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 the general blackout. And new findings
continued. The variety of these findings, in itself, is somewhat a
part of the problem, there is an assumption on the skeptical side
that if CF is real, there would be only one effect, only one pathway,
only one reaction, with consistent behavior.
One more unwarranted assumption. The nuclear behavior of matter in
the environment of deuterium confinement in a metal lattice had never
been adequately studied; it had been assumed to be irrelevant, and
phenomena that contradicted this were assumed to be simply
unexplained variables, the kinds of odd incidents that never find
explanations. Maybe a bad capacitor.... or some other unusual
condition, electromagnetic noise affecting circuitry, etc. You know
Mizuno's reports, of course. Apparently there were others as well.
Many scientists who should have known better were fooled. Why?
Could be wishful thinking! Only reversed. Much more convenient for
their "expertise" if CF were all a big mistake.
Let me put it this way: if a scientist is willing to think that
another scientist, with credentials, training, etc., is affected by
"wishful thinking," then, rationally, he or she should recognize that
his or her own opinions and reactions might be so conditioned. Sauce
for the goose....
In any case, might as well say this here:
If the alleged failure to brew cups of tea is thought to be
significant, how many cups of tea have been brewed by the hot fusion research?
I'm tempted to make a little plastic pouch so I could put some tea
and some water in it, crank up the juice on one of my cells, and brew
the tea with it. That's how silly that demand is. Of course, I can
brew the tea. Is it excess energy? Well, I'd have to measure that,
right? The tea itself would prove *nothing*. The way to show excess
heat is by calorimetry, until the quantities are so large and so
consistent that one can create some practical benefit. Which takes a
high Q factor for most applications. Hot fusion, 0. Cold fusion has
actually led to much higher Q factors than hot fusion.
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.
That may apply to Labinger. Not to Simon.
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.)
Nice.
