Blind tests are not done just in the social sciences. I work in the field of gravitational waves that coincidentally is another somehow controversial field. Just because it is controversial, just because it has a history of past false claims the almost 700 scientists, working in the scientific collaboration I belong to ( the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, LSC), have established very high standards for any eventual public declaration of detection of gravitational waves.
One of the things we do routinely to test if our search algorithms are working properly and what would be required in terms of consensus to decide we have detected something is for some higher up in the LSC to inject blindly (having the computer randomize time and parameters of the injection) artificial signals in the LIGO detector and let the other scientists "discover" the signal. Only after long debates on the probability and plausibility of the signal are done at the collaboration level for several days it is revealed if the signal was an artificial injection or a real detection. We have done this exercise many times and so far nothing real has been detected but all the injections have been accounted for. Blind experiments could be easily set up for the Rossi's e-cat. In fact, Rossi's himself could set up such an experiment. For example, he could reveal that one e-cat has the secret sauce and another has not (the two would have to be exact copies of course). A mark could be made on the sauced up apparatus. Then the mark is covered with tape and the other e-cat would also have a similar tape in the same spot. Then the e-cat are moved around while Rossi is not watching. Then Rossi could perform his experiment and we would see what happens. Or maybe the sauce is put in a fuel box that is randomly inserted inside one of several e-cat. Or one can randomize several other inputs like the electrical or the hydrogen supply and so on. All kind of tests can be imagined of course. But Rossi doesn't want to do any more demonstrations as we know. Blind experiments are fundamental in science. Jed, is there even one LENR experiment that can be reproduced every single time when a switch is turned on (besides Rossi's I mean) ? Just one, please. Giovanni On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 3:42 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com>wrote: > Are you kidding, or what? > > > > On 11-12-21 04:33 PM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > >> I didn't say that being reproducible by amateurs would be the only way I >> would take LENR seriously. >> Multiple tests done by respectable scientists, with high sigmas, and >> blind methods >> > > "blind methods" ??? > > What, you think LENR should be treated as some kind of drug? > > Blind testing is done in the social sciences and in medicine but not in > physics. It's nutty to even suggest it. > > "And in flask A, we have EITHER D20 OR H20, but the researcher *doesn't* > *know* *which*. At the end of the experiment, the sealed files will be > retrieved from the vault and opened and we'll find out what flask A really > contained!" > > What a bizarre suggestion. > > > > would be acceptable. But in the end the acceptance of this phenomenon as >> a practical approach to energy production would have to be reproducible not >> just by amateurs but by EVERYBODY. >> > > This is rank lunacy. > > Heck, I can't even reliably trigger a uranium fission chain reaction in my > kitchen, and that's apparently a lot easier to obtain than a LENR OU result! > > > > It would have to be reproducible as easy as we can lit a room, with the >> turn of a switch. It would have to be easy to see and witness that it would >> be taken for granted eventually as we do with electricity and light bulbs. >> > > Yeah, and those fission reactors we all have in our basements. > > >
