Edmund Storms wrote:
I don't think this is back peddling. This is one more effort by Park
to appear to be clever and funny at someone else's expense. He has
no opinion about the subject of cold fusion. He will say what ever
makes him look funny and wise to the ignorant.
That is my impression as well.
Huizenga and some others were genuinely upset by cold fusion, and
angry at the researchers. Park strikes me as an opportunist. This is
despite his rabid attack at the APS, in which he vowed to root out
any federal scientist who supports cold fusion. He meant it, but he
did not think this was a bad idea, or unscientific, or out of the
ordinary. He figures that how you are supposed to act.
He does not seem to think that cold fusion supporters have anything
to be upset about. He goes out to lunch with Chubb and others and
acts like a collegiate friend. My sense is that he thinks everyone on
both sides knows that cold fusion is nonsense, and it is all a big game.
He sometimes acts like a psychopath: one who lacks any sense of
morality, and acts for his own benefit only. But I do not think he
is. If he seriously believed cold fusion might be real, and it might
be important, I do not think he would not attack it. (Taubes would.
As he told Ed, he doesn't care if it is real or not.) I doubt that it
has ever crossed Park's mind that he might be wrong. I doubt he has
spent more than a few minutes looking at the data or trying to
understand it. The same goes for Frank Close and Lindley.
Huizenga and Britz have looked closely at the data. They put
themselves through agonizing mental yoga contortions to find reasons
to dismiss it -- grasping at straws, inverting or ignoring the
scientific method, going to all kinds of extremes. But as far as I
know Park, Close and Lindley have no clue what is claimed or what
arguments support the claims. They say no neutrons means no fusion,
end of story, nothing else counts.
The thing you have to understand about these people is that they are
really, really stupid. That is the most likely explanation for their
behavior and comments. It is more plausible than the hypothesis that
they are organized conspirators secretly working for the oil
interests, or that they actually realize cold fusion is real and they
are trying to protect their own reputations.
- Jed
