But that's my point, it's decent as an article and for a biased piece of crap it's a shining example.
My point is only that it would get the tick of approval of say Parksie (I assume) or any other pathological skeptic. It's not of poor quality and you agreed that Britanica is worse. If Nature printed a similar piece you might be disappointed but I doubt you'd be greatly surprised. I think the only issue is that people would assume that Wikipedia may be free of the influences of corruption, power and academic dishonestly to a greater extent than the above and oddly it is not, that's the issue not the quality but the bias and only because Wikipedia would be hoped to be better but it's not. On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>wrote: > John Berry wrote: > > The article on cold fusion is (without checking I feel confident in >> saying) decent. >> I'm sure many well established physicists would agree with it. >> > > Naa. It is indecent. > > Seriously, I will grant it is thorough, but it is so filled with unfounded, > torturously argued skeptical assertions -- or forlorn skeptical hopes, they > should be called -- that the overall effect is to make it biased. It strains > to give a false impression of the status of the research. The authors bring > up every known argument to doubt the results, with practically no indication > that these arguments have no merit, and were proven wrong years ago. See, > for example: > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Non-nuclear_explanations_for_excess_heat > > This kind of argument resembles that of Richard Garwin on "60 Minutes." > See: > > http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#CBS60minutes > > This is so over-the-top it goes beyond skeptical doubts well into > disingenuousness. Or insincerity. Or lying, to put it bluntly. Garwin knows > as well as I do that his arguments have no merit, for the reasons I listed > there. The Wikipedia skeptics, on the other hand, are unfamiliar with the > literature and have not observed an experiment the way Garwin has, so they > are probably sincere. > > The Wikipedia skeptics I have communicated with sincerely believe that all > experiments are wrong. One of them urged me to stop devoting any effort to > the field because it is so obviously bogus. This was after he spent several > days reading papers, including McKubre's. For a while he thought he had > found an error in McKubre's paper. He then admitted it was his mistake, but > he remains certain that there must be a mistake somewhere in that paper. I > pointed out that 'there may be an invisible or undiscovered mistake' cannot > be falsified and therefore it is not a valid assertion. That did not > compute. The guy is a professional scientist but he never learned that. Kind > of like a programmer who never learned you are supposed to give variables > logical and consistent names. (I have met such programmers.) > > Most of the mistakes made in the analysis of cold fusion are at the logical > level, rather than technical or factual. I mean assertions that cannot be > falsified or logical fallacies. Before people get to the point where they > try to prove that McKubre's flow calorimetry is wrong, they go off the > tracks with assertions that don't even make the cut logically. > > Garwin did not make any logical errors, by the way. His assertion is > plausible and if it were correct, it would disprove cold fusion. But it's > wrong. The Sci. Am.'s assertion that "not all chemical explanations for the > excess heat were eliminated" is also plausible and logical but factually > wrong. Generally speaking, professionally written critiques have technical > errors rather than logical errors. > > However, the 2004 DoE reviewers comments had every strain of error, from > soup to nuts. Melich and I tallied up errors in the reviews for a day or > two, and we found dozens, even without an exhaustive review. A lot of those > people would fail an undergrad course in the scientific method. It is > appalling to me that celebrated, highly respected professional scientists > could be so badly educated, and inept. > > I am no scientist, but I would not have made such errors back in junior > high school. That's no great credit to me: I had a rigorous old-fashioned > training in logical thinking. If no one ever sits you down and teaches you > what "an appeal to consequences of a belief" means, or "confusing cause and > effect," you are not likely to know. (Newt Gingrich, for example, often > makes these two errors. He is a smart guy but it is clear to me he has about > as much education as a 12th century peasant. He knows facts galore but he > has no training in the elementary rules for thinking.) > > Chris Tinsley also had a rigorous education. He and I often said we felt > like time travelers from the 19th century, let loose in some decadent future > in which people no longer actually learn anything in school. > > The other thing that is missing from the modern era is the notion that you > should test things by experiment or observation. See for yourself. The other > day I got the sense that our civilization is in peril while reading at "Dear > Abby" column. Some woman wrote that she and her husband are arguing about > which direction a light bulb screws in, and please tell us, Dear Abby. Abby > told the woman "clockwise" and added "lefty-loosy, righty-tighty." Now that > is a fine ditty to keep in mind, and I have often recalled it, especially > when upside-down under the sink or in some other confusion-inducing pose. > But, I wish I could have reached to both Abby and her reader, shaken them by > the lapels, and shouted, "for crying out loud, TRY UNSCREWING A LIGHT BULB! > Find out for yourself!!! Or just look at the threads!" > > Cold fusion skeptics often suffer from this syndrome. In the early days of > the Internet I recall an argument that dragged on for days, in which even > the late Tom Droege -- a crackerjack engineer -- could not decide whether a > power supply (a transformer) might affect a thermistor or mercury > thermometer, producing a false temperature reading. I wrote with increasing > ire: "for goodness sake, put a thermometer near a power supply and turn the > thing on and off several times. See for yourself!" No one did it. (But me, > that is). Arguments about science only be resolved by doing experiments, and > making observations. You would think that someone like Droege would know > that, but he didn't. > > - Jed > >
