At 06:01 PM 11/30/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Simon is a *sociologist,* Jed, not a chemist or physicist. Opinions
(especially collective opinions) and process are what the book is
about, not "cold fusion." Or calorimetry.
If it is about opinions then we can conclude that opinions have no
bearing on cold fusion. Plus we can conclude that sociologists are
unqualified to write about calorimetry, and they make fools of
themselves when they try. Anyway, I also disagree with Simon with
regard to opinions and philosophy of science.
It's a sociological study, Jed, not a book on physics or chemistry or
calorimetry. It's quite clear that Simon is sympathetic to cold
fusion, but his obligation as a sociologist is to stay away from
that. I'd suggest that you get more specific about what you disagree with.
I've reviewed what Simon writes about calorimetry. His treatment is
highly favorable to cold fusion, while still attempting to describe
the criticisms. Reading Simon, the criticisms seem weak and unfair.
Simon's goal, though, is not to lead the reader to a conclusion about
cold fusion itself, but to an understanding of the social dynamic involved.
So, Jed, what's your problem with Simon's treatment of calorimetry?
Is it your position, Jed, that the press conference was beyond any
reproach? Not a mistake?
I do not think it was a mistake. I think it was necessary to call a
press conference. They did the best they could, and I doubt anyone
could have done a better job.
That's highly unlikely, Jed. *Somebody* might have done better,
almost certainly. That isn't the same as to say they did a bad job.
But I haven't reviewed that original press conference recently. What
seems to be more of a problem than the press conference is the
neutron report, as well as some difficulties in reporting the
neutrons. When you become as visible as they became, in the presence
of such controversy, every action will receive close scrutiny. The
standards are different, mistakes are less easily forgiven.
These people were on the losing side of history. They were doomed,
as Fleischmann well knew.
Perhaps. Perhaps mistakes they made allowed the other side, with
certain tactical and political advantages, to prevail. Simon covers
all this quite well, I'd say.
Compare Simon to Charles Sefe, Sun in a Bottle. Sefe, again and
again, doesn't get the science right. He misunderstands the meaning
of breakeven, and makes the mistake over and over and over, really
irritating. Sefe does acknowledge an ongoing controversy, but fails
to present the evidence on the cold fusion side, completely missing
most of the major points, misunderstanding the rest. He ascribes
positive press reports to:
"Reporters seem genetically predisposed to take the side of the
underdog...." So he's set up that background in reporting "the
esteemed science journallist Sharon Begley," quoting her, "Cold
fusion today is a prime example of pathological science, but not
because its adherents are delusional...." "The real pathology is the
breakdown of the normal channels of scientific communication, with no
scientists outside the tight-knit cold-fusion tribe bothering to
scrutinize its claims."
Of course, this was in 2003. It was never really true, but the
*attitude* was everywhere that it was true. Sefe dismisses the 2004
DoE panel as have many others: "The conclusions were much the same as
they had been a decade and a half earlier." Which is preposterous, if
you actually read and compare the two reports, they are like night
and day. That "much the same comment" is a summarizing comment by the
DoE bureaucrat putting the report together, and was not by the review
panel itself; the similarity was in the recommendation regarding
research, not in attitude toward the science. Even with the presence
of some reviewers who were clearly prejudiced from the outset against
cold fusion, and not willing to examine the evidence, and with all
the errors in the report (such as the drastically mangled reporting
of the heat/helium results, the most conclusive evidence for fusion
present up to that time), the panel still came to an even division on
the question of anomalous heat, with one-third "somewhat convinced"
that it was nuclear in origin. Today, with the SPAWAR neutron
results, that last number would be still higher, and if the
heat/helium results had been given due consideration, it should have
been higher in 2004. The heat/helium ratio, found across multiple
reports, validates both the heat and helium measurements, and helium
found in this way, being a nuclear ash, is just as convincing as
neutrons, because helium would come from a neutron-free reaction,
leaving only one problem, the missing gamma, which Takahashi seems to
have handily explained; it's not d-d fusion at all, not directly.
If he's right.
Simon covers the heat/helium controversy quite well. I don't think
it's possible to read Simon carefully and walk away with the idea
that cold fusion is pathological science or that it is simply a
matter of die-hards and wishful thinkers.
It is easy to criticize people who are stuck in that situation,
such as an unpopular candidate running in an election he cannot
win. Any miss-step they make is apparent because it triggers dire
consequences. Whereas a person on a roll, who has everything going
for him, can make mistakes without causing avalanches of problems.
Regarding Labinger, he told me that my critique is unfair because
his paper is about the philosophy of science, or sociology of
science, and he is merely using cold fusion as an example. He feels
he is not passing judgement on it, and that my technical critiques
do not apply. I expect Simon would say the same sort of thing, "this
book is not about the science per se." But I say it is about the
science. It has to be, because the two topics cannot be separated.
And in any case, these authors did not try to separate them. They
piled on with the winning side. I wrote to Labinger:
. . . You are not only making assertions about the philosophy of
science. You have gone far beyond that to make technical assertions. Such as:
"No cold fusion researcher has been able to dispel the stigma of
'pathological science' by rigorously and reproducibly demonstrating
effects sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error . . ."
You can read that statement two ways, Jed. In one way it's largely
false, in the other, it's largely true, and my sense is that there is
*some* truth in both readings.
Researchers have reported reproducible effects sufficiently large to
exclude the possibility of error. Except it is never possible to
completely exclude the possibility of error, it would be more
accurate to say that error, at some point, becomes improbable.
However, in spite of this, the stigma of 'pathological science' has
not been dispelled.
But I agree about Labinger, he's not been sufficiently neutral. But,
again, compared to Sefe, he's decent. Sefe's final comment in the
"Cold Shoulder" chapter is horrible:
"The dream of unlimited fusion energy in a room-temperature test tube
was too powerful for mere science to destroy."
I don't give a fig about "unlimited energy." I'm interested in the
science, and only in the science. What is really happening in those
cells? Sefe makes much of no brewed cups of tea. That has *nothing*
to do with the science. An effect can be real and not be commercially
viable. Nobody dismisses muon-catalyzed fusion even though you can't
brew a cup of tea with the energy from it.
Sefe has a really bad concept of "breakeven." He doesn't seem to
understand that, at least in cold fusion or hot fusion experiments,
energy is not "consumed." Any "excess energy" is scientifically
significant, and could, if the reaction were cheap enough to set up,
be useful. "Breakeven," Sefe does not explain, occurs where as much
energy is generated from the fusion reaction as was put into the
device. It's a very misleading concept with cold fusion. Sefe talks
about energy consumption, but suppose my goal is to heat my house.
Suppose I have a cold fusion device that uses a kilowatt of power
continuously. But it only "produces" from fusion, 500 watts. That
would mean that I'd get 1.5 kilowatts of heating with a cost of 1
kilowatt of electricity. If it's cheap enough to set up, this could
be quite useful, yet it hasn't reached "breakeven."
Breakeven assumes that the heat itself is not useful unless
converted, say, to electricity.
But the energy input to a classic Pons-Fleischmann cell is mostly
used to split water, and that energy can be directly recovered, all
except for heat losses, using a fuel cell. The real issue for the
science is whether or not the Q factor is large enough that the
excess energy couldn't be due to some mismeasurement of a large
quantity. It's a big red herring, mostly, since the calorimetry is
generally much more accurate than necessary, when the reaction occurs.
I'm not even looking for heat in my own work, beyond some simple
temperature measurements. I'm looking for neutrons, presumably from
secondary reactions.
