I have often said there is no conspiracy to quash cold fusion. The
dictionary defines a conspiracy as an organized and surreptitious
effort. The opposition to cold fusion is spontaneous, unorganized,
and completely out in the open. As William Beaty put it: "Do racists
'conspire' to suppress minorities? Do sexists 'conspire' to suppress
woman employees? Of course not."
Funding and organization were never needed to defeat cold fusion. It
never had a chance. Other controversial scientific developments have
more political power than cold fusion, they require much more effort
to defeat. Newsweek Magazine reports on what appears to be a
well-funded and more-or-less surreptitious organized effort to deny
global warming. In other words, a conspiracy. See:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek
I have no doubt that if cold fusion strengthens, and if dozens of
scientists begin reporting applications, opponents will band together
and actively conspire to suppress it. They are not going to roll over
and play dead with trillions of dollars of income in jeopardy! As
things now stand, the fossil fuel companies do not even know that
cold fusion exists so they are making no effort to suppress it, as
far as I can tell.
From time to time the enemies of cold fusion to rouse themselves for
brief organized efforts, such as the 2004 DOE review. People like
Robert Park and various newspaper reporters attack it from time to
time to make political capital, in set-piece, formulaic statements
that have not varied since March 1989. They are going through the
motions to build support with their base, similar to the way
Republican fundraisers attack the Clintons and Democrats attack Bush.
- Jed
