. There is at least one other The sociology of science may indeed have broad themes that can be discovered by examining specific incidents, but you cannot sort out these themes without some minimum understanding the technical aspects of whatever branch of science you are using as a test case. Simon does seem to have that. Labinger? I saw no sign of it. Someone who thinks that tritium at 50 times background is a disputable result has no basis to judge what is claimed, and no way of knowing who is blowing smoke up your ass, as it were. It's not the job of a sociologist to determine what ratio to background is or is not disputable. Look, Jed, you know and I know that the criticisms of cold fusion were often preposterous, based on unwarranted assumptions. It went way beyond reason. Okay, to a sociologist, this would be interesting. How are social norms developed? How did a fake consensus appear, because it obviously was not and never became a real consensus. With the classic pathological science issues, such as N-rays or polywater, there were quite conclusive refutations, not of the primary thing, but of the evidence that had been used to suggest the existence of the primary thing. The saw that you can't prove a negative is way off point. You can show that a reason to believe in a positive is defective. The reports of the N-ray observers were completely unreliable because when the mechanism was eliminated, the observers still saw the N-rays. A non-polywater explanation of the sluggish water was shown and confirmed through the spectroscopy. But with cold fusion and the initial report, only half was ever convincingly refuted, there were merely some weak suspicions, such as no stirring, hot spots. (I still wonder what the gamma detector was showing, did anyone every figure that out?) And then there were confirmations of excess heat in similar experiments. Sure, the high variability was worrisome, but some constants showed through, most notably heat/helium correlation and ratio. With those measurements, the variability turned into a control. No excess heat, no helium. Excess heat, helium, with the deviation being quite easily ascribable to isolated experimental error. With true pathological science, there is a die-hard effect, but it fades with time. Sold fusion did fade, for a time, but started coming back, perhaps as the significance of the early work started to sink in and spread, in spite of
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Simon is a *sociologist,* Jed, not a chemist or physicist. Opinions (especially collective opinions) and process are what the book is about, not cold fusion. Or calorimetry. If it is about opinions then we can conclude that opinions have no bearing on cold fusion. Plus we can conclude that sociologists are unqualified to write about calorimetry, and they make fools of themselves when they try. Anyway, I also disagree with Simon with regard to opinions and philosophy of science. Is it your position, Jed, that the press conference was beyond any reproach? Not a mistake? I do not think it was a mistake. I think it was necessary to call a press conference. They did the best they could, and I doubt anyone could have done a better job. These people were on the losing side of history. They were doomed, as Fleischmann well knew. It is easy to criticize people who are stuck in that situation, such as an unpopular candidate running in an election he cannot win. Any miss-step they make is apparent because it triggers dire consequences. Whereas a person on a roll, who has everything going for him, can make mistakes without causing avalanches of problems. Regarding Labinger, he told me that my critique is unfair because his paper is about the philosophy of science, or sociology of science, and he is merely using cold fusion as an example. He feels he is not passing judgement on it, and that my technical critiques do not apply. I expect Simon would say the same sort of thing, this book is not about the science per se. But I say it is about the science. It has to be, because the two topics cannot be separated. And in any case, these authors did not try to separate them. They piled on with the winning side. I wrote to Labinger: . . . You are not only making assertions about the philosophy of science. You have gone far beyond that to make technical assertions. Such as: No cold fusion researcher has been able to dispel the stigma of 'pathological science' by rigorously and reproducibly demonstrating effects sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error . . . This is nonsense. Thousands of cold fusion researchers have done this. No skeptic has challenged their results. Saying that tritium at 50 times background is not sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error is preposterous. The researchers would be dead if this were an error, contamination being the only plausible source of error on this scale. God only knows I have read these same arguments many times before, and so have the cold fusion researchers. . . . You have described the situation mainly from the skeptical point of view, which exaggerates the difficulties and makes the results seem far less certain than they are. You have made grave technical errors regarding the science itself. I wish you had asked an expert to review the manuscript. Actually, I agree with the philosophy of science parts. If the facts about cold fusion were as you describe, and tritium at 50 times background was marginal, then you would be right about the rest. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
I wrote: If it is about opinions then we can conclude that opinions have no bearing on cold fusion. Plus we can conclude that sociologists are unqualified to write about calorimetry, and they make fools of themselves when they try. To put it more charitably, I guess what I am saying is that an analysis based on sociology alone can only go so far. At some point you have to have subject-specific knowledge. Let me illustrate this with an example from anthropology, which I know a lot more about than sociology. In college I took several semesters of anthropology, as you might expect relating to Asia: India, China and Japan. This was a narrow specialty so there usually a dozen grad students and undergrads. The grad students had years of anthropology in various other societies and periods which gave them some advantages. They already knew that there a range of different ways of classifying relatives or paying for a new barn. In China or Japan they have a rotating loan to village members and they also used to turn out the whole village to help major construction (roof raising), the way American farmers used to do. If you want to understand the dynamics of traditional agriculture in Japan, general knowledge of anthropology is helpful. But knowing conditions on the ground in rural Japan, and knowing how to speak Japanese is a whole lot more helpful! I found it even helped in understanding China, although the two countries are as different as England and Italy, and I speak no Chinese. My point is, you cannot divorce the study of anthropology from a specific culture, place and time. It is never about things in general, but always about how people act in some decade in some country. The sociology of science may indeed have broad themes that can be discovered by examining specific incidents, but you cannot sort out these themes without some minimum understanding the technical aspects of whatever branch of science you are using as a test case. Someone who thinks that tritium at 50 times background is a disputable result has no basis to judge what is claimed, and no way of knowing who is blowing smoke up your ass, as it were. It would be like trying to figure out pre-1965 Japanese agriculture if you had no idea how rice is grown. If you did not know rice requires water paddies (which are communal by nature), or the fact that until the 1970s it could not be mechanized, and if you did not have other specific, mundane, on-the-ground factual knowledge, you would be confused. You would not grasp why people did things the way they did. You would come up with outlandish theories to explain behavior that is no mystery to someone who knows how people grow rice. This goes for history and many other subjects, and also experimental science, much more than theoretical science. Knowing how calorimeters work -- and how they fail -- gives you insight into what is taking so long in cold fusion. In Italy, someone asked Mike McKubre why don't you look for helium more often? He said: Because you have to seal the cell perfectly and leave it sealed for weeks, and the day after you seal it, a wire breaks. I can relate to that! It is much more demanding than regular closed cell electrochemistry -- which is demanding enough. That's one of the reasons Miles used the method of capturing effluent gas for a relatively short period of time. (Incidentally, if you want to learn a lot about how rice was grown traditionally in Japan, see the movie Seven Samurai. It is gift of future undergrad anthropologists. It is probably the most authentic portrayal of pre-modern Japanese agriculture ever made, or that ever will be made, because those people in 1954 still had one foot in the pre-modern era.) - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
History of Science Controversy in Chemistry: How Do You Prove a Negative?The Cases of Phlogiston and Cold Fusion** Jay A. Labinger* and Stephen J. Weininger* http://www.uaf.edu/chem/481-482-692-Sp06/pdf/labinger-1.pdf I think this article deserves a closer look. It relies heavily on Simon, a very good source. It's also possible to misinterpret Simon, I've seen that on Wikipedia. For our second study we have again chosen two stories that appear to be about as disparate as one could possibly arrange. One, the overthrow of the theory of phlogiston, dates from the origins of modern chemistry, and is now universally considered a central development therein. The other, the cold fusion episode, is only 15 years old, and is now generally (though by no means universally) considered as just a stumble in the long historical march of chemistry. Why have we paired them? Because we feel that, as with the previous study, closer examination reveals certain connections that are instructive for a general understanding of how controversies play out and, in doing so, serve as a powerful engine for the advancement of science. The question of what counts as evidence is important here as well, but we will focus in particular on the persistence of belief, associated with the difficulty of demonstrating the non-existence of a theoretical or hypothetical entity. This was written in 2004, before the DoE review came out, which they anticipate. Certainly it was true, then, and possibly now -- though far less clear -- that CF was considered a stumble. In fact, don't we agree on that? We just have, perhaps, a different understanding of exactly what the stumble was. Many sources have, in fact, regretted what happened in 1989-1990, with even skeptics acknowledging that the reaction to CF was exaggerated and even believers acknowledging that Pons and Fleischmann had made mistakes. Nobody currently thinks that that first press conference was a great idea. But, seriously, were the attorney's wrong to insist upon it? Yes, it turned out to be an error, but based on the knowledge that they had at the time, was it? Pons and Fleischmann were hot on the trail of a tiger, and it looked like they might have it by the tail. But even though they saw the tiger, and were able to record some of its characteristics, it got away. The attention, however, caused many to start looking for tigers where nobody had looked before. It's easy to imagine that the attorneys, and PF, though that with more funding, which did arrive as a result of the announcement, they'd soon have the tiger in a cage. It was a gamble, in hindsight, and even when a gamble is a good bet, it's still a gamble and can fail. I read this symmetrically, whether the authors intended that or not. The persistence of belief is a real phenomenon that affects scientists as well as others. Everyone, really, for persistence of belief is necessary to a degree. It is only when we lose context and mistake belief for evidence and proof that we go astray. Proofs are based on assumptions, and assumptions can be incorrect. Certainly that is what happened with cold fusion and the theory used to reject it. Theory was applied outside the realm where it was well-established, on the margins. Imagine if somehow relativistic phenomena had been overlooked, so Newtonian mechanics reigned supreme. Then, as would be inevitable, eventually, some experiments moved into the realm where relativistic effects would be measurable. And it was found that measured acceleration no longer was equal to force divided by mass. It would be pointed out, it's easy to understand, that this violated the law of conservation of energy, a law that, by that time, would be thoroughly well-established. But it doesn't violate that law; the assumption of violation would be based on assumptions proceeding from experience at lower velocities. It was known that quantum mechanics was an approximation, but had it been proven that the approximation was adequate to predict fusion cross-section under all the different possible conditions in condensed matter, which might involve configurations of matter not even contemplated? Had anyone ever calculated, using quantum field theory, what would happen under various conditions of confinement of multiple deuterons? I don't think that happened until the 1990s. And the results were different than expected, and confirmed, as a possibility, what Fleischmann had observed. This theory is still not demonstrated to be the mechanism behind cold fusion, but I raise it to show the reason why theory should lead to caution, but should not completely trump experiment, ever. The application of theories is based on assumptions, and we don't know what causes experimental results until we have much more information than we may initially have. What PF found looked, to them, like deuterium fusion. But it did not have the stripes of
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: I think this article deserves a closer look. It relies heavily on Simon, a very good source. I *loath* Simon's book. Hate it, hate it, hate it! He looks at people's opinions and counts papers instead of evaluating calorimetry. Meta-analyses are mostly bunk, and they are complete bunk when the experimental evidence itself is clear cut, and in some cases a single experiment produces definitive, stand alone proof. Simon reminds me of Lord Dorwin in Foundation: . . . Why not go to Arcturus and study the remains for yourself?’ Lord Dorwin raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. ‘Why, whatevah foah, my deah fellow?’ ‘To get the information firsthand, of course.’ ‘But wheah's the necessity? It seems an uncommonly woundabout and hopelessly wigmawolish method of getting anywheahs. Look heah now, I’ve got the wuhks of the mastahs -- the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I weigh them against each othah -- balance of the disagweements -- analyze the conflicting statements -- decide which is pwobably cowwect -- and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method.. . . Certainly it was true, then, and possibly now -- though far less clear -- that CF was considered a stumble. In fact, don't we agree on that? No me. I agree with Fleischmann's view expressed on the day of the press conference: they were doomed. They would surely be driven out of the university. Their enemies had it in for them from day one, and they were determined to destroy reputations, derail and suppress the research. Even if some small portion of the blame was Fleischmann and Pons', and they stumbled for not revealing more early on, they were more sinned against than sinning. Nobody currently thinks that that first press conference was a great idea. I see nothing wrong with it. Look at the video. They made no unreasonable or unsupported assertions. It was sober and level headed. Everything they claimed was proved to be true within a year. The discovery was important, and not to hold a press conference for something of this magnitude would be absurd. Scientists in any other field would have held a press conference. The plasma fusion scientists hold them for trivial accomplishments that everyone knew they would accomplish months earlier, and they hold these press conferences long before they publish a paper -- not on the day the paper comes out. The people who criticize the press conference are hypocritical or ignorant. - Jed
