I wrote:
Counting papers is a somewhat ridiculous way of determining if a
claim is true or not . . .
Let me revise that:
I think we all agree that counting papers to establish whether a
claim is true or false is a nutty thing to do, but I did it anyway.
Incidentally, my description of Albagli et al. on p. 12 and Appendix
B may seem confrontational, but they are intended to be funny. Call
it geek humor if you like but this is about as funny as I can be
within the bounds of the approved academic style.
The comment on p. 12 is:
"One group on this list did, in a sense, look for excess heat along
with other products: Albagli et al., MIT. They performed calorimetry
and their data shows low levels of excess heat. However, the
published version of the data was manually changed to erase this
evidence, and they claimed there was no heat. [9,10] In my opinion
this counts as 'not looking' or perhaps 'refusing to look.'"
Perhas the funniest deadpan academic-style comments in any cold
fusion paper can be found here:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf
Two examples dear to my heart:
"Stage 3 Calculations. Douglas Morrison starts by asserting:
"Firstly, a complicated non-linear regression analysis is employed to
allow a claim of excess enthalpy to be made". He has failed to
observe that we manifestly have not used this technique in this paper."
"Afficionados of the field of "Hot Fusion" will realise that there is
a large release of excess energy during Stage 5 at zero energy input.
The system is therefore operating under conditions which are
described as 'Ignition' in 'Hot Fusion'. It appears to us therefore
that these types of systems not only 'merit investigation' (as we
have stated in the last paragraph) but, more correctly, 'merit
frantic investigation'."
A version of this paper circulated with handwritten notes and
suggestions on it. As I recall, Scott Chubb added a note to the
second comment: "Yowza!" Which says it all.
- Jed
