Stephen A. Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote:
> Really, Jed? You acknowledge the possibility of error or fraud, and just > assume it's all real "for the sake of argument"? > You misunderstand. This is not about my beliefs. I expect *other people*who take part in an academic discussion to accept assertions for the sake of argument whether they believe those particular assertions or not. By "accept" I mean they should not raise the same objections repeatedly as if others have forgotten these objections, or misunderstood. I do not say they must agree. Just state the objection once or twice as needed, and then move on. As I said in my example, we know that some participants here are convinced that the Mills theory is right, and others that it is wrong. Suppose that every time someone made a statement predicted on Mills, someone else said: "I don't believe Mills!" That would be disruptive. It would be pointless. Mary Yugo seems to be laboring under the delusion that it has never occurred to the rest of us that Rossi is a strange character, and suspicious, and that he might be a faker. If she will take the trouble to review the archives she will find that I and others said this innumerable times. So there is no need for her to repeat it, or remind us. It is disruptive. Unless she comes up with some new evidence for this, she should drop the discussion. If you are not absolutely convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this > thing is for real and Rossi is telling the truth, Jed, you are doing a > great job of pretending to be. > I would say 99.9% convinced. Not as convinced as I am of F&P's claims, evolution or special relativity. > Which, BTW, leaves me wondering why you're bothering to spend so much time > doing experiments to test his thermocouple usage. > Because it is fun. I have always enjoyed thermometers. I find it interesting to check to see if the bones of a roasting turkey really does have a significantly different temperature (nope), or how stable the heat from a hot water tank is (not very). Hey, I am not as bad as J. P. Joule, who spent much of his honeymoon measuring the water temperatures of a stream above and below a waterfall. History does not record what Mrs. J. said about that. > Horace, and some other skeptics, have a much more obvious mission: Try to > "talk down" the LENR advocates who are totally hooked on Rossi at this > point, before the whole field gets dug even deeper into a hole. > Stop fretting about that. The field can't get any worse than it is already. There is no funding. The researchers are dying of old age. The mass media as always says we are frauds and lunatics. It never publishes the facts. The worst imaginable outcome from Rossi and Defkalion would not make a dime's worth of difference. - Jed
