On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Mary Yugo <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> And I always have to remind you that there are probably many potential >> methods to cheat we may not have thought of. >> > > You do not have to remind me of that. I have to remind *you* that is a > violation of the scientific method. > You don't know anything about the scientific method. Why is a non-scientist telling scientists how to do their job. Do you also advise Tiger Woods on his golf swing? It is proposition that cannot be tested or falsified. It is like saying > there is probably an invisible undetectable fairy godmother hovering in the > air causing these effects. > It's nothing like that. In fact that's what advocates are doing. They are saying "nuclear" but can't specify a reaction or a mechanism to thermalize. That' s done by the fairy godmother. Yet, when skeptics claim it is chemical because the energy density fits, somehow *they* are required to specify the reaction and mechanism, or they won't be believed. It's a double standard. No, worse. Because surely the onus on proving the mechanism falls to the claimant. If the proof of a nuclear reaction relies on energy density, then it is enough to show the energy density is far below that of chemical fuel, to reject the evidence. An argument is not valid or meaningful *at all* unless you can describe > some specific means of testing it and proving it is true -- or false. No > one can prove that "there are probably potential methods." You have to list > actual methods. You might as well claim "there are probably potential > methods of proving that the world is flat." Okay, show us the methods! > > Again. This is what advocates are doing. They say there are probably nuclear methods to provide the observed heat, but don't show us how.
