At 12:47 PM 2/21/2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Jed Rothwell
<<mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com>jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
Cude has added that he is not "convinced that nuclear reactions in
cold fusion experiments have produced measurable heat." From my
point of view that puts him in the category of creationists who are
not convinced of the evidence that the world is more than 6,000
years old, or that people did not ride on dinosaurs.
Points of view clearly differ. From my point of view, being
convinced by flaky evidence like Rossi's puts you in the category of
creationists, who believe in a young earth because of scripture. And
I think the similarity favors my point of view.
Joshua, don't be distracted. You are now entering "You" territory,
the exchange of accusations. You don't understand Jed's position on
Rossi, he's not "convinced." He's aware of the problems and has
documented them. He's examined some of them and has rejected some
alternative explanations.
From what I've seen, there are only two likely explanations of the
Rossi demo: he's got a genuine nuclear reaction going, or he's got a
sophisticated fraud going. And, frankly, I can't tell the difference.
Can you? How?
In both cold fusion and creationism, you have a small group of
fringe "scientists" who adopt an idea in which they have important
self-interest, and try desperately to prove its reality.
That's a political description, polemic. Every researcher has
"self-interest" in their field of research. "Desperately" doesn't
describe the mental state of cold fusion researchers today. They
aren't trying to prove that it's real. That happened years ago. You
may not agree, but I'm telling you how they think. Do you know how
they think? How? Have you talked with them?
You've missed something huge. Cold fusion is now routinely accepted
as a reality by the peer reviewers at mainstream publications, and it
is the purely skeptical view that is being rejected. There may be a
"small group of scientists" -- you put scientists in quotes as if
they are not scientists, though these are scientists by every
definition of the word, including general recognition (Setting aside
a few relative amateurs) -- but the real issue is the collection of
peer reviewers at mainstream publications. We could toss in the 18
experts of the 2004 U.S. DoE panel, though that was a review far
shallower than the normal peer-review process at a mainstream
publication. Those experts *unanimously* favored further research and
publication, which is entirely contradictory to your confident
assertion that it is only "fringe 'scientists'" who are "desperately
tryingto prove it's real."
If you examine what's being published, you don't find an attempt to
prove it's real, not lately, anyway. You find, in primary research,
reports of phenomena that imply reality, discussion of possible
explanations that assume CF is possible, etc. In secondary reviews,
and there have been nineteen published since 2005, you find
acceptance of the phenomenon as a reality. The latest is Storms
(2010) published in Naturwissenschaften, "Status of cld fusion
(2010)." That review now represents what mainstream reviewers will
accept. The review does not contradict former reviews of the field,
rather it confirms and extends them. I.e., say, in the early 1990s,
there was a review that concluded that neutron radiation was far, far
below that expected from d-d fusion, setting an upper limit. Storms
confirms that neutron radiation is almost entirely absent.
There were many negative replications published. Later work shows
that those replication attemps could be expected to fail to find
anything, because they did not, in fact, replicate, they did not
reach the apparently necessary 90% loading. At that time, 70% was
considered to be about the maximum attainable. To go above that took
special techniques that the replicators did not know and understand.
And so on. We understand science by understanding the entire body of
publication, and attempting to harmonize it. Later reviews, published
in the normal cautious manner, are expected to extend the conclusions
of earlier reviews. And that's what has happened.
And in both cases the idea is completely contrary to the virtually
unanimous opinion of mainstream science. And in both cases, you
have the fringe group claiming a conspiracy against it by the mainstream.
That's irrelevant, were it true. The real situation now is that the
*skeptics* are claiming a conspiracy. Have you talked to Shanahan?
As to the "virtually unanimous opinion of mainstream science," what
do you mean by this? Ask a random scientist, call him up at work,
about cold fusion and what is his opinion? Does it matter what his field is?
If you want to know the opinion of "mainstream science," there are
generally, two ways. You can look at the results of a review panel,
or you can look at what is being published in the way of secondary
sources under peer review or under independent academic supervision.
The 2004 DoE panel results completely contradict the impression you
are giving, here, Joshua. Are you aware of that? If you want to know
the truth, read the whole damn review, not just cherry-picked
excerpts quoted from it by people who have an axe to grind! Read it,
come back, and tell us. I know some things about that review you can
easily verify, but that are not common knowledge, quite simply, they
haven't been noticed. But they are obvious, once you look.
The evidence for cold fusion heat far beyond the limits of
chemistry overwhelming. If you do not believe it, you are not a
scientist. Period.
So, we have someone who is not a scientist, who doesn't know that
the temperature of steam can exceed 100C at atmospheric pressure,
saying that vast majority of people who do science are not scientists.
Rothwell writes polemic. I would not claim that you are not a
scientist because you don't "believe" anything. However, if you have
become familiar with the evidence, which, to assume good faith, I'll
assume you are not, and you cling to a *belief* that cold fusion is
impossible and that therefore the levels of heat reported are
impossible, I'd say -- then and only then -- that, within this field
and this issue, you are not functioning as a scientist, you are
functioning as a "believer."
As far as I know, we aren't there yet. We'll see, should you decide
to allow this examination of your ideas.
But let's look at scientific progress in the last 22 years. In the
field of cold fusion: score zero. In fields outside cold fusion:
too much to list of course, but perhaps the sequencing of the human
genome by what you call non-scientists tops the list.
Eh? Cold fusion is probably the most difficult theoretical question
to have been presented to physicists in the 20th century. We still do
not know what the mechanism is. We know, I'll assert, that fusion is
taking place, but, bottom line, it is still what Fleischmann called
it in his paper -- not "cold fusion," but an "unknown nuclear reaction.
I now accept calling it "cold fusion" because we have very strong
evidence (far stronger than is routinely required to accept results)
that the fuel is deuterium and the ash is helium. That tells us
nothing about the reaction itself, except where it starts and where,
mostly, it ends.
Some effects were discovered and found no reliable application until
a century later. What does this argument have to do with the science?
Nothing.
Cold fusion might *never* result in practical applications. The
Japanese spent huge sums trying. But without knowing what the
reaction is, trying to enhance it and make it more reliable is very
difficult. The Japanese were not stupid. The would not have spent
what they spent without knowing that, at least, there was a real
reaction. But what they found was that the reaction was *extremely*
sensitive to conditions, and that the exact same cell, as far as
anything anyone could see, would sometimes produce excess heat and
sometimes produce nothing.
In fact, this kind of finding proved calorimetric accuracy. McKubre
reported, in the early 1990s, work with a deuterium cell in series
with a hydrogen cell. First both cells were fully loaded with
deuterium or hydrogen, respectively, up to about 90%, and this
loading level was maintained by a "trickle charge." Then the cells
were subject to electrolytic current excursions, increasing the
current to a much higher level for a time. First two times this was
done, the calorimetry showed no excess heat with either deuterium or
hydrogen. Third time, the deuterium cell showed excess heat
proportional to the current, the hydrogen cell showed only some
increased noise in the calorimetry.
That was a typical cold fusion event. Mysterious. Significant excess
heat shown -- for that period. The lack of excess heat in the other
periods ("dead cell," it's called) shows that the result is not
artifact from, say, the mismeasurement of input power, from bubble
noise, as a certain pseudoskeptic is now alleging. The lack of excess
heat in the hydrogen control shows something similar. There was also
calibration of the calorimetry with a resistor and with a platinum electrode.
But why consider this "fusion"? It's, technically, just "anomalous heat."
Here is why fusion: in some experiments, helium has been collected
and measured. Notice, one can run a series of identical cells, and
only in some cells is excess heat seen. Miles, who was an original
negative replicator covered in the 1989 DoE report, began to see
results. In his ultimate series as reported by Storms (2007 and
2010), he found heat in 21 out of 33 cells. In 12 cells, he found no
excess heat. Helium samples were measured by an independent lab that
did not know which samples were from which cells, they did not know
if the samples had shown excess heat or not.
Of the 12 cells that showed no excess heat, no helium beyond
measurement background was found. (This is far below atmospheric
ambient, by the way). Of the 21 cells showing excess heat, 18 showed
significant helium. (Storms notes some anomalies about the three
exceptions, but set that aside for the moment.)
This is very strong correlation, and Huizenga noticed this in 1993,
considered it an amazing result, but then dismissed it as probably
something that would not be confirmed, and, of course, impossible,
since no gamma rays were seen.
Do you understand, Joshua, the significance of Huizenga's "gamma ray"
comment. Huizenga was *assuming* that if there were a nuclear
reaction, it would have to be d-d fusion. His argument depends on
that assumption. And, in fact, the entire facade of theoretical
rejection of "cold fusion" depends on that assumption. It was assumed
that what Fleischmann called an "unknown nuclear reaction" was, if
real, a *known* nuclear reaction. A very basic error, and one easy to
see in hindsight.
The common knee-jerk rejection of cold fusion is based, in my
experience, on the same assumption.
The evidence for tritium and commensurate helium is not quite as
overwhelming but I have never seen any rational reason to doubt it.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Cude to provide one.
For me, the absence of a reason to doubt, is not a reason to
believe. And I am not holding my breath waiting for a rational
reason to believe the claims.
Don't hold your breath. You will think more clearly if you breathe.
The absence of a reason to doubt is certainly not, logically, a
reason to believe. But those who doubt the reports of others when
they have no reason to doubt are essentially sick. That's
pathological doubt, what's called pseudo-skepticism. Science normally
assumes good faith, assumes that the reports of those who do and
publish experimental work are sound, that is, not fraudulent and not
entirely stupid, either.
People make mistakes. In the normal process of science, if someone
publishes an experimental result that is rooted in some unidentified
artifact, the artifact is then identified and shown by controlled
experiment, or better analysis of already-available data.
This never happened with cold fusion. Instead, experimental evidence
was rejected because it was *believed* that it *must* be artifact.
That was turning science on its head, abandoning the scientific
method. Theory was treated as controlling, which, in effect, made the
theory not falsifiable, thus the theory was, for these people, made
into pseudoscience.
In fact, that was just shallow theory. There was no theoretical
reason to reject the possibility of *any nuclear reaction* at low
temperatures, and known counterexamples existed. What if the F-P
effect was simply a new exception, not previously noticed?
So, Joshua, are you ready to actually look at the evidence? I
understand that you don't "believe" in cold fusion and I certainly
don't expect you to. I don't. I *conclude*, from the evidence
available to me, that fusion is taking place, but by an unknown
mechanism. I have no opinion that this will result in free energy,
too cheap to meter, etc., or any of those fantasies. It might! and it
might not!
What I expect, if you care about science, is that you will explore
this, openly, and that you will first disclose any fixed,
non-negotiable beliefs that you have. Because if you have them, and
if you are attached to them, we will get nowhere and we will be
wasting our time. It would be, indeed, like arguing evolution with a
creationist who has a shallow understanding of the biblical account
and who is unwilling to consider alternatives.
Game?
