At 04:57 PM 2/26/2011, Terry Blanton wrote:
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Joshua Cude <[email protected]> wrote:
> Obviously, me calling them fringe does not make it so. But if people who
> work on fringe science represent a fringe group, then it is not really a
> matter of opinion.
As long as we are expressing our opinions, IMO, those who work on the
fringe of science should be called "explorers" and not be denigrated.
Of course, Terry.
Joshua has basically defined "fringe" in a way that is unverifiable.
These things get defined on Wikipedia, in theory, by balance of
publication. In theory, if we exclude specialist publishers, i.e.,
publishers who only publish things that are not generally accepted,
the Journal of Scientific Exploration would be an example -- which in
no way deprecates that journal, in itself -- Wikipedia editors are to
look at everything appearing in secondary source reviews, in
mainstream journals, as to be covered by the encyclopedia, in science articles.
In practice, editors ignore the guidelines, and ignore the
Arbitration Committee decisions, and have acted to exclude from
participation, editors with opinions they consider "fringe," often
based on very old publication and assumptions. That is how the
Wikipedia article has come to be radically misrepresentative of the
actual balance of publication in mainstream journals.
Pseudoskeptics will raise hosts of arguments. They will claim that
Naturwissenschaften is a "biology journal," citing fair-seeming
evidence. That falls apart if actually examined, but they continue to
assert this all the same. That particular canard was the subject of a
mediation on Wikipedia, and the conclusion was correct. Not a "life
sciences journal." But an editor who participated in that mediation,
who did not object to the result, just the other day repeated it.
Pseudoskepticism is a form of religious belief, it is not scientific.
In the end, "fringe" is no argument about a topic at all. It's a
political category. In theory, no paper is rejected because it is
"fringe." In a functional journal with functioning review process.
This argument, in fact, is used by the pseudoskeptics, they point to
the absence of papers in certain journals they consider important.
But particular journals can be subject to editorial bias; if papers
are not even subjected to peer review, if they are rejected out of
had by policy, which definitely happened, and which still continues,
then we can see the absence of papers in them.
The skeptical position is mostly a position of silence, there are a
few people, obviously obsessed by the topic, some simply continuing,
inflexibly, prior committed opinion, it is not finding expression in
peer-reviewed journals. Papers and reviews are being published, with
the strongest criticism only reaching to the level of a Letter to the
Journal of Environmental Monitoring, and positive review, even
calling the field "cold fusion," reaching the level of prestige of
Naturwissenschaften. At some point the silence will be recognized for
what it is: denial.
I cannot predict what negative review might appear. However, what I
see is that the big two scientific publishers, Elsevier and
Springer-Verlag, seem to have fully opened up to cold fusion. The
holdout journals, perhaps "blackout" journals, cannot continue to
stave off the rising tide. Publication has quadrupled since the nadir
in 2004-2006. Younger scientists are becoming educated in what
actually happened in 1989-1990. This was already well documented by
the sociologists of science, such as Bart Simon, people are starting
to recognize that they were hoodwinked by false claims, such as the
claim that Pons and Fleischmann's findings were never replicated. The
skepticism is most entrenched among physicists, who seem to be
unwilling to acknowledge that there might be something happening that
they don't understand. "Lack of explanatory theory" has been, in
fact, one of the most common reasons given for skepticism, which
represents a serious misunderstanding of the enterprise of science;
experiments, once widely confirmed, that contradict existing theory
-- or that appear to do so -- are signs that the existing theory is
wrong, or, more likely, particularly with "well established theory of
high normal predictive value," that the theory is being incorrectly applied.
It's been five months since the publication of the
Naturwissenschaften review. I don't know what's being submitted to
them as rebuttal, but from the quality of internet objections, it
might not be adequate for publication. The tables have been turned.
