See:
Annals of Science, The Truth Wears Off, Is there something wrong with
the scientific method?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
Richard Oriani and others in the cold fusion biz have been circulating
copies of this article. Oriani wrote: "The attached article describes
difficulties with replicability in various branches of science. It was
sent to me by a friend in the Naval Research Laboratory. It is a very
interesting, disturbing, and cautionary tale."
Some quotes from the article:
. . . Before the effectiveness of a drug can be confirmed, it must be
tested and tested again. Different scientists in different labs need to
repeat the protocols and publish their results. The test of
replicability, as it’s known, is the foundation of modern research.
Replicability is how the community enforces itself. It’s a safeguard for
the creep of subjectivity. Most of the time, scientists know what
results they want, and that can influence the results they get. The
premise of replicability is that the scientific community can correct
for these flaws.
But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have
started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing
their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly
unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s
occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In
the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread,
affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from
cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming
analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone
down as much as threefold in recent decades. . . ."
I think the phenomena described here do occur, especially in biology,
medicine and sociology, but I see no evidence anything like this has
happened in mainstream cold fusion. Results are growing stronger and
more reproducible, not less.
There are some rarely observed results in cold fusion such as heat from
nickel and light water that might fit this pattern.
- Jed
