PHILIP WINESTONE wrote: >My own view of life, including the LENR fiasco (back to LENR), is that there's >nothing worse than someone who is being CONSCIOUSLY dishonest, and who tries >to sell this dishonesty to others, as honesty, by whatever means and for >whatever reasons.
I agree, but my impression is that very few of the hard core skeptical opponents of cold fusion consciously dishonest. Perhaps Park is lying. I know little about him, I have not read his book, and I have only spoken to him briefly, so I cannot judge, but I get the impression he is smart enough to know he is wrong. The others I know much more about, especially Britz, Taubes, Huizenga, Hoffman, Morrison and Jones. I read their books & papers carefully. I met the latter four and talked with them for hours. You cannot read other people's minds, and it is a mistake to assume you really tell if they are being honest or not, but I get a strong sense that these people are honest. Here is my take on them: To be blunt, some of them are stupid. I cannot read minds but I can tell when people make dumb mistakes, such as Hoffman's claim that Ontario Hydro sells used heavy water from CANDU reactors. He seemed so genuinely shocked when I told him they do not, that either he is sincere or a good actor. The ANS paid him $180,000 to work on the book for a couple of years, but it never occurred to him to make one phone call to fact-check the principal claim in the book. That's stupid; any high-school newspaper reporter would know better. As I recall he said "that's a good idea." They are uneducated. They are poorly trained in basic academic techniques and traditions. They do not recognize logical fallacies, and they know little about the scientific method. Huizenga sincerely believes that theory overrules evidence. Of course he knows the grade-school textbook version of that rule, but I think if you get into a detailed discussion of his own specialty, high energy nuclear physics, he would say something along these lines: "We have gone beyond that simple model. Modern theory is so strong, and so certain, the old rules no longer apply. We can now be certain that any observations that contradict the theory must be mistaken." I think many scientists would say this about, for example, Newton's laws. They would rule out a reactionless drive, for example, a priori. (I wouldn't, although I know perfectly well why it is impossible.) They have no social graces, as we used to say. No one ever taught them that you should not play politics, or play dirty tricks in a debate, or bully people and take advantage of your power. For example, Jones and his grad students interrupted and heckled Miles to keep him from presenting his results at BYU. Park and that other fellow (whose name escapes me) at the APS were positively gleeful and full of spunk when they stood up and said "We are going to destroy any Federal scientist who supports cold fusion. We are going to end careers and do whatever it takes." The crowd cheered. It never occurred to anyone in the audience that destroying someone's career over an academic dispute is unethical. Anyway, they do not see this as an academic dispute. Park has told me and others that he is sure that all cold fusion supporters are liars, cheats or lunatics, and they should be summarily thrown out. It has never crossed his mind that that cold fusion supporters might be sincere -- and not simply out to steal grant money -- or that that they might actually be right. This should be a warning to us: never assume that your opponent is insincere, or he does not mean what he says. In another context, when terrorists say they want to fly airplanes into buildings, or get hold of nuclear bombs and kill millions of people, you should never assume they are exaggerating or insincere. When they say they want to become martyrs because they will go straight to heaven and have sex with 72 virgins, you should not assume they are kidding, or crazy, or speaking symbolically. It is best to assume that people believe what they say, no matter how weird these beliefs seem. I can hardly credit Hoffman’s belief in CANDU heavy water, or imagine that Jones honestly thinks recombination caused the excess heat in McKubre's cell, because these beliefs are utterly preposterous and they fly in the face of elementary school science. But apparently these people do believe this stuff, or at least at some level they have convinced themselves of these notions. The human mind is remarkably flexible, and truth is not always its highest priority. - Jed
