Here's another:
The 'New Scientist' article of May 1, 1993 Christopher Tinsley 'New Scientist', for those who don't know it, is a British science magazine. In addition to articles by scientists and science journalists it also has news, reviews, and various comment columns. Judging by all the job advertisements, it is read by many scientists. I enjoy it each week. Its reporting of cold fusion largely ended with articles by Profs Close and Bockris arguing their cases in January 1991. Since then, it has made only passing references to the subject, except to report the accident at SRI and the NTT announcement in October 1992. In the latter case it took the usual line, obtaining comments from a notable opponent of cold fusion who had clearly not read the paper in question. There was a laughing comment on the cold fusion testimony to Congress. But although ignorance is rather inexcusable in science journalism, a truly charitable person might conclude that the magazine's ignorance might explain their reporting. So it was with alarm that I read their account of Fleischmann and Pons' Physics Letters A paper. The magazine had obviously got a preprint, since they reproduced a graph from the paper. It was quite clear from the article that the two scientists were publishing nothing more than a weakened version of their original paper. Although it was mentioned that the paper claimed that the cathode gave more power per volume than does a fission plant's fuel rod, much play was made of the actual result of a mere two watts per cubic centimetre. This gave Morrison of CERN and Williams of Harwell a marvellous opportunity to rubbish the work as marginal, and within the bounds of error. Most of the article seemed to consist of such comments. Well, it sure fooled me! The next day, comparing the article with the actual paper, it was possible to see that the graph was just about the only point of contact between the article and the paper. The paper had another graph on the same page, but this one showed not two but about twenty watts per cubic centimetre, rising to nearly four thousand watts per cubic centimeter as the water in the flask started to boil. After a few minutes the flask had boiled dry, the high-temperature plastic supports in the flask had melted and the cell remained - without input power - at about boiling point for about three hours. The article had mentioned none of this. In the same issue, the editor had written of the importance of accuracy in science journalism, attacking two British newspapers. To discuss properly the errors and distortions in the article would require several pages. It would seem impossible that these could all be due to honest error. The question now is not so much how many of the four people involved - the writer, the editor and the two quoted sources - were aware of the discrepancies, but why the article took the form it did. We know from the graph that someone had a copy of at least a part of the paper, so it is reasonable to suppose that this person at least was aware of what was in the rest of it. But what could this person hope to gain from the article's publication? Even in the short term, there will be letters of protest and any interested person will compare the paper with the article and draw his own conclusions. A further negative outcome for opponents of cold fusion will be that their credibility will be badly damaged by the fact that they will inevitably be seen as being in a camp shared by such a person, and be regarded as guilty by association. For supporters of cold fusion, on the other hand, it is a happy time. Not only do we have the extraordinary paper itself, but the paper has finally revealed the true colours of the opposition. To mix a metaphor, it has flushed them out of the woodwork. And perhaps down the pan.
