Gotta run. I'll catch up in 3 or 4 days. Don't take my absence as a concession. JC
On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> Well, it is if an experiment can be easily designed to make such >> suspicions impossible. As would be the case here, if the claims were true. >> > > Seriously, It is nearly impossible to design a demonstration that will > eliminate all suspicions, in all people. Some people, such as Robert Park, > simply will not believe a claim, no matter how much evidence you present. > Even if Park were to attend a first-rate demonstration of the Rossi device, > one that addresses all of the issues raised here, he would refuse to believe > it. He would make up other objections. I mean it when I say that people can > make up unlimited numbers of reasons to dismiss a finding. > > The scientific method demands that an arbitrary limit be placed on > objections. It is a matter of opinion how much proof is needed, and how many > objections should be met, but you cannot leave the question undecided > indefinitely. Do that, and no question will be settled, nothing will ever be > ready for the textbooks, and research will not proceed to the next step. I > am not saying that Rossi has met that limit. He is far from it! But you > cannot keep moving the goalposts and asking for more and more proof, and is > your standard is: "Are the skeptics satisfied? Does anyone still have > doubts?" then you will keep moving the goalposts indefinitely. > > Many people still dispute special relativity. That's fine. They have every > right to do that. But we should not expect physicists to keep repeating > experiments that demonstrate the effect of gravity on time, for instance, > just to satisfy these skeptics. The physicists have other things to do. > > Cold fusion researchers should not be forced to do boil off experiments > again and again just because the latest crop of nitwits in Wikipedia are > unaware of the steps taken to ensure that unboiled water did not leave the > cells at Toyota and the French AEC. > > > Just to clarify, Stephen Lawrence is correct. I meant you do not have to > trust Rossi. You do have to trust Levi, Celani and Dufour and some other > people. They might be conspiring together to fool us. If they can keep a > secret, it would be easy for them to fool us. I have no actual proof that > the demonstration even took place. The video might have been staged, and the > data invented out of whole cloth. If you think that Levi, Celani and the > others might do such a thing, then you have no reason to believe any of this > is true. I doubt they would, because it would be out of character, and there > does not seem to be a motive. > > - Jed > >
