At 03:42 PM 3/24/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Michel Jullian wrote:
Back on topic, I understand why you are mad at Steve krivit for
pushing his POV that the heat/helium = 24 MeV/He is bogus, that's
because that correlation is what made you believe CF might well be
real. You don't want to doubt again.
On behalf of Abd, let me say: nonsense. The only reason we are upset
with Krivit is because used cheap tricks and ad hominem arguments.
Yeah, but lots of people have used, are using, and will use cheap
tricks and ad hominem arguments. I can think of lots of names. It's
the combination of that with Krivit's reputation in the field that
was built up over the years, with the support of many people,
including Dr. Miles. It's the damage that is being done, which damage
can delay better funding and thus the day when we do, in fact, know
what's going on and how, if it's possible, to harness it for practical use.
Plenty of people doubt the 24 MeV ratio. That does not upset Abd, me
or anyone else.
Right. I was initially pleased by Krivit's criticisms, I thought that
it was very important to see some serious criticism. But when I
looked at it in detail, I found that it was not only thoroughly
shoddy, as if someone set out to criticize a group of people and
tossed in everything they could think of to make them look bad, to
make them look like sloppy and deceptive, and all the rest. And as I
saw multiple examples of Krivit elevating his own weak opinions above
solid reporting and mature balance, I got quite concerned.
I began by pointing out some of the errors to Krivit. His response
was utterly inadequate, and he continued -- and still continues -- to
repeat blatant errors. This is characteristic of political polemic
from political activists. Once they have chosen a side, and commit to
it, it doesn't matter if the arguments are sound, what matters is if
they will stick in the minds of the readers or viewers. A lie that
can stick is just as valuable as truth, and once you don't care, once
it's just the "goal" that matters, well, you know the old saying,
"The ends justify the means."
They don't. The means, in fact, are all we have control over. There
are rare situations where some *necessary* end is seen as being under
sufficient control to justify a harmful means, but they aren't even
close to applying here. Deception and polemic and confusion are part
of the problem here, and if cold fusion is to continue its return to
respectability, it must be firmly based on solid evidence and sound
argument, and what we want from the skeptics is exactly the same.
Please. Please criticize the work, and please try to get it published
under peer review, if possible. Outside of that, criticize it in
conference papers and places like here. Nobody would be tossed from
this forum because they present skeptical arguments clearly, they
have to combine this with gross and gratuitous incivility to run into
a problem.
If you are a skeptical professor, for example, and you read this,
assign a student to discuss the issues here, to ask you questions
about what the student doesn't understand. I'd suggest, though, being
ready to change your mind, or you might lose your best student....
Send someone you'd trust enough, ideally, that if they come back and
say, "I think you should look at this," you would carefully check it
out, and, if it's wrong, explain exactly why. And if it's right, or
at least possibly right, you'd modify your position. If you are a
scientist, that's what you would do, right?
That this process, normal scientific inquiry and debate, was lost in
1989, is precisely the problem. Consider it from this perspective:
Suppose that the skeptics are right and that, somehow the appearance
of fusion is an illusion. The critics of N-rays and polywater did not
stop with considering that these things were unlikely, they actually
impeached the evidence that they were real, showing that this
evidence was misleading, actually demonstrating that something else
was happening. Doing that work in 1989 would have been difficult, but
consider the effect if it had been done: hundreds of millions of
dollars in research funding would not have been wasted, and countless
hours of work as well, by some of the most talented people around,
and the value of that is immense. Sure, some "true believers" might
have persisted, but only a few, a handful by comparison with what
actually happened.
Science was badly damaged by polemic and partisan attachments. Let's
try to stop that, not to repeat it in new forms.
During the press conference Hagelstein said in response to a
question from Krivit that the ratio does not apply to some reactions
such as Iwamura, but he sees no reason why that fact should cause a
person to doubt that it applies to the Pd-D system. That seems sensible to me.
Indeed. To make his point, Krivit vastly oversimplifies the
situation. He's trying to make it into a black and white, good guys
vs. bad guys situation. Indeed, some portions of the public love
that, but it makes for very, very bad science.
Different systems and different starting reactants produce different
products. When you burn aluminum it does not produce the same
product as when you burn wood. I do not understand why Krivit has
difficulty understanding this. I do not recall anyone in the last
15 years has maintained that cold fusion is exclusively D+D => ~24
MeV heat + helium. That's a strawman argument.
Well, a lot of the skeptical position is based on that assumption.
Cold fusion, eh? Well, d+d fusion wouldn't happen except for a rare
branch, and even if it did, where are the gammas? And then everone is
scrambling for some theoretical explanation when there isn't enough
experimental evidence yet. But, by now, Hagelstein and McKubre et al
are quite convinced that the *basic reaction* is "deuterium in,
helium out," which requires the *basic heat/helium* to be 24 MeV.
I've never seen Krivit acknowledge this fact, he seems to think that
24 MeV is inextricably bound up with the naive fusion hypothesis.
Sure, if there are other reactions in addition, the figure will
probably be different. Okay, *how different*? More to the point, *how
much* of the excess heat could be due to other reactions, or
incomplete reaction pathways to helium? What are the other ashes? And
how much of them are found.
Krivit only raises the issue qualitatively, not quantitatively, i.e.,
he notes -- correctly! -- that if there are transmutation products,
the overall heat/energy may be different. But that doesn't impeach,
in the least, a statement that the general case, most of the
reaction, is fusion, i.e., deuterium in and helium out. 24 MeV/He-4.
People can quibble that a single neutron absorption is not "fusion."
That's because a different term is used, "neutron absorption,"
instead of "fusion." So, the quibble would continue, an operation
that isn't "fusion" repeated would still not be fusion, eh? And that
leads us to the preposterous conclusion that if we have a black box,
and we pipe deuterium into it, and helium falls out of it, and energy
is generated, the black box is not making "fusion" happen. We are
putting together light elements (deuterium) to make a heavier element
(helium), which matches the definition of fusion precisely and
without quibble, but because it's a two-step process, and neither
step alone is called "fusion," we can't call the overall process "fusion"?
Why not? Because people will associate us with the Bad Guys, those
wild-eyed nutters in 1989? Please, associate me with them!
Fleischmann et al made mistakes, but they also discovered an entire
new field, and anyone doing that is likely to make mistakes. After
all, they were venturing into what was not explored, unknown, assumed
to be an empty wasteland, just to verify that, indeed, it was empty.
They were looking where few had looked before, and they saw something
that was not supposed to be there, and they then pursued it and
attempted to tame it. They couldn't tame it. It was too difficult,
but they reported their work to the world anyway, and they paid their
dues, and they deserve full credit for that.
Credit for what?
For discovering COLD FUSION!
Get over it! If it's not fusion, if it's mass delusion, we'll find
out, assuming that the scientific method is followed.
Dr. Larsen! By all means, pursue your theory and advocate it and make
sure it receives a full and fair hearing. But if you hang your theory
on a "Not Fusion" coatrack, you will impede its understanding,
because the difference is only a linguistic quibble, assuming you do
accept heat/helium correlation in round terms. Krivit has not been a
good ally, he's vastly confused the issues. Remember that he was once
so in awe of the other researchers, the "PhD's" whom he believed must
be right, because they were educated and smart. He will turn on you,
too, given the opportunity, if it makes for a dramatic story.
Dissociate yourself from the attacks on the reputation of other
researchers. Make it clear that you do not support that, even if you
disagree with them on various details. I know it can be difficult to
advocate a theory that's in the minority as to acceptance. But you
play a very important role, whether you are right or wrong. Don't let
your approach be discounted or discredited for the wrong reasons,
make sure that, if it's going to happen, rejection is based on such
solid arguments that you, yourself, will become convinced. In the
worst case, you won't be convinced, but everyone else rejects it; in
that case make sure that you have presented the most cogent and clear
arguments possible, that they are documented fully for future
generations. If they are mixed with "You are all idiots and there is
a conspiracy to reject my ideas," you won't be heard even if you are right.
