At 02:17 PM 12/19/2009, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
On 12/19/2009 01:13 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Steorn only presents one piece of actually damning evidence: the jury,
I don't agree. They quote a number of well known, well respected
sources saying that they have *nothing*. You may not respect the
Economist or the WSJ but you can bet your bottom dollar anyone with
money to invest knows of those rags, and a lot of them treat them as
authorities. They also quoted some number of scientific
journals. If the WSJ, the Economist, and Science (which I *think*
was on the list, but I'm not sure) all say something is bogus,
that's going to carry a lot of weight with a lot of people.
People listen to the media.
Sure. And respond differently. They aren't looking for just anyone.
They are looking for people who will not be seriously impressed by
standard rejection of something. What they are trying to do is frame
all the opposition as being simply a reflection of scientific
orthodoxy, nothing more. They manage to include in that category
their own jury.
Nowhere did they acknowledge that the jury was unanimous that Steorn
hadn't demonstrated energy production. That's not based on knee-jerk
"impossible" responses, that's based on the jury looking at what
Steorn provided them. With a jury as large as Steorn selected, with
it being selected by them, this means that Steorn was basing their
earlier conclusions that there was excess energy on faulty evidence,
i.e., on evidence that did show what they thought and claimed.
Instead Steorn tries to pin the jury conclusion on certain demo
problems, that they later fixed. Absolutely not good enough. If
Steorn showed them their basic research, the *earlier* results that
led them to toss their hat firmly in this ring, then the bottom has
been pulled out from under the whole concept.
Sure, perhaps they "fixed" it. Perhaps, by sheer coincidence, there
was a real anomaly lurking underneath their experimental artifacts.
Highly unlikely. (Not impossible, you could stumble into an anomaly
through error, it is merely very, very unlikely that if one was
completely wrong about the reason for investigating an area, one will
then, after a long period of error, come up with exactly the anomaly
that one previously misperceived.
Analogy with cold fusion: panel of experts reviews, in detail, taking
years, Fleischmann's calorimetry data and concludes that it doesn't
show excess heat. What happened when there was a panel convened to
look at the evidence, not for years, but based on more recent
evidence as well? And remember that there was never a unanimous
opinion that the excess heat data was artifact, that was, indeed, a
conclusion based on theory, i.e., a presumption that data showing a
violation of expectations is likely to be artifact.
In 2004, we know that half the 18-member panel considered the
evidence for excess heat conclusive. Okay, from sheer scientific
inertia, it would be easy to understand that a genuine energy anomaly
might not convince a majority. But *every* member of a jury
hand-picked by Steorn? Or even if Steorn was fully honest about the
jury, and accepted every applicant who was qualified and able, surely
in a group willing to devote time to the problem, and if the data,
when thoroughly examined, legitimately raised undispelled suspicions,
*one member* would hold out and issue a dissent.
The jury result was devastating, in reality, and that Steorn
continued means one of two things: they are truly deluded (which, in
spite of what I've written, does remain possible, and I'll explain
how), or they are deliberately continuing even though they know the
free energy device doesn't exist. I'm inclined to the latter.
But, remember, the problem with "deluded" is the utterly and obvious
and blatant inadequacy of the demonstrations (going back years.) They
would have to be *very* deluded, not only about the science, but
about the process of convincing people. But there is a middle path:
they are deluded about the science. They believe that they have an
over unity device, and that they have been hit by a series of
unfortunate coincidences, or they realize that the application of the
anomaly is difficult, they have no illusions about it being easy.
(That, of course, explains why they aren't going into the business of
making practical devices. They are, instead, going into two
businesses: selling licenses, and selling equipment that can be used
to test their device or similar. Now, look at the latter possibility:
if they can keep enough doubt in the minds of those who might be
inclined to check the technology out, even though it's a long shot,
they can make money selling that equipment. Even if the technology is
bogus. They don't have to accept returns of used Hall sensors or
low-friction bearings. What are low-friction bearings useful for? Why
are they interested in low-friction bearings?
It's obvious. Because the effect they believe (or pretend to believe)
exists is very small. Not usable for practical applications unless it
can be scaled up. But, if so, they are lying, because they are
claiming that Orbo, as is, is over 400%. That's not small. You would
not need super-efficient bearings to test that.
Why would they lie? Well, if they believe there is an anomaly, they
know that they need to keep up investigation, they need to attract
the enormous capital that might be required to commercialize the
effect. Discovering an over-unity anomaly is only the beginning, and
unusual energy-generation techniques -- such as cold fusion -- are
not necessarily scalable, and we can see from the serious money
that's been spent on cold fusion, without developing reliable devices
that repay the energy input in a practical way, and we can see it
even more with hot fusion. How much has been spent? It's enormous?
When will we see power generation? They tell us it's just around the
corner, at least that was said for a long time. I think now that they
are being more honest. It's a long way away. If ever.
So Steorn, to make their business plan work, has to keep the topic
alive. I find it amusing that some here think that advertising on
al-Jazeera was weird. I don't think so. There are people with deep
pockets who watch al-Jazeera, and who might be specially impressed if
Steorn advertises there.
Steorn was at one time two years behind on issuing financial
statements. I've seen data for 2007, it was approved by the Steorn
board in December, 2008. What's it look like for 2008 and 2009? It is
a reasonable surmise that the late financial statements are not an accident.
[...] Steorn has as yet exhibited no technical competence.
I'll agree with that.
Concluding from this that they must be *hiding* their competency is,
as I said, a faith-based, not evidence-based, conclusion.
The competency that I consider they may be hiding (it's not a
conclusion, it's an explanatory hypothesis that I tentatively accept)
is not exactly technical competency, at least not deep competency.
I'm not technically competent in this area, I have, I hope, some
level of ordinary knowledge and ordinary ability to comprehend
issues. I can see, easily, that the demonstration they just ran is
utterly unconvincing, it is almost not a demonstration of anything
except a battery-powered electric motor and some hand-waving. I
assume that some of them, at least, are as competent as I am, and
that some may be more competent.
The competency they are hiding would be this simpler competency. And
it may not be exactly "hiding." Rather, it would be bluff and
bluster, what happens when one is losing a debate but knows that the
jury is still out. You can "lose" a debate in terms of what anyone
who knows the topic would conclude, but "win" it in terms of your
real objectives.
