At 02:17 PM 3/24/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote:
You can dish it out, but you can't take it, can you?
You say researchers "look like true believers or idiots," you use
cheap tricks to distort graphic data, and then when someone calls
you out, you quit in a huff. How childish. It is hard to believe
anyone can be reporter with such thin skin.
Well, believe it. It's obviously possible. It's also unstable. I
don't think there is an anti-CF lobby that will fund Krivit. Some
will use him to attempt to continue to discredit Cold fusion, and
I've seen that for some time, but it became common in this current
flap. That won't last, though I imagine that some, for a time, will
continue to pull out, "The former strong believer in Cold Fusion,
Steve Krivit, retracted his prior belief in 2010, blasting cold
fusion researchers for distorting their data."
He might be able to do something to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but
the apparent inability to listen makes me doubt that he has what it would take.
He'd have to say, probably, something like "Well, I was exaggerating
some in writing that, trying to help everyone avoid an error of
jumping to conclusions. But since the process takes in deuterium and
produces helium, it must be fusion, generally construed, and would
thus produce roughly 24 MeV from the main reaction, neglecting minor
side-reactions. By saying it wasn't fusion, I was, of course,
referring to the fact that it has not been proven to be simple d-d
fusion, there are alternate hypotheses that don't depend on that
simple reaction, and the 24 MeV figure is not fully established by
experimental evidence, it remains an approximation. I got carried
away in my enthusiasm."
Or something like that. And then he'd have to say, over and over,
"It's fusion, cold fusion, just a different kind than what everyone
was expecting." Fusion. Fusion. Fusion. Could we require him to write
it on the blackboard a hundred times, and send him home with a note
to his parents? And then welcome him back, everyone smiling? Including him?
For the record, people have said far worse things about me,
countless times. The only forum I ever quit was CMNS because they
wanted to keep the discussion confidential, and I can't be bothered
to remember what is supposed to be confidential and what isn't. I
have no objection whatever to their policy and no ill will toward
them, but I cannot organize myself well enough to abide by it.
Confidentiality can have its value, but you've nailed a problem with
it. There are possible compromises.
