On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 10:24 PM, Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Not totally wrong, just wrongly interpreted. >> > > Then you should help the laymen and failed scientists here interpret the > misinterpreted evidentiary record -- specifically, you should focus your > energy on specific details of specific experiments. Keeping your argument > at such a general level will only impress those already committed to the > idea that cold fusion is nonsense. >
Thank you for your kind advice. But, for better or worse, I mainly respond to arguments I see posted. So, the response to Hagelstein was general, because his arguments were general. And it wasn't so much an argument against cold fusion as an argument in defense of science. He, like so many cold fusion advocates, argued that science suppresses new knowledge, when of course, science is where new knowledge comes from. His arguments simply don't reflect reality, and my main goal was to argue that point. As for the line you quoted above, that was in response to Storms stating my general position. I simply corrected it. It's not possible in every paragraph to identify every flaw in cold fusion. > > >> Don't be silly. The field is already dead. No one cares anymore. The >> credit of which you speak has already been handed out to Koonin and Lewis >> and Huizenga and others. >> > > However the final story plays out, I suspect these guys will be seen as > having been overzealous in their attempts to enforce their view and as a > result having lacked sufficient objectivity to make the claims they were > making. > What makes you think that? They are certainly not seen as overzealous now, except by true believers. If it plays out in such a way that there are no true believers left, there is no reason to think *anyone* will regard them as having been overzealous. > > >> It's caught my interest. Other people become experts at video games; I've >> gotten similarly addicted to cold fusion debunking. >> > > If you're going to debunk, you should hone your skill and zoom in on > specific details. I recommend reading some of David Kidwell's papers. He > does a great service to us true believers by suffering our incompetence and > speaking on our level rather than tossing about vague generalities. > Again, thank you. But, as you may or may not know, these are not the first posts I have made on the subject. I have engaged in highly specific discussions about a great many aspects of cold fusion, both here and in ecatnews (now wavewatching.net/fringe) writing as popeye, and elsewhere. But I'm not entirely sure that specific criticism is always more effective. Many true believers simply don't read detailed arguments. After all, if you look at a site like e-catworld, it is evident that most of them become believers because of who else believes. And the favorite argument in favor is the many peer-reviewed papers and the many scientists that claim excess heat. A very simple counter to that is that nearly all of the papers are from the 90s, and that in the last decade there are only a few (less than 5) papers in mainstream refereed journals claiming excess heat, and they only claim about a watt or so of excess power. That basically there has been no progress in 24 years. In any case, I did not re-appear here for detailed cold fusion discussions, because it's very clear in the mandate that this is a believer site, and that's fine. I escaped the mass banning a year ago, because I was on self-imposed abstinence for exactly that reason. I re-appeared here now (briefly) because I thought the response to Hagelstein was more about science than cold fusion. Since it had been so highly praised, I thought a contrary view expressed here was worthwhile, and did not violate the believer mandate, because I think a true believer does not have to subscribe to a conspiracy theory. The trigger though was Storms' post about tunneling. I thought that should be corrected, and so while here, I put up the Hagelstein response. Of course, I can't resist direct responses, so I have sunk into a little cold fusion banter with Rothwell. Nothing new though. We've covered the identical ground several times already.
