[Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory
Jed, You might enjoy the following article from Times OnLine: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6936352.ece http://tinyurl.com/ycq7w86 Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
[Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Steven Vincent Johnson sez: Jed, You might enjoy the following article from Times OnLine: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6936352.ece http://tinyurl.com/ycq7w86 Oh dear! I just HAVE to share one of the comments made by a disgruntled reader: Luis Dos Santos wrote: --- Being grown on a dish does not remove it from it's biological origins having been acquired from an animal... Metaphysically will continue to be an extension of the donor, and give for very warped outcomes in post biological existence/after life. There is more to our actions than the apparent immediate infliction of pain, suffering, and terror... The entanglement of our conscience, ourselves in Eternal Time, and of those we have taken upon to abuse. This Frankenstein programs have no acceptability to genuine Animal Welfare organizations, nor any a Vegan Conscience, but feel good cash and carry deceptions like PETA created for no more than the continuance of the beastly status quo humanity finds itself in. The Original Crime, the Cardinal error, of our forefathers perpetuated over and over and over in growing blind ignorance claiming knowledge only too defective and short on understanding. --- As you can see, there is likely to be some resistance (including metaphysical ones) to the notion of eating meat protein grown in a test tube. Nevertheless, I agree with Jed in the sense that this new form of protein farming is coming. In the past I have debated Jed on whether they would ever be able to get it to taste as authentic as bush meat, but who knows. Maybe Jed is right, and they eventually will. In any case, the technology is inevitable, and it's probably a good thing. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Unless they artifically work the muscles, it will likely be similar to veal, softer, less gamey meat. IE, higher quality to most peoples' palates. as for the metaphysical resistance. What a maroon. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 10:50 AM, OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson svj.orionwo...@gmail.com wrote: Steven Vincent Johnson sez: Jed, You might enjoy the following article from Times OnLine: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6936352.ece http://tinyurl.com/ycq7w86 Oh dear! I just HAVE to share one of the comments made by a disgruntled reader: Luis Dos Santos wrote: --- Being grown on a dish does not remove it from it's biological origins having been acquired from an animal... Metaphysically will continue to be an extension of the donor, and give for very warped outcomes in post biological existence/after life. There is more to our actions than the apparent immediate infliction of pain, suffering, and terror... The entanglement of our conscience, ourselves in Eternal Time, and of those we have taken upon to abuse. This Frankenstein programs have no acceptability to genuine Animal Welfare organizations, nor any a Vegan Conscience, but feel good cash and carry deceptions like PETA created for no more than the continuance of the beastly status quo humanity finds itself in. The Original Crime, the Cardinal error, of our forefathers perpetuated over and over and over in growing blind ignorance claiming knowledge only too defective and short on understanding. --- As you can see, there is likely to be some resistance (including metaphysical ones) to the notion of eating meat protein grown in a test tube. Nevertheless, I agree with Jed in the sense that this new form of protein farming is coming. In the past I have debated Jed on whether they would ever be able to get it to taste as authentic as bush meat, but who knows. Maybe Jed is right, and they eventually will. In any case, the technology is inevitable, and it's probably a good thing. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Alexander Hollins wrote: Unless they artifically work the muscles, it will likely be similar to veal, softer, less gamey meat. IE, higher quality to most peoples' palates. I read somewhere that they do work the muscles, and if they do not it comes out like mush rather than meat. I expect they will eventually learn how to make the stuff as soft or hard as the customers demand, with a range of different varieties for pot roast or filet mignon. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Steven V Johnson quoted someone: Being grown on a dish does not remove it from it's biological origins having been acquired from an animal... Metaphysically will continue to be an extension of the donor, and give for very warped outcomes in post biological existence/after life. . . . I love it! Just imagine what this guy will say when meat from the cells of homo sapiens comes on the market. I think that is inevitable. See Arthur C. Clarke's short story, Food of the Gods. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Jed sez: ... Just imagine what this guy will say when meat from the cells of homo sapiens comes on the market. I think that is inevitable. See Arthur C. Clarke's short story, Food of the Gods. aka long pork. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/long_pork Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Jed sez: Just imagine what this guy will say when meat from the cells of homo sapiens comes on the market. I think that is inevitable. See Arthur C. Clarke's short story, Food of the Gods. I must confess that my first reaction was one of revulsion. Me??? A practicing cannibal That’s my cultural bias showing through. Besides ACC, Heinlein attacked the issue of cannibalism head on in his classic novel “Stranger in A Strange Land” – and with a tad of humor. Heinlein also grappled with cannibalism in Door into Summer - on a much more sinister scale. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Yeah, I commented before reading the article, my bad. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Alexander Hollins wrote: Unless they artifically work the muscles, it will likely be similar to veal, softer, less gamey meat. IE, higher quality to most peoples' palates. I read somewhere that they do work the muscles, and if they do not it comes out like mush rather than meat. I expect they will eventually learn how to make the stuff as soft or hard as the customers demand, with a range of different varieties for pot roast or filet mignon. - Jed
[Vo]:Barnhart article remains popular
People have downloaded ~600 copies of the Barnhart article. It has not taken off abruptly but it is consistently popular. This is partly because I have it featured on the front page. But other papers on the front page are not as popular. I hope it is having a quiet yet pervasive effect. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
This is rather scary. If they can do pig, could long pig be far behind? Soilent is... R.
RE: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Rick Monteverde wrote: This is rather scary. If they can do pig, could long pig be far behind? Seriously, so what? I honestly don't find anything scary about it. I admit I might hesitate to try the stuff myself. But I am not an adventurous eater. I do not see any moral problem with this, or anything frightening. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
agreed. even better, that same technology would mean growing replacement meat, skin and wait for it ORGANS! and remember, its boil a bicep, fry an organ. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Rick Monteverde wrote: This is rather scary. If they can do pig, could long pig be far behind? Seriously, so what? I honestly don't find anything scary about it. I admit I might hesitate to try the stuff myself. But I am not an adventurous eater. I do not see any moral problem with this, or anything frightening. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Jed sez Seriously, so what? I honestly don't find anything scary about it. I admit I might hesitate to try the stuff myself. But I am not an adventurous eater. I'm curious. Why do you suspect you might hesitate to sample it? Is it still a cultural issue, like it might be for me? Do you suspect there might be some part of your psyche that still believes it would be like eating people, like in the classic film, Soylent Green? I suspect it would be for me. For you, I assume it not an issue of taste since we've all been told since childhood that long-pig tastes like pork. ...Not chicken. I wonder if our species might have acquired a genetic predisposition NOT to eat our own kind unless there are no other options left for getting protein. Evolution wise, I wonder if it played out that eating your own species on a regular basis turned out to be, more often than not, destabilizing to the overall cohesiveness of the group. I could buy that as a rationalization. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Alexander Hollins wrote: agreed. even better, that same technology would mean growing replacement meat, skin and wait for it ORGANS! And it doesn't stop there. As Jon Stewart recently pointed out, your organs can organize against you. They conspire against you! See: The 11/3 Project http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-5-2009/the-11-3-projecthttp://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-5-2009/the-11-3-project - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
There are cultures where, at a certain age, the elderly are ritually killed, and served up to their tribe. NOT eating your dear aunt was considered dreadfully insulting to her spirit. Very tight family dynamics. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:40 PM, OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson svj.orionwo...@gmail.com wrote: Jed sez Seriously, so what? I honestly don't find anything scary about it. I admit I might hesitate to try the stuff myself. But I am not an adventurous eater. I'm curious. Why do you suspect you might hesitate to sample it? Is it still a cultural issue, like it might be for me? Do you suspect there might be some part of your psyche that still believes it would be like eating people, like in the classic film, Soylent Green? I suspect it would be for me. For you, I assume it not an issue of taste since we've all been told since childhood that long-pig tastes like pork. ...Not chicken. I wonder if our species might have acquired a genetic predisposition NOT to eat our own kind unless there are no other options left for getting protein. Evolution wise, I wonder if it played out that eating your own species on a regular basis turned out to be, more often than not, destabilizing to the overall cohesiveness of the group. I could buy that as a rationalization. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
RE: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
You are flashing on the foodstuff known as 'Soylent green' correct? Tagline :) It's the year 2022... People are still the same. They'll do anything to get what they need. And they need SOYLENT GREEN. -Original Message- From: Rick Monteverde This is rather scary. If they can do pig, could long pig be far behind? Soilent is... R.
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Hollins sez: There are cultures where, at a certain age, the elderly are ritually killed, and served up to their tribe. NOT eating your dear aunt was considered dreadfully insulting to her spirit. Very tight family dynamics. They must have read Stranger in a Strange Land. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Steven V Johnson wrote: I'm curious. Why do you suspect you might hesitate to sample it? Is it still a cultural issue, like it might be for me? Do you suspect there might be some part of your psyche that still believes it would be like eating people . . . Maybe slightly, but I tend to have a cold blooded, clinical attitude toward such things. I would hesitate mainly because I am squeamish about new foods. (Not as bad as Peter Hagelstein, who wanted to eat nothing but McDonald's food in Japan, until I introduced him to Japanese fast food such as yakitori.) I would never eat blowfish. Every year people die from it in Japan. I don't care how good it supposedly tastes. As Dave Barry said: Clearly this is a fish that Mother Nature is telling us we should leave the hell under water, but to the Japanese it is a great delicacy. I wonder if our species might have acquired a genetic predisposition NOT to eat our own kind unless there are no other options left for getting protein. Evolution wise, I wonder if it played out that eating your own species on a regular basis turned out to be, more often than not, destabilizing to the overall cohesiveness of the group. There is some debate about that. Many species are cannibalistic. Usually with intelligent mammals it is a form of infanticide, especially by a male that chases off another and takes over a troop. I think this has been observed with several species, especially lions and chimpanzees. Chimpanzee cannibalism is rare according to some sources. On the other hand, at a lecture I saw photos of chimpanzees killed in territorial disputes that had been found with parts eaten out of them, and bite marks. That's probably ritualistic. Chimpanzees love to eat other primates, so evidently primates like the taste of primates, and we probably would too. Chimpanzee and other primate meat is popular (among people) in Africa. That's terrible, because many of them are endangered. Among domesticated animals, pigs love to eat pork, and dogs will readily eat dogs. The first person to reach the South Pole, Amundsen, managed to do it partly by shooting and feeding sledge dogs to other dogs as the supplies were used up. He was later criticized for this. It seemed inhuman. He was an effective explorer, interested in succeeding swiftly at minimal risk. (To humans.) Cannibalism among humans is a complicated and nuanced subject. It is practiced today only in religious ceremonies, as a way of expressing love for the dead. Doctors are trying to discourage this because it may cause Creutzfeld Jacob disease (spongiform encephalopathy). They are trying to ensure that people eat only ash, which is also a custom, and I think more widespread. In European countries, this is only practiced in a purely ritualistic imaginary fashion, in the Catholic Church rite of transubstantiation. I do not recall any other examples of pretend ritualistic cannibalism, but I expect there are some. In anthropology you soon learn there is nothing people have not done, and just about every behavior is criminal in some societies and heroic in others. Someone once remarked that a motorcycle gang would be celebrated in a Bronze Age heroic saga. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
On 12/01/2009 03:56 PM, Alexander Hollins wrote: There are cultures where, at a certain age, the elderly are ritually killed, and served up to their tribe. NOT eating your dear aunt was considered dreadfully insulting to her spirit. Very tight family dynamics. Right -- google kuru for one outcome of these 'tight dynamics'. There are good reasons for not doing this kind of thing. Hopefully meat from a vat would be safer, but it's still going to be the usual meaty cholesterol bomb (assuming it has enough fat marbled in it to provide good flavor and good mouth feel). And, of course, well-marbled meat is wicked calorie dense (which is one reason it tastes so good), which makes it very easy to pack on the pounds by eating it. Humans don't do so well on a high-meat diet. Heart disease is probably the most widespread entirely avoidable disease in human history. Life expectancy in the U.S. is actually starting to *drop* for what I believe is the first time in history, apparently as a result of the heart disease and obesity epidemic. So, pardon me if I don't cheer too loudly for something which may reduce the price of too-rich food even farther than its current dirt-cheap level.
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Alexander Hollins wrote: There are cultures where, at a certain age, the elderly are ritually killed, and served up to their tribe. Oh come now. I have never heard that before! Which tribes? NOT eating your dear aunt was considered dreadfully insulting to her spirit. As I mentioned, this is a is funeral ritual, especially for dead children as I recall. In the photos I have seen people just eat a little ash. Not roast leg of baby. See: J. Swift, A Modest Proposal - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
On 12/01/2009 04:25 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Chimpanzees love to eat other primates, so evidently primates like the taste of primates, and we probably would too. Chimpanzee and other primate meat is popular (among people) in Africa. That's terrible, because many of them are endangered. It also may have been the origin of HIV. As far as I know, the bush-meat scenario hasn't been ruled out. The virus apparently jumped from other primates to humans somehow, in Africa, around 1950, and ingestion seems like a very plausible route for it to have taken. Another possibility was Polio vaccine, which was grown on monkey kidneys. However, after lengthy debate and a lot of delay, the oldest samples of polio vaccine were cracked open and tested, and they were clean -- no HIV. So, as far as I know, that leaves bush meat as the most likely remaining hypothesis.
[Vo]:Cold Fusion Nuclear Reactions Draft #14
My paper Cold Fusion Nuclear Reactions is now at Draft #14 status. I have added an improved review of just what deflation fusion is at the beginning, because I seem to not have done a good job of describing that clearly. Any critique appreciated. http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf http://tinyurl.com/yb4wor9 Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Are you sure that wasn't an episode of Better off Ted? On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Alexander Hollins wrote: Unless they artifically work the muscles, it will likely be similar to veal, softer, less gamey meat. IE, higher quality to most peoples' palates. I read somewhere that they do work the muscles, and if they do not it comes out like mush rather than meat. I expect they will eventually learn how to make the stuff as soft or hard as the customers demand, with a range of different varieties for pot roast or filet mignon. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Hey, Bob was never above stealing from human cultures, heh. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 2:02 PM, OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson svj.orionwo...@gmail.com wrote: Hollins sez: There are cultures where, at a certain age, the elderly are ritually killed, and served up to their tribe. NOT eating your dear aunt was considered dreadfully insulting to her spirit. Very tight family dynamics. They must have read Stranger in a Strange Land. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:OT: Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory (Follow-up)
Jed sed: I read somewhere that they do work the muscles, and if they do not it comes out like mush rather than meat. Are you sure that wasn't an episode of Better off Ted? On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Alexander Hollins wrote: Unless they artifically work the muscles, it will likely be similar to veal, softer, less gamey meat. IE, higher quality to most peoples' palates. I read somewhere that they do work the muscles, and if they do not it comes out like mush rather than meat. I expect they will eventually learn how to make the stuff as soft or hard as the customers demand, with a range of different varieties for pot roast or filet mignon. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Cold Fusion Nuclear Reactions Draft #14
Gets better and better. Quick question - since you tying up a lot of loose ends and adding a lot of reference material - why does the Oppenheimer-Phillips effect not qualify for mention? Well, aside from the obvious answer - that deuterium stripping is not necessarily a fusion reaction, although it is clearly LENR - and from the title of the paper, you are specifically looking at cold fusion. I suppose that technically the most common example of O-P is the kind of transmutation where a host takes on a neutron and becomes a different isotope -- which then may or may not be stable ... so there can be no fusion nor fission, and possibly little excess energy. That makes it infinitely harder to discover, without sophisticated equipment. OTOH it could be the most common type of LENR due to the low threshold. And it does lead to helium in many cases, but without the high energy photon of fusion. In thinking about this recently - at least from the standpoint of a quark explanation, or at least of quark-statistics possibly being involved at a fundamental level, the O-P reaction seemed to be the easiest way to possibly test such a hypothesis. Yes, there could a way to test it. That is a bit of teaser, but the details of this need to be looked into a bit further, before mentioning it as a serious proposition. Jones -Original Message- From: Horace Heffner My paper Cold Fusion Nuclear Reactions is now at Draft #14 status. I have added an improved review of just what deflation fusion is at the beginning, because I seem to not have done a good job of describing that clearly. Any critique appreciated. http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf http://tinyurl.com/yb4wor9 Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
[Vo]:Nissan Leaf
Nissan is experimenting with an inductive charging system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrNmplhx7agannotation_id=annotation_982657feature=iv http://tinyurl.com/ycdr7kc Terry
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
At 06:01 PM 11/30/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Simon is a *sociologist,* Jed, not a chemist or physicist. Opinions (especially collective opinions) and process are what the book is about, not cold fusion. Or calorimetry. 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. Anyway, I also disagree with Simon with regard to opinions and philosophy of science. It's a sociological study, Jed, not a book on physics or chemistry or calorimetry. It's quite clear that Simon is sympathetic to cold fusion, but his obligation as a sociologist is to stay away from that. I'd suggest that you get more specific about what you disagree with. I've reviewed what Simon writes about calorimetry. His treatment is highly favorable to cold fusion, while still attempting to describe the criticisms. Reading Simon, the criticisms seem weak and unfair. Simon's goal, though, is not to lead the reader to a conclusion about cold fusion itself, but to an understanding of the social dynamic involved. So, Jed, what's your problem with Simon's treatment of calorimetry? Is it your position, Jed, that the press conference was beyond any reproach? Not a mistake? I do not think it was a mistake. I think it was necessary to call a press conference. They did the best they could, and I doubt anyone could have done a better job. That's highly unlikely, Jed. *Somebody* might have done better, almost certainly. That isn't the same as to say they did a bad job. But I haven't reviewed that original press conference recently. What seems to be more of a problem than the press conference is the neutron report, as well as some difficulties in reporting the neutrons. When you become as visible as they became, in the presence of such controversy, every action will receive close scrutiny. The standards are different, mistakes are less easily forgiven. These people were on the losing side of history. They were doomed, as Fleischmann well knew. Perhaps. Perhaps mistakes they made allowed the other side, with certain tactical and political advantages, to prevail. Simon covers all this quite well, I'd say. Compare Simon to Charles Sefe, Sun in a Bottle. Sefe, again and again, doesn't get the science right. He misunderstands the meaning of breakeven, and makes the mistake over and over and over, really irritating. Sefe does acknowledge an ongoing controversy, but fails to present the evidence on the cold fusion side, completely missing most of the major points, misunderstanding the rest. He ascribes positive press reports to: Reporters seem genetically predisposed to take the side of the underdog So he's set up that background in reporting the esteemed science journallist Sharon Begley, quoting her, Cold fusion today is a prime example of pathological science, but not because its adherents are delusional The real pathology is the breakdown of the normal channels of scientific communication, with no scientists outside the tight-knit cold-fusion tribe bothering to scrutinize its claims. Of course, this was in 2003. It was never really true, but the *attitude* was everywhere that it was true. Sefe dismisses the 2004 DoE panel as have many others: The conclusions were much the same as they had been a decade and a half earlier. Which is preposterous, if you actually read and compare the two reports, they are like night and day. That much the same comment is a summarizing comment by the DoE bureaucrat putting the report together, and was not by the review panel itself; the similarity was in the recommendation regarding research, not in attitude toward the science. Even with the presence of some reviewers who were clearly prejudiced from the outset against cold fusion, and not willing to examine the evidence, and with all the errors in the report (such as the drastically mangled reporting of the heat/helium results, the most conclusive evidence for fusion present up to that time), the panel still came to an even division on the question of anomalous heat, with one-third somewhat convinced that it was nuclear in origin. Today, with the SPAWAR neutron results, that last number would be still higher, and if the heat/helium results had been given due consideration, it should have been higher in 2004. The heat/helium ratio, found across multiple reports, validates both the heat and helium measurements, and helium found in this way, being a nuclear ash, is just as convincing as neutrons, because helium would come from a neutron-free reaction, leaving only one problem, the missing gamma, which Takahashi seems to have handily explained; it's not d-d fusion at all, not directly. If he's right. Simon covers the heat/helium controversy quite well. I don't think it's possible to read Simon
Re: [Vo]:Labinger paper, more detailed commentary.
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
