The things Krivit accuses researchers of doing can only be lies, not
mistakes. They are too simple to be mistakes. And too blatant. For
example, he claimed the Italians were repeatedly misrepresenting
their numbers by a factor of 10, and that McKubre was publishing
hugely different numbers in different places without telling anyone
at EPRI, or without explaining. These are not subtle experimental
errors or mistakes; they are not experimental errors at all.
It turned out the Italians were not changing their numbers by a
factor of ten. That was Krivit's mistake. But that is not the kind of
mistake the Italians could make. If they had actually done that, it
could only have been a deliberate deception, because professional
scientists understand exponents, and because these papers are checked
carefully at multiple stages and that kind of mistake would be
caught. Seriously, however careless and slapdash you may be by
nature, when you work with numbers every day for decades you just
don't make a mistake like this slide all the way into a publication.
In McKubre's case, the discrepancy comes from a re-evaluation of the
data. If no one at EPRI took note of it, I assume that is because
EPRI had stopped funding the project long before and they were no
longer paying much attention to what McKubre was telling them. I
suppose there was no one left there for him to tell. I tried to
discuss the work with them and I had trouble finding someone familiar
with the project. I don't recall when Tom Passell retired from EPRI.
He is one of these Energizer Bunny people who never stops working.
- Jed
