Lawrence de Bivort wrote:
I am not trying to change my colleague's thinking, as much as here I was only reporting what his thinking vis-a-vis CF was, as I understand it. You are right: he is fully engaged in important and demanding work, and doing a great job at it. No one can do everything solely because it is 'interesting'. I know; I've tried. :D
I have never criticized professional scientists who are uninterested in cold fusion, and who express no opinion of it (or only mild disapproval). I only criticize those who express a strong opinion without first doing their homework.
Also, let us make a distinction between a privately expressed, informal opinion and one that matters. If a scientist grouses about cold fusion to her friends and says "it looks like schlock science to me," that causes no harm. It is unprofessional, but heck, she is off-duty. It is only when the scientist writes an uninformed opinion in the mass media, or turns down a grant application that she causes harm.
It is silly to vilify him because he doesn't leap into CF work.
No one expects anyone to leap into CF work! Only qualified, experienced people should try. The only thing I expect of scientists is that they act in accordance with academic traditions and common sense. That means you look carefully at the results before judging them. That's fundamental. Anyone who does not do that in a serious evaluation is making a horrendous mistake, like a doctor who does not wash his hands before surgery. Some of the 2004 DoE evaluation panel members clearly did not do their homework.
I have said some unflattering things about de Bivort's friend, even though I know nothing about him. That is unfair. In a sense I am vilifying him, but only in the sense that I vilify T. H. Huxley for the racism of his entire generation. Huxley is one of my heros, and yet I blame him for not transcending the ugly failings of Western Civilization circa 1880. Only a few people are able to transcend these failings. Only a few white people in 1880 understood the terrible injustice of racism. Only a few scientists today realize that cold fusion and many other subjects are suppressed by the institutions of science, such as peer-review, centralized micromanaged funding, and so on. Only a few would agree with Robert Duncan:
"Research funding needs to become less dependent on the common assumptions within the culture of scientific communities, and much more courageous and objective."
You cannot blame people for not seeing problems that are society-wide; problems they have lived with their entire lives. When scientists everywhere slip into bad habits, such as dismissing an experiment they know nothing about, they become oblivious to how unprofessional and dangerous this is. They are inured to bad habits. In recent years, doctors everywhere have come to neglect basic hygiene such as washing hands, and this is taking a awful toll, killing tens of thousands of patients. Because it is so common, it has become acceptable.
Someday I hope that tide will change, people will realize that science has become dysfunctional, and cold fusion and other subjects will be funded. Science will return to the traditions of academic freedom that served it so well in the past. All institutions go through periods of health and growth followed by decay, followed by rejuvenation. This is not the end of science, but we are at a low ebb. Of course, all institutions also eventually go extinct. You don't see Pharaohs in Egypt any more, or samurai in Japan. The human race itself will eventually go extinct. So it is possible that science will not recover.
There is a duality here. A contradiction. You cannot blame one individual for the failings of an entire civilization, and yet in a sense you must blame him. We should not vilify de Bivort's friend. I have no doubt he is all that de Bivort said: "rational, friendly, dedicated, not uncurious, quite accessible . . . a good, smart and credible person." And yet, if he a professional scientist, and he has dismissed cold fusion without learning about it -- and especially if he has ever been charged with the responsibility to peer-review a paper or a grant for cold fusion -- then he has made a terrible mistake, and he has betrayed professional ethics and the spirit of academia. Science has brought enormous benefit to mankind, and the people who work as scientists are privileged. They have great power to do good or evil. They should take their responsibilities seriously.
No doubt many of the doctors who do not wash their hands are "rational, friendly, dedicated . . . good, smart" but they do not follow the rules and they accidentally kill people. They should be held responsible. It is not enough to be smart and have good intentions.
Getting back to the great moral failure of the past, racism, I know many elderly people in the south who are "rational, friendly, dedicated . . . good," including many who have never said or evinced bigotry. I doubt they ever said an unkind word to a black person on account of race. And yet decades ago they did nothing to help. We must remember what Martin Luther King said about them:
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."
A professional scientist has the moral responsibility to pro-actively promote academic freedom and free enquiry, and to uphold the standards of science, such as learning before judging. Those who fail to do this commit a sin of omission. The good scientists who know what has happened to cold fusion and yet who have done nothing are guilty of "appalling silence."
Those who been sloppy in their analysis or jumped to conclusions have caused as much harm as the few who destroy the reputations of researchers and spread lies about cold fusion, such as Robert Park.
An exceedingly small number of scientists have looked at the data and still sincerely believe that cold fusion is entirely wrong. I know only one or two like that, out of the hundreds of people I have encountered. Regarding such people, M. L. King said:
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Jed
