At 02:44 PM 5/23/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote:
OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson wrote:
But, horror
of horrors, if Rossi turns out to be a sophisticated scam artist, and
we didn't catch that fact before the hard-core skeptics expose the
truth, we would be forced to assess whether our harsh opinion of
hard-core skeptics is really deserving.
There are two hypotheticals here:
IF Rossi is revealed as scam artist and
IF the hard-core skeptics are the ones who expose the truth.
If (the first condition), the hard-core skeptics are not likely to be
the ones who expose it, because they will not be the ones who first
get enough access. It will be someone like Kullander, or Lewan, or
Essen, or Aleklett. The hard-core skeptics are so convinced that it's
false that they won't look, and we only hear from the armchair know-it-alls.
The second does not follow from the first. If anyone exposes Rossi,
it will probably be an open minded person willing to look closely at
the claim, such as Kullander.
Yeah, I hadn't read the second paragraph before starting my reply.
It will not be a hard-core skeptic. I have not been following
Cude's posts carefully, but I do not think he has proposed a method
of fraud that we can check for. Other people, such as Alan
Fletcher, have pointed out potential problem. I would not call
Fletcher a hard-core skeptic by any means.
I've pointed out the generic problem, not resolvable, really, until
we have more data, particularly from fully independent analysis. As
an example of what won't serve, suppose the full results from
analysis of the powder, before and after, becomes available, and it
does, in fact, indicate an isotopic anomaly. Well, those powders
could be salted. There is no way to rule out all possibility of
fraud, and when trillions of dollars in value are involved, not way
to rule out some limited collusion. We are, as I've said many times,
at the point where simple frauds are highly unlikely, and "error" is
impossible. Rossi is right on track, it seems to be, to making his
case in a way that cannot be stopped by pseudoskepticism.
Patient guy or very, very sophisticated con. I'll opt for "patient,"
while watching my wallet. If an investment opportunity appears, I'll
consider what evidence is available at the time. It's moot now, for
me and for Cude, with his silly advice about an energy device that
must be plugged in. There is no salesman at my door, and if one
appeared today, with what I know, I'd call the police.
There have been many faulty cold fusion experiments. To my
knowledge, the hard-core skeptics have not discovered or described
any of them. I have pointed out many more real problems than they have.
Yeah. Pseudoskepticism fries the brain, it cannot perceive and
cleanly analyze evidence. The pseudoskeptics have this meme: all
people who point to evidence supporting cold fusion are deluded
"believers." No matter what their credentials, no matter how strong
the evidence, all that matters to them is that they *must* be
deluded, since what they assert contradicts my opinions. Which are,
of course, solidly based in Fact and Proven Theory.
If it turns out cold fusion is not real, I will not give the
skeptics any credit for betting against it. It is always a safe bet
to predict that a new claim in science is wrong. Look at the failure
rate for experiments or business ventures. If find a way to bet
against such things, on average you will win as surely as the house
wins in a Los Vegas casino. It does not take any skill or knowledge.
That's correct. Rossi is an outlier in the cold fusion world. Nobody
had reported results anything like his. There were lots of grounds
for skepticism, but, as you know, Jed, this wasn't as far outside
what was already known as the pseudoskeptics believe. Lots of people
had been looking for what he found, he simply was the first one to
have the persistence, as well as, probably, luck. And the money, by
the way. Testing a thousand variations was *expensive*, especially in
time. He also kept his mouth shut, it seems, for years, with his
intermediate results. He was going for the gold.
I'm not thrilled by that, from the point of view of public benefit.
But it was his right, it was his money and time being invested. He
may now have investment from Ampenergo, so he's not so likely to run
out of money on the road to Defkalion. Funny how the wikipediots
removed the reference to the former U.S. energy official on the board
of Ampenergo. "Not important," it was explained. Right. They removed
that precisely because they know it's important, it lends gravitas,
so, since they believe this is a scam, they wanted it out. That was
obvious proof of Point-of-View pushing, self-contradictory. It was
reliably sourced, and of obvious interest to the general reader, whom
they do not trust, they believe that general readers will be
motivated, seeing that board member, to write out a check....
They think it was promotional. Right. It was. Notably promotional.
That is, the fact that the guy is on the board was, I'm sure, deliberate. So?
