Abd ul-Rahman Lomax quoted Huizenga:
However, as is the case with so many cold fusion claims, this one is unsubstantiated and conflicts with other well-established experimental findings. First, the failure of Miles, Bush, et al. to detect 3He in their experiments requires that the branching ratio of 4He/3He from D+D cold fusion be increased by a facgtor of more than a hundred million compared to low-energy (>=2 keV) and muon-catalyzed fusion (a type of cold fusion). Hence, it is highly likely that the 4He is a contaminant from the atmosphere.
Ah, that's like a stroll down Memory Lane . . . during which someone jumps out from the boxwood there on Memory Lane and mugs you.
Beautiful, John. Too bad you aren't still cogent enough to understand what you did. If, indeed, you ever were.
That's a low blow. (Huizenga is reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.) But, anyway, he was always cogent enough to understand what he said, and did. There was never any confusion in his mind about what he meant. Many people, including me, spoke with him and asked him specifically whether he meant that theory overrules experiment and he said yes, emphatically, it does. Beaudette quoted the part of the book that makes this claim explicit, which is in the 6-point summation:
"Furthermore, if the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat."
Beaudette and I consider this a violation of the scientific method, but here's the thing: Huizenga did not think it is a violation, and neither do the many prominent scientists who agree with him. They honestly believe that the theory is so well established in this case, any experimental result that conflicts with it must be wrong. No further proof or specific reason to doubt the experiment is needed. You can dismiss it a priori the way you can dismiss a report that a person flapped his arms and flew to the moon. (I doubt they feel that all theory in all aspects of physics is so well established.)
The first step to understanding a disagreement is to clearly grasp what people on both sides are saying, and in this case I am sure that is what the other side is saying. It seems mind boggling to me, but people often say and do mind-boggling things, after all.
- Jed
