At 06:30 PM 3/26/2010, Michel Jullian wrote:
2010/3/26 Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>:
> Michel Jullian wrote:
>
>> > So, you would not believe the Wright brothers unless they let you fly
>> > their
>> > airplane?
>>
>> A better analogy is that I would not believe them unless I saw them
>> flying it with my own eyes.
>
> If that is what you want, you should be satisfied with Rob Duncan going out
> to see the calorimeter at Energetics Technology. He is an expert, much
> better at determining whether it is working than you or I would be.
Eyes stand for calorimeter (or more exactly energy balance measurement
system) in my analogy . Duncan didn't bring in his own measurement
system so he didn't see the excess heat for himself.
Six of one and a half dozen of the other, please.
Rothwell is correct because the general work of Energetics Technology
has been verified by others, and Duncan was able to inspect the
equipment, operating cells, and experimental data.
Jullian is correct that Duncan's observations would not be enough to
rule out fraud.
If we assume no fraud, which is always where we should start, though
fraud should remain a background possibility until replications are
completely independent, the significance of Duncan's investigation is
that, looking at the data ET had collected, and at their experimental
setups and operation, he concluded that what they conclude from it is
also what he concludes from it. So, absent fraud, we have a set of
experiments showing excess heat. Significant excesss heat, not some
marginal amount that raises issues about accuracy of calorimetry.
Given that this is no longer any surprise, that hundreds of research
groups have independently found excess heat in the palladium
deuteride system, and, frosting on the cake, with lit birthday
candles, helium is found by multiple studies to be correlated with
the excess heat, when helium is also collected and measured, at a
significant value close to the figure for deuterium to helium
conversion, the only importance to Duncan's confirmation is:
(1) a skeptical (but not dead yet!) prominent physicist was impressed
and is now actively encouraging more research.
(2) Energetics' numbers reflect their experimental data. They are
unlikely to be the result of some stupid mistake.
Fraud remains a possibility, in theory, because a fraudster might be
motivated to exaggerate results to gain more funding for continued
research. It's happened. But given who Dardik is and his history,
it's extremely unlikely. (If you look at the history of his
celebrated delicensing in New York, there was no fraud found, and it
appears that the result was simply from a board view that his
unorthodox approach was quackery, at a time when New York was
cracking down on this. He had, and has, a lot of very satisfied
patients, and where do you think the ET funding came from?
Pass-the-hat donations at Quacks Anonymous? Fleeced patients? No, one
very satisfied and very wealthy patient. Definitely, his approach is
unorthodox, but it's simply conceptually different, and he makes no
scientific claims that I've seen. I'd love to see controlled research
on it, but it would be, as with many such things, very difficult.
Suppose someone could talk to you and change your attitude? Could
this affect your health? Most of us would be likely to say, yes, at
least in some circumstances, it could. Okay, prove it with controlled
research! It's not completely impossible, but also not easy, and
Dardik isn't interested, nor would I be, in his shoes. Is his concept
of waves responsible for ET's relative success? Maybe. The concept is
not outrageous, and could result in new approaches in many situations
that would, sometimes, work. It's not a rigid theory of causation, as
far as I've seen.)
