I regard efforts to change the name "cold fusion" as attempts to create a euphemism. Euphemisms never work. Whatever bothers people about the old word soon attaches to the new word, so you end up generating word after word. For example: toilet, bathroom, men's room, restroom, etc.
Here is what I wrote about this, in my review of Beaudette's book: Beaudette thinks the early history of cold fusion soured the field and shaped events. He regrets the cold fusion got off on the wrong foot with the University of Utah press conference. He thinks the name "cold fusion" is a misnomer which has confused the issue. Storms and others have coined new names like LENR partly to escape from the stigma of the original one. A new name would be a euphemism. The stigma associated with the original word will soon attach to the new one. The 1989 introduction could have been done with more finesse, but I doubt it would have made much difference. Beaudette knows that some level of controversy was unavoidable: "Revolutions . . . always hit hard and they hurt. The notion that somehow -- if only things were handled better -- the deep divisions could have been avoided is not a realistic sentiment." Beaudette does not discuss what I consider the key factor in generating and prolonging the conflict: money. I did not think this originally, but Szpak, Hagelstein and others with long experience in academic science convinced me that is the key issue. The only issue, really. Scientists are not opposed to new ideas any more than programmers or restaurant owners are. The only thing they care about is how the new idea affects their pocketbook. People often say that scientists are conservative and they oppose ideas that appear to violate theory. As far as I can tell, the only people who get upset about a theory are those who specialize in that particular theory. The others do not care. When you ask a scientist about a theory in some other branch he likely to say 'that is a bunch of ad hoc guesses cobbled together, and you can't take theory seriously anyway.' Asked about his own theory and he will tell you it is unquestionably true. Anyway, if you come up with a few million dollars in grant money, 99% of scientists will instantly throw away whatever beliefs and theories they subscribe to, and rally around whatever cockamamie research topic you have come up with. When cold fusion was first announced, Tom Passell of EPRI says that many scientists publicly denounced it, while in private they were frantically applying to EPRI for research grants to study it. They did not actually oppose it. Probably they had no strong feeling either way. There were only denouncing it to keep others from applying for a grant. It was a ploy. In my experience, academic scientists tend to be unethical, backbiting scoundrels, like stockbrokers. They claim they are held accountable by peer-review and so on but that is not true. They can make gross errors and no one catches them or even cares. Plagiarism is endemic. Peer review and funding mechanisms would be considered a gross violation of antitrust laws in any other line of work. Imagine how things would be if you let IBM decide what products a startup company will be allowed to develop! Academic institutions and practices encourage irresponsibility and reward bad actors. People such as farmers and programmers have to produce real world results. That tends to keep them more honest. It is no wonder science has been stagnating for decades, as Chris Tinsley pointed out. - Jed
