Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Haven't I been saying that the corner had been reached, and that the turn had started?
To some extent, yes . . . But it would be more of a change if people new to the field were writing these reviews, rather than Storms, Biberian and Li. I do not mean to belittle their contribution, and of course you do want the leaders of a field to write the main reviews. But I do not know of any papers in favor of cold fusion published by people "outside the field." I guess I would define that as "people I have not heard of." In that sense, we have not turned the corner yet.
I think the dearth of papers opposed to cold fusion is mainly because opponents are unaware that the research continues. (Most opponents, anyway.) It isn't as if opponents giving up or admitting they were wrong. Most of them probably just lost interest.
I hate to say this, but I think the opponents have a valid point when they say that most mainstream scientists still reject cold fusion. I know that most journals still summarily reject papers without review. I do get the impression that if you could walk up to 100 scientists chosen at random, most of them would say cold fusion does not exist. This is mainly because they get their information from the mass media, or Wikipedia, like everyone else. Google will demonstrate that most mass media articles about cold fusion are negative.
As I have often said, we don't know the exact percentages of supporters and opponents because we have not conducted a public opinion poll. It would be a tricky poll to conduct. You have to define the questions and characterize and perhaps sort out the respondents carefully. It might be better to limit respondents to a group you have given information on the subject, such as the 2004 panel. This is a valid public opinion survey technique, not a way to bias the results. With this method, you bring people in for a long interview, and along the way expose them to information: text, a video, a fake encounter with actors or a gorilla with a tennis racquet, or what-have-you. It is expensive! It is the sort of thing they do in sociology studies, rather than, say, political polls.
- Jed
