Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> Gosh, something happened and the calorimetry company had to withdraw. > Sorry, folks. > This has not actually happened. Please identify statements such as this as hypothetical or cynical, to avoid confusion. (Seriously.) I think we should be a little more careful around here with the use of words like "scam" and "fake." Anyone associated with cold fusion has heard these terms far too often, applied inappropriately against people who have done nothing wrong. It is one thing to say that Steorn seems like a scam, or it gives you that impression. It is quite another to assert that it actually is. When you say this, you should have proof. And proof of a scam has to be narrowly defined: you have to show there is an aggrieved party. That is, a person or funding organization who feels that their money was taken on false pretenses, by a researcher who knew for a fact that his claim was false. Researchers who are wrong, or inept, furtive, lazy, intellectually dishonest or highly disagreeable people are *not* scams. Researchers who threaten to sue people who criticize their work or quote from their papers violate academic norms, but that is not the same as being a scam either. Yes, you should try to avoid funding such people. Yes, you are wasting your money. But unless you have solid proof that they knew they were wrong, and that their sole purpose was to enrich themselves at your expense, they are not scams. I have actually funded such people, so I know what I am talking about here. Most researchers work hard. That includes the inept ones, the ones whose results are unclear and unimpressive, and the ones whose work has been nothing but a string of failures. They are not scams because they are not wealthy, and not enjoying life at the expense of their supporters, and most of all because they sincerely hoped to succeed. They are doing the best they can, which unfortunately is not good enough. Perhaps they do not deserve funding, but that is far different from saying they got funded by defrauding people or by some other unethical means. Let us be careful to make this distinction. I do not know of any scams among cold fusion researchers. Or plasma fusion researchers either, for that matter, although in a sense the plasma fusion program has been a 60-year ripoff. A sort of scam, but not in the literal sense. I am sure that the plasma fusion researchers sincerely believe that someday Tokamak reactors might produce electricity. They might even be right, but I doubt it. - Jed
