Lennart Thornros <lenn...@thornros.com> wrote:
> Let us leave the dispute about organizations. > I actually started to address the topic in the headline by saying: > The debate about global warming is far from conclusive. I do not know the > answer. > You do not know the answer, but experts in climatology say they do know it. They are probably right. Non-experts from outside a field -- such as the plasma fusion scientists who attacked cold fusion -- are usually wrong. You probably know next to nothing about climatology, because it is a complex subject. Therefore you have no basis to judge whether these experts are right or wrong. I know nothing about climatology so I have no basis to judge either. But as I said, as a general rule mainstream experts in hard science who have devoted years to research are usually right, so I defer to them. I am sure that the comments by anti-global warming journalists are preposterous. I know enough about the subject to judge that. For example, they often say that we cannot even predict the weather 5 days ahead so how could anyone predict climate change decades from now. This is like saying that we cannot predict whether you will be alive tomorrow so how can anyone draw up actuarial tables for groups of people? It is presumptuous for anyone to assume they understand climatology better than climatologists, or cold fusion better than Fleischmann, Bockris or McKubre. Even in 1989 I found it infuriating when people such as George Chapline (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and Morrison claimed that Fleischmann did not realize that highly loaded palladium hydrides release hydrogen when recombines at the surface, making the metal hot. It was used as a cigarette lighter in the 19th century. By the way, what I am saying NOT -- repeat not -- a Fallacious Appeal to Authority. That would only be the case if Fleischmann was not a leading expert on electrochemistry and calorimetry, and he unquestionably was. See: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html Most people attacking cold fusion and climatology suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. Especially the idiots at Scientific American and Wikipedia. Here is an amusing short description of the Dunning-Kruger effect by John Cleese. (Cleese teaches at Cornell University which is how knows Prof. Dunning.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWX8pl9B1Hk - Jed
