On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 8:30 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Mary Yugo <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm also curious if you know another earth shaking revolutionary invention >> that has been brought out with such discretion and misdirection recently. > > > Transistor zone refining, the cause of rickets, the maser, MRI, some HTSC > research, and symptoms of AIDS unique to women. > Not familiar with the medical cases, but none of the physics examples bear any resemblance to cold fusion. The main problem with CF is that the principle is not believed. If there was reluctance to believe the principles in the fields you mention, it was brief and limited. If there was misdirection, it was not about the legitimacy of a phenomenon. I don't know of an example of a cold-fusion-scale phenomenon for which the principle was rejected almost unanimously by the mainstream for decades, that was later vindicated. Storms seems to agree, because he calls the treatment of cold fusion (assuming it is real) unprecedented. And question was about advocates of the new fields trying to avoid proving the principle. > You must be joking. My grandmother and my parents grew up in the era when > airplanes were first invented, and cars and electricity were becoming > common. > Your parents and grandparents are 105 years old? To the extent that there are a lot of people the age of your parents and grandparents (I assume), you hardly have any kind of special insight to this era, because you are an off-spring. We all are. > They were *far* more open to new ideas and discoveries than people are > today! Everyone was back then. > I don't see how you can justify a statement like that with any objective metrics. Or that it's even a positive thing. Chiropractic (straight) was born in that period. Homeopathy is older, but it flourished then. If the number of people that believe in woo is decreasing, that is probably good, but I doubt that it is true. The pace of change from 1860 to 1950 was much faster than it is today, and > people more open minded. > Again, I don't think that can be justified with objective metrics. There is no doubt that the fundamentals of physics changed much faster during that period, but revolutions like relativity and quantum mechanics can't be expected to come every century. Understanding biology has made far more progress in the last half century, than the previous. And as for technical change, communications and computation have developed far faster in the last 50 years. We went from primitive rockets to walking on the moon in a decade. (Not very useful, but progress nonetheless) Moore's law started in the 50s or 60s, and has continued unabated since, without a hiccup in the last 20 years of cold fusion stasis. Anyway the misdirection did not last long. And this is >> the age of the iPad, webcams, instant news and the internet. >> > > People opposed to cold fusion have successfully used misdirection, > ignorance and outright lies for 22 years and counting. > I thought this was about cold fusion advocates like Rossi doing exactly that. If misdirection from skeptics can keep something as profound and *beneficial to all* as cold fusion down, then it's probably not real to begin with. The internet is chock ignorant nonsense about global warming and > evolution. GOP candidates have to swear allegiance to this nonsense to be > nominated. > True, but this is all contrary to the scientific mainstream views of them. Not so, cold fusion.
