At 11:33 PM 6/1/2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
(a comment that is diagnostic as to his condition and extreme bias.)
On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Abd ul-Rahman
Lomax <<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
Cude>> ... as long as Rossi uses his own
designates to report measurements, he will not
be taken seriously. As soon as it would be
visual and obvious so anyone can see it, he would be rich and famous.
Lomax> Cude has repeated this meme, it should be
answered. Rossi did not pick the Swedish
scientists who observed, Mats Lewan did.
Maybe, but Rossi OK'd them.
Yes, he did. However, the point was that this was
not simply what Cude claimed, using "his own
designates." It is accepting the designates of
someone else. Sure, Rossi could possibly somehow
figure out that these people would somehow be
gullible. However, consider who they were. A
physicist sitting on the Nobel committee. An
official of the Swedish Skeptics Society. If
Rossi were not confident of his demonstrations,
do you think he'd approve those two? Indeed,
almost certainly, he'd reject Essen, at least.
What Cude is doing is demonstrating how, given a
held belief, one can create endless suspicion and
doubt, and there is no end to this. None, beyond
massive fully independent confirmation, which
isn't going to happen unless Rossi runs into
trouble delivering. Which could happen regardless of reality/fraud, etc.
Flipping to the opposite extreme, pure credulity,
would be no better, by the way.
> And he seems to have accepted any reputable
physicist willing to look at the work.
So far, that would be 3.
Out of a number he asked. Now, I've corresponded
with scientists at Wikipedia who were actually
skeptical but who did not want to be known as
even thinking that cold fusion might be real, or
as willing to look at evidence, they were afraid for their careers.
A physicist who is asked might well think, "What
if this is a really sophisticated fraud, and I
look at it and I can't see how it's done? I could
look, later, like a complete fool. This is a
no-win situation, no, I won't do it. I gain
nothing here but trouble." It takes quite a bit
of courage to do what Essen and Kullander did, just to be willing to look.
Were they fooled? Maybe. Actually, reading Essen
and Kullander, they are pretty careful. They've
described appearance, and have not claimed
reality. But, *still*, we have anonymous
pseudoskeptics like Cude claiming gullibility and even possible collusion.
There are two things to keep in mind about Cude.
First of all, he's obviously certain about what
is not possible, which is not a scientific
position, it's a religious belief. Secondly, he
is anonymous, and has no responsibility for what
he says, no reputation to uphold or protect,
nothing but an anonymous user name. Unlike
Kullander and Cude and Lewan and Levi and, indeed, Rossi.
His public demo was invitation only. He has
never made a public invitation to anyone who
wants to make direct measurements on the
experiment. The kind that would be required to
verify his claims. Because reported measurements
to date (except maybe the secret ones) do not verify his claims.
Well, let's put it this way: they were inadequate
as proof. And from what I can tell, that's
exactly what Rossi wants at this time. He wanted
to make a demo, for reasons others have explored,
but he didn't want to make it so bulletproof that
everyone would fall down, and big money would
start funding competition. He hit a compromise
between his need for secrecy, for commercial
reasons, and his desire to publicise, perhaps to please Focardi.
Fraud? Maybe. It's looking really unlikely to me,
but "really unlikely" is not "impossible." What I
know is that LENR is possible, that's not in
question, and Cude could not get his
protestations on this point published under peer
review, anywhere. They are pure political polemic
disguised as scientific skepticism.
> Given their reputations, if Rossi were
inclined to reject anyone who would not be
gullible, he'd not have allowed them to
observe. In order to maintain the fraud
hypothesis here, I'd have to assume that Rossi
paid off Lewan and the other Swedes.
No. He talked to them. He read their interviews,
and what they wrote. He probably got the sense
that they were prepared to believe that the
output flow of mist and steam was pure vapour.
He might have gotten a gentleman's agreement
that they would accept the experimental setup as
it was, and simply read the meters.
Basically, Cude can speculate and speculate and
create whatever story out of these speculations
he wants. Here, at least, he's writing
"probably," though there is nothing behind that
"probable" but Cude's conviction that this thing
is impossible. If what is apparent is impossible,
then the appearance *must* be wrong. And this
logic can be used to reject *any* evidence that would counter the held belief.
When I asked Lewan in the comments on his blog
why he hadn't made more penetrating investigations, this was his response:
"The reason for the set-up is of course partly
limited by what Rossi lets us prepare, but it's
also of practical reasons: I don't have the
E-cat in my own laboratory and have no
possibility to prepare a thorough set-up of my
own wish. Furthermore there's a good reason not
to change an existing set-up as this probably
creates new situations that have to be dealt
with in follow up tests. I actually only planned
one test but postponed my return to Sweden to
make a second as I had some things I wanted to
check better, as the steam flow. If I had
changed the set-up I probably would have had to
do three or four tests to be satisfied (and to
satisfy all readers...). Try to imagine coming
to a lab which is not yours, only having a
couple of hours to check a thing that most people don't believe inÂ…"
Yup. Makes sense to me. There are lots of
considerations that Lewan has not been explicit
about, militating against setting up an
independent test. There is possibly a complex
relationship between the heating and cooling in
this device, that's fairly clear to me.
Rossi is no doubt good at manipulating and
reading people, and knowing who will be bold
enough to insist on this measurement or that
change. Those Swedes all seem pretty mild-mannered.
Gee, like real scientists. American scientists
have a reputation for being much more
cantakerous, and that isn't always good.
Feynman's interference in a "fringe energy" demo
led to the death of a bystander. Wood may well
have been right with his supposed "pocketing" of
the aluminum mirror that allegedly focused
N-rays, but his "experiment" was not replicable
and was by definition an isolated report, and the
unfairness of this may have led some N-ray
researchers to spend unnecessary years trying to
overcome the difficulties. Lewis showed, with the
Cal Tech research on cold fusion, nothing but
replication failure, but his attack on Pons and
Fleischmann carried the day, politically, but not
scientifically, and, should, for example, it turn
out that there *is* an artifact involved in
"excess heat," the discovery of that artifact and
the proof of it by controlled experiment was
delayed by more than twenty years, and counting.
Wood and Feynman and Lewis share something:
arrogance. I love Feynman, he was brilliant. But
it's also the case that his arrogance killed
someone. All of these people had many excellent
qualities, but their worse quality is shared by Cude, the arrogance.
Also note that an early plan to allow the Swedes
to test the device in their own labs was scrapped until further notice.
Let's summarize the clear situation: Rossi has no
intention of allowing fully independent
replication unless there are certain tight
conditions attached to it, and we have no idea
why that plan was scrapped. Perhaps Rossi was
asking for conditions that Essen and Kullander
would not accept, or perhaps something else, perhaps, perhaps.
Do *not* hold your breath waiting for a
bulletproof demo before the end of this year,
except after the promised Defkalion delivery.
There are other possibilities, though. I know
that work is being done to independently find
more substantial excess heat with nickel hydride.
Something might be found before Rossi is ready.
That, economically, could be a nightmare for him.
Just consider this: if he does a bulletproof,
conclusive demo, he would attract, to his
competitors, who would exponentially multiply,
large venture funding. It would be a crash
program to do what he did, and patent first.
In other words, Cude, and those like him, are
demanding that Rossi commit economic suicide.
So whether he is real or fraud, don't expect to
see that demo until he is ready to force the patent situation, legally.
> As to visual and obvious, no, it would not be
"as soon as." There is a mechanism of fame, and
it takes time, sometimes. Media ignorance of
the Rossi story is puzzling, but this happens. Consider the Wright brothers.
Consider Pons & Fleischman. It was overnight.
Indeed. And the rejection was also very quick,
way too quick. Cude, it might be interesting to
see if you are capable of looking at this from a
different perspective. Sociologists of science
have written about this, at length. Theoretical
physicists have written that the rejection on
theoretical grounds was defective, yet many still
consider that solid and sane. The normal protocols of science were bypassed.
Pons and Fleischmann bypassed normal protocols by
announcing with a press conference, but, when a
discovery can have major economic impact, that's
actually fairly common. What was the rush to rejection?
Look, it's obvious. Would Cude come up with the
possible explanations himself? I'm not holding my breath.
The Wright Brothers were very secretive,
avoiding the press and others, limiting the
photographs, until they had an offer on the
table. But after the first *obvious* public
demonstrations in 1908, "the Wright brothers
catapulted to world fame overnight". The
demonstration did not rely on experts'
testimonies, or invitee's accounts. Anyone who
wanted could witness it with their own eyes.
There were prior eyewitness accounts that were
disregarded. Sure, eventually it broke through.
If Rossi wants to be secretive, that's fine. But
if he makes an obvious public demonstration
where there is no input energy, and no doubt
about energy densities higher than chemical, I
expect overnight fame. Just like the Wright brothers.
Yes. And that's not what he wants right now. Isn't that obvious?
> There isn't any doubt that this is highly newsworthy at this time,
You mean you have no doubt. Obviously, if there
were *no* doubt, it would in the news. It's not
as if the major media don't have access to the internet.
Yes. I'm confident about that. No, some things
don't make the news that are newsworthy. And
there are lots of reasons for that. Things that
are, in some ways, as important as the E-cat potential, don't make the news.
> it's either the energy development of the
century, or the most brazen fraud to hit with
respect to energy production. This will be
noticed by history regardless, this is not one
of a long line of similar frauds.
I don't see it that way at all. It's either true
or false, yes. But there are many ways it can be
false, and I wouldn't even rule out
self-deception on Rossi's part. Why or how it's
false doesn't matter. Without evidence, we have no reason to believe it's true.
But if it is fraud, I don't see it as
particularly different from previous frauds,
particularly Mills (which might also be self-deception).
You know, if I were Mills, I'd file legal
requests to penetrate Cude's anonymity, because that was Libel. Even if hedged.
[after I cited Cook]
So, you find one more scientist who is
sympathetic to CF, and that is supposed to
change the fact that the vast majority,
especially physicists, continue to dismiss CF as
theoretically unlikely, and experimentally unproven.
Without examination of the experimental evidence,
based on belief in a theory of impossibility,
which is what Cook, in 1989, not at all convinced
that cold fusion was real, wrote was an error.
Cude is simply demonstrating his attachment to an
error, and I've encountered this with students
before. They believe that what they have learned
is the be-all, and end-all, and if anything
someone with more experience says seems to
contradict what they think they know, they will
tell the person that they are wrong, crazy, or lying.
Enough.
Cook is impressively prolific and
interdisciplinary, but as far as I can tell,
he's a psychologist (according to American
Scientist), in the department of informatics at
the University of Kansai in Japan. At the time
of the Computers in Physics article, he was a
member of the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford.
Can you name a university that uses his book as a text book?
It's a supplemental text, but what I notice is
that Springer, the second largest academic
publisher in the world, has put out a second
edition, which generally indicates that they
expect to make money on it. This is classic Cude:
cast whatever doubt can be cast, based on no
evidence whatever, simply as suspicion.
Any scientist who points out the real situation
about cold fusion (if we assume it's real for a
moment, which is what the preponderance of the
evidence certainly shows at this time, which is
why such statements, baldly asserting this, have
been passing peer review) is suspect.
"Sympathetic to CF," which, presumably,
disqualifies him, since anyone sympathetic to CF is a lunatic believer, Q.E.D.
Yes, this guy is multidisciplinary. Just note
that he was publishing in nuclear physics in
1989. Linus Pauling wrote about Vitamin C. Does
that cast doubt on his chemistry?
And if I understand your reference, he did make
sympathetic comments about CF in 1989.
Read them carefully. They are only about the
belief that CF is theoretically impossible. He
simply pointed out what is well-known about those
who look at the issue: there are unsolved problems aplenty in the solid state.
> Cude represents a grad student level
understanding of physics, a grad student who
has diligently studied to master a field, which
means stuffing his head with what's been known
and theorized, and being able to regurgitate it
in a way to bring approval from experts in the current state of his field.
Actually, that's an undergraduate level.
Graduate students are required to bring new knowledge to the world.
In a way that fits neatly into what exists. Grad
students who make ground-breaking discoveries
that contradict previous paradigms don't generally get their PhD based on this.
After all, a few Nobel prizes have been awarded
for graduate work, including those awarded to
Mossbauer, Josephson, and de Broglie.
yeah, but it's rare. Speaking of Josephson....
And my attitude toward CF is shared by the likes
of Gell-Mann, Glashow, Weinberg, and so on. The
Nobel committee clearly feels their level of understanding is solid.
understanding of what? This is really weird, you
know. Cude will discount Josephson, I'm sure, and
he'll also discount Schwinger and Ramsey, because
they are or were "sympathetic to cold fusion,"
but he things that the others share his attitude.
Okay, I'd love to see their attitude, where is it expressed?
This is classic Cude, again, make a strong claim
with no evidence whatever. What did those eminent
scientists say, and when, and what was it based on.
In particular, I'd like to know their reaction to
heat/helium, which is the replicable experiment
that so many claimed never was found, and it
demonstrated what was long demanded, even after
it had been show, the demand continued, as if it never had been found.
> He doesn't yet understand that science
advances through recognizing what is not known,
not through believing what is assumed to be known.
Actually, it advances through both. Well, not
believing, but making hypotheses based on what is assumed to be known.
Only based on what is known? When "what is known"
seems to be contradicted by experiment?
Yes, both processes occur and both can advance
science. It is only when experimental evidence is
rejected simply based on contradiction with
theory that the process breaks down.
> We provisionally accept what is known, without belief,
Scientists do, yes. But this does not describe
most of the CF advocates, who most certainly
accept what they think is known with fervent belief.
There are people like that, I think. I just don't
know any, among the major CF researchers.
"Fervent belief" is a very personal opinion,
unless you have a fervent-beliefometer. Where'd you get that?
Do you have evidence that Storms, for example, is
a "fervent believer"? In what? Can you show evidence for this?
This, again, is characteristic of pseudoskeptics:
make up presumably negative psychological states
and ascribe them to anyone who disagrees with
them. However, what I'm seeing is that Cude is
describing himeslf, he is a fervent believer in
the impossibility of cold fusion. Without
evidence, all that he can come up with is alleged
"absence of evidence," and we can see that
whatever evidence is shown for cold fusion, he
counters it with whatever objections he can
imagine, none of it based on controlled experiment.
He hasn't even pocketed a prism. He doesn't have
to, it would be too much work. Just make up
whatever argument you like, then believe you have carried the day.
The day of reckoning is coming. He'll disappear,
we will stop hearing from Joshua Cude, it's a
throwaway identity. But the reality, he will live
with for the rest of his life. He's a fraud, a
pretender, a con artist, all the things that he
accuses others of. He may pretend to be a
scientist, he's clearly studied for that, but,
inside, he will know that it's a sham, and he will live and die in that.
Unless. Unless he gets it, and drops it.
I haven't read the rest, except to note that Cude
might correctly be asserting that Takahashi came
up with a multibody fusion theory in 1989, and
was then looking for evidence, instead of
deriving multibody fusion theory from
experimental evidence. The experimental work
stands, in any case. Unfortunately, as with much
experimental work in cold fusion, I'm not aware
of replication. This sad state of affairs is the
direct result of premature rejection, but
pseudoskeptics blame researchers for it. Why
don't they replicate each other's work?
A few minutes of consideration of the conditions
that CF researchers have worked under for the
last twenty years will reveal the answer. It has
to do with those grad students.
