FWIW, it seems like there have been efforts underway to vilify the term "Cold Fusion" as a defunct, incorrect, out-of-date concept - a name based on faulty scientific evidence. Such efforts strike me personally as nothing more than an unproductive semantics game, a "game" caught in the act of trying to establish a sense of its own legitimacy.
Is it really that important what this mysterious process is currently called, be it CF, LENR, CANR, or whatever. In the final analysis the whole collection of current terms such as CF, LENR and CANR are at present really nothing more than expedient place holders. Whether we like it or not, every new process, every new sociological "happening" tends to end up getting labeled or titled in one way or another. Things and events often automatically acquire the first generic term that pops into the popular culture, for nothing more simple than convenience sake. Typically it's a generic catchy little title or phrase regardless of whether the term is an accurate one or not. (Most likely, it isn't.) It's like saying "I'll go ahead and 'tape' the conference", where we all unconsciously realize the fact that no one actually uses tape to video-'tape' events anymore. The desire to carve out one's own scientific fiefdom is certainly not a bad thing in itself. That's natural. It's a healthy part of the scientific process caught in the act of evolving. New science and brave new technologies that spring from them must constantly find meaningful ways to both define and distinguish their unique perspectives as being hopefully better than the rest of the pack. OTOH, attempts to dump on the scientific "genes" pertaining to other fiefdoms, to deliberately go out of one's way to insinuate that only a specific set of scientific "genes" can (through a convoluted complicated decree of semantics), narrowly define an opponent's scientific fiefdom - that strikes me as being an agenda driven campaign, an agenda with a very specific objective in mind. Could recent attempts to vilify the term "Cold Fusion" have anything to do with the politics of separating and distinguishing one's own brand of scientific "genes" from the rest of the pack? Certainly, one way to accomplish that objective would be to trash the "genes" of competitors. The mantra we often hear repeated in Madison Avenue is: Trust no other brand name other than our own. Such maneuvering doesn't strike me as science caught in the act of evolving, of becoming something better than what its forbearers had brought forth. What has more likely been caught in-the-act seems to have a lot more to do with political maneuvering. IMO, "maneuverings" of this kind are not likely to acquire the right to propagate their own scientific "genes", particularly if the nature of such conniving continues for too long. I suspect all the other scientific critters out in the vast Serengeti planes, competing for the right to reproduce their own set of unique genes, will eventually come out of the brush and even the score - in due time. In the end, I suspect the Evolution of Science, just like the drama we see witnessed out on the Serengeti plans, is a patient but impartial mistress Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
