Kevin O'Malley <[email protected]> wrote: 1. Most of them are positive. > ***Yeah, probably. But that's not really quite enough for the average > rational skeptic. >
It should be enough. Quibbling over the exact number is senseless. Such debates have no bearing on experimental science. > 2. Many others are not reported. > ***That's an invalid argument from silence. > But it is a fact. > 3. There have been plenty of others after that. > ***I agree, but where are they? Where is the definitive list of > replications? > There is no definitive list. There is no central clearinghouse for cold fusion. It is a bunch of elderly scientists working on their own. Why should they report the numbers to anyone? Who would believe it even if they did? > 4. Even 1 positive result proves beyond question that Cude is full of shit. > ***Jed, I can't find your article on lenr-canr.org that outlines the > difference between pseudoscience and real science results. > Not sure what you mean. > In effect, it says that pseudosciences like polywater were replicated > less than about 10 times. 1 positive result doesn't cut it. > I did not mean that literally. Anyone who glances at the literature can see that cold fusion has been replicated thousands of times in hundreds of labs. I meant that Cude refuses to look at definitive results from Fleischmann, Storms, McKubre, Miles and other. Let him demonstrate one error in one paper by any of those authors and we will have some reason to take him seriously. He has not done that. No skeptic ever has or ever will. You should ignore all of them. > 5. This entire discussion is ridiculous. Who cares exactly how many? > ***Ordinary skeptics care. > If they care about this, they do not understand the first thing about experimental science or the meaning & significance of replication. > They want definitive evidence, even if it's only 153 peer-reviewed > replications. > They have it. Plus they have the tally from He, which is sort of interesting. > It makes no difference. 14,000 or 7,000 or 700 would be more than enough > to prove it is real, and that -- in turn -- proves that Cude is wrong. > ***It makes a difference to those people who are attracted to the field by > recent buzz, look into it and find themselves on ecatnews.com discussions > or elsewhere. They are interested but skeptical. Skeptopaths like Joshua > Cude use their wiles to turn such interested folk. > Anyone who would be "turned" by him is an idiot who will not be convinced by any amount of definitive proof. Suggesting that 14,000 replications somehow magically proves the issue more than 700 replications would is silly. I have no time and no patience for such nonsense. I have worked hard to give people the information they need to learn the truth. If they're going to listen to nitwits and dissemblers instead of reading the facts I say to hell with them. Let them think whatever they like. - Jed
