On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 9:44 PM, Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, > > On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 12:28 PM, Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com>wrote: > > >> You need positive credible evidence to convince people that cold fusion >> is real. And there isn't any. >> > > It's a little painful to watch this thread, Joshua. > This may come as a surprise, but I'm not trying to make it painless for true believers. Also, no one's holding a gun to your head. > Here you assert that positive, credible evidence has not been provided, > after people have provided positive, credible evidence > The statement about positive credible evidence is a summary, not an argument. I've written a lot of words to support that summary. Mainstream does not believe the evidence for cold fusion. Therefore, it is not credible. It's really an observation, but like I said, it's not meant to stand on its own as a compelling reason to reject it. The evidence for cold fusion is a dog's breakfast of inconsistent claims of excess heat and various products of nuclear reaction. After 24 years, there is still not an experiment that anyone skilled in the art can do, and get quantitatively predictable positive results, whether it's excess heat, tritium, or helium (or an unequivocally positive result). That's why the number of refereed positive claims has dwindled to one or two papers a year, and why the claims become ever more lame. Many of the papers in the last decade are about the SPAWAR's CR-39 results, which have been challenged, and which SPAWAR itself has shut down.The few claims of excess power are in the range of a watt or so, when P&F claimed 10 W in 198, and 140 in 1993. All the internet excitement results from larger but unpublished claims, and from people looking for investment, and using methods of calorimetry shown to be fallible more than a decade ago. It's not pretty. > -- not all of it, but some, it seems to me; sufficient evidence, at any > rate, to build a prima facie case that we should all go do some more > reading. > I've done a lot of reading, and like most people who are not emotionally invested in cold fusion's success, I have become more skeptical as a result. > Later on will then no doubt go on to assert once more that positive, > credible evidence has not been provided. > If you mean as a result of more reading, then yes. Because I'm pretty familiar with the body of evidence. But if later on some better evidence, as described several times, came along, I'd be thrilled to change my mind. I believe the chance of that happening is vanishingly small.
