> The pseudoskeptics continually assert that their criticism of those who > are investigating Rossi's claims has nothing to do with whether Pons and > Fleischmann had any validity to their claims. This rhetorical maneuver > denies the obvious Bayesian law of prior probability distribution: If > P&F's cold fusion claim was not valid then any subsequent claims of > advances on P&F's cold fusion claim are likewise invalidated. >
That's completely wrong-- both sides of it. If P&F are correct, that does not mean that Rossi's entirely different claim is correct. Rossi claims way more power and uses different materials. Second, if P&F were wrong, Rossi could still have found the golden goose. Again, his method is different from P&F's. The argument against Rossi is simply that it is very easy to test his claim. He has been told by many experts, including enthusiasts of CF like Jed Rothwell, *exactly* how it needs to be done. It's not a risky process, needs not reveal his secrets and can be done cheaply and quickly. And he has *never* done it in nine months of fussing around with lots of people. He has instead gone through one experiment after another based on evaporation of steam. His October 6 demo featured a much larger and heavier device which was poorly inspected and had a lower power density than ever before. Each subsequent device seems to make less power per volume and weight than the one before. And his October 28 demo of the megawatt plant was not properly witnessed by any of the guest scientists and journalists. Those are Rossi's problems. The problems are not that there are "pseusoskeptics" (whatever the heck that is) any more than the problems are that there are clowns and snakes. The problem is simply and squarely Rossi and his unnecessarily evasive activities.
