Michel Jullian wrote:
I said imagine one CF experimenter, just one for a start, has been
wrong and won't admit it . . .
No problem. Heck, I know many CF researchers who have been wrong and
will not admit it. Just about everyone at the NHE lab was wrong.
I know some false negatives such as CalTech, and false positives. I
know a few people -- maybe 5 or 10 -- who found out after a long time
that their experiments were wrong, and the excess heat is not real,
but they never published a retraction. They just faded away and
stopped attending conferences.
You are correct that some of these people probably kept a low profile
in order to keep from damaging the field. Or they were just
embarrassed. Some claimed they lost interest. Of course it makes no
sense to talk about "damaging the field." A mistaken claim made by
one researcher does not cast doubt on results published by Melvin
Miles or Mike McKubre.
. . . and you keep throwing various things at me to avoid the
perspective. Why? Can't you question your beliefs even as a mere hypothesis?
No, not these particular beliefs, because they are not hypothetical.
They are observations based on experiments. Experiments are never
wrong. Observations made by people thousands of years ago are as
certain now as they were back then. For example, people found out by
experiment that hammering hot iron makes it harder. There is no doubt
about this. It is forever true, and beyond question. People found out
circa 1985 that loading palladium with deuterium sometimes makes it
generate non-chemical excess heat. That is a fact, now and forever.
Only hypotheses, theories or conclusions can be wrong.
You would have to be crazy or extremely stupid to accept cold fusion
as a hypothesis, because it seems to contradict so much accepted
theory. There is no hypothetical basis for it, as far as I know.
Of course I have many other beliefs which are hypotheses. I can
easily imagine that such notions, based on theory, hunch, or blind
acceptance of widely held ideas are wrong. In fact, I expect nearly
all are wrong! And the rest are inaccurate, oversimplified, or
incomplete. Throughout history most people's notions have been wrong,
and there is no reason to think we have reached the end of history.
I am not saying this is so, just imagine.
Trying to imagine that replicated experiments are wrong is like
trying to imagine that 2+2=5. I find that simply unimaginable. That's
like believing in miracles.
You have to make a clear distinction between observed facts, and
hypotheses. Of course in some cases it is difficult to separate them
and know which one you are dealing with. (But not with cold fusion,
fortunately.) They do get mixed together. Plus, theory and wishful
thinking always inform observations, and often lead us astray.
- Jed
