Terry Blanton <[email protected]> wrote: Gibbs comment about being *useful* really has me inflamed. > > For so very long the Media has reported that LENR is not real. They were > the reason Pons is sequestered on the South of France. They did not give > Fleischmann the recognition that he deserved before he died. Now Gibbs > comes out and says that this is the first time it might be able to do > something useful. Well it is clear that he thinks it is real. >
I hope he does. You never know. He seems to have moved the goalposts. I expect he will now belittle cold fusion even though it is real because it is not yet practical. This is infuriating, as you say. Gibbs is not the first to do this. In 1993, Hagelstein wrote: "Scientists in the field have gone to extremes in attempts to satisfy skeptics. Cells were stirred, blanks were done, extremely elaborate closed cell calorimeters have been developed (in which the effect has been demonstrated), the signal to noise ratio has been improved so that positive results can now be claimed at the 50 sigma level, the reproducibility issue has been laid to rest; but still it is not enough. I have heard some skeptics saying that a commercial product is the next hurdle to be jumped through before any significant funding can be justified. This is simply not right." http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinsummaryofi.pdf > > Well, now the Media has a responsibility to shout to the world that LENR > is real. > I am sure they don't see it that way! Anyway, if they did start shouting, many mainstream scientists would come down on them like a ton of bricks. The APS and the DoE would beat up on them. Let's face facts. If Gibbs were to publish an unequivocal statement that cold fusion is real, it is important, and it deserves funding, he would soon lose his job. I honestly can't blame mass media reporters for kissing up to the establishment. We cannot expect them to martyr themselves the way Eugene Mallove did. He was one in a million! And he had no idea how difficult this would be or long it would take. He was far too optimistic. (I told him that, but only occasionally, because he had enough problems without hearing that from me.) My guess is that roughly half of professional scientists are still convinced that cold fusion is fraud or lunacy or what-have-you. The opponents themselves assume they represent 99% of scientists, but I have some fragmentary evidence that they represent a smaller fraction. I do not blame the mass media for these distortions. I don't blame Gibbs for publishing mush and half-truths. I only wish he would publish *technically accurate* mush. What I mean is: describe what the cold fusion researchers claim, not a made-up version that you pull out of your hat. You can follow that with counterclaims made by ignorant skeptics, or even with your own half-baked speculation. Go ahead and attack the field. Ridicule it all you like. But *at least begin* by reporting what is being claimed, rather than an imaginary version. I don't blame the mass media because I think the technical journals are at fault. The scientific establishment -- especially the DoE -- is at fault. Scientists who oppose the research yet who have read nothing about it are at fault. When a new development is announced in computers, or medicine, or hybrid cars, a person who is seriously interested should read technical journals or trade magazines. The mass media publishes a simplified version of the story, based on what the technical journals say. As long as most technical journals attack or ignore cold fusion, you can't expect Forbes, or CNN, or the New York Times to cover the subject. It is not their job to sort through complicated technical subjects. They will go out and ask scientists, and the scientists are likely to say "cold fusion is bogus junk science" because they are ordinary people who are as biased as anyone is likely to be about a subject he knows nothing about. They have no idea they are wrong, and no reason to check. I suppose a reporter might approach a scientist and say: "Here is a list of peer-reviewed journal papers by McKubre, Miles, Storms and others. Have you read them, and if so, what do you think?" If the scientist says he has not read them I would ignore everything else he says. An opinion -- whether it is positive or negative -- is meaningless if you cannot support it by citing experiments. This is experimental science; not theory. I don't care if the scientist is a 5-time Nobel laureate; if he has not done his homework, and he does not know the instruments, methods and results, he is no more qualified to judge cold fusion than an cop on the corner or a stockbrocker would be. - Jed
