We need to know where to draw the line. Which facts do we consider so obvious that when someone denies them, they're a debunker rather than small 's' skeptic.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 9:25 PM, Kevin O'Malley <kevmol...@gmail.com> wrote: > By 'we' I mean Vortex minus debunkers. Small 's' skeptics are welcome, but > debunkers are not. We need to know where to draw the line. Which facts do > we consider so obvious that when someone denies them, they're a debunker > rather than small 's' skeptic. > Vortex rules: > http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.html > Note that "small-s skepticism" of the openminded sort is perfectly > acceptable on Vortex-L. We crackpots don't want to be *completely* > self-deluding. :) The ban here is aimed at Debunkers; at "certain > disbeleif" and its self-superior and archly hostile results, and at the > sort of "Skeptic" who angrily disbelieves all that is not solidly proved > true, while carefully rejecting all new data and observations which > conflict with the widely accepted theories of the time. > > > On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 8:02 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> Kevin O'Malley <kevmol...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> To the Japanese in 1941, Americans seemed outlandish. To the skeptics who >>> agree with Cude or Close, we are the ones disconnected from reality. We are >>> illogical and even mentally ill thinking that we can "fuse hydrogen in a >>> mason jar." I do not think it does any good getting angry at such people. >>> It is important that you understand their mindset. >>> >> ***Okay, Jed. What we need as a group is a minimum set of facts that we >>> agree are incontrovertible. >>> >> >> Sure, but we cannot expect people like Cude to agree with any of them. A >> person can always find a reason to dismiss something. Cude says that the >> tritium results may all be mistakes or fraud. Jones Beene accused him of >> being intellectually dishonest, but I assume Cude is sincere. Bockris >> tallied up tritium reports and said that over 100 labs detected it. If I >> were Cude, this would give me pause. I find it impossible to imagine there >> are so so many incompetent scientists, I cannot think of why scientists >> would publish fake data that triggers attacks on their reputation by the >> Washington Post. What would be the motive? But I am sure that Cude, and >> Park, and the others sincerely believe that scientists are deliberately >> trashing their own reputations by publishing fake data. >> >> I would think it is that Pons & Fleischmann were careful >>> electrochemists, the preeminent of their day. >>> >> >> Of course they were, but no skeptic will agree. Fleischmann was the >> president of the Electrochemical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society, >> but Cude and the others are convinced he was a sloppy, mentally ill >> criminal. That's what they say, and I do not think they would say it if >> they did not believe it. >> >> That the physicists who chose to debunk their findings were far from >>> careful due to inexperience in electrochemistry and this led to their >>> negative findings. >>> >> >> There were many reasons experiments failed in 1989. Some of the failed >> experiments were carefully done, but they used the wrong diagnostics. Most >> of them looked for neutrons instead of heat. >> >> That there have been 14,700 replications of the P-F anomolous heat >>> effect. If not, then how many? 180, as per Storms and National Instruments? >>> >> >> Those are two different tallies. The 14,700 is the number of individual >> positive runs reported in the literature for all techniques, including glow >> discharge. 180 is the number of laboratories reporting success. Some of >> those labs saw excess heat many times. If 180 labs measure excess heat 10 >> times each, that would be 1,800 positive runs in the Chinese tally. >> >> I do not know where the Chinese got their data. Presumably from published >> papers. I have not gone through papers counting up positive and negative >> runs. >> >> What are the base minimum set of facts that we all agree on? >>> >> >> If "we" include the skeptics there is not a single fact we all agree on. >> Not one. Cude looks at Fig. 1 in the McKubre paper and says the peak at 94% >> loading means nothing. I think he says it is the result of random effects >> or cherry-picked data. I look at it and say it proves there is a >> controlling parameter (loading) that cannot possibly cause artifactual >> excess heat, so this proves the effect is real. I say that even if only 20% >> achieve high loading, the other 80% are not relevant. Even if only one in a >> million achieved high loading this would still prove the effect is real. >> Cude looks at the preponderance of cells that do not achieve high loading >> and he concludes that they prove this graph is meaningless noise. There is >> absolutely no reconciling our points of view. >> >> From my point of view, his assertion is scientifically illiterate. He >> does not seem to understand how graphs work, and what it means to say that >> data is significant rather than noise. From his point of view, McKubre, >> Storms and I have no idea what we are talking about and this graph is no >> more significant than a "face of Jesus" burned into someone's toast. I >> gather he thinks it is random noise that happens to peak at 94%, or it is >> fake data. I cannot describe what he thinks, because I have not read his >> messages carefully, but I am sure he honestly believes that Fig. 1 is >> meaningless. >> >> - Jed >> >> > On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 5:07 AM, Vorl Bek <vorl....@antichef.com> wrote: > On Sat, 11 May 2013 17:53:29 -0500 > Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like vortex-b, > so > > I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest > > replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it. > > > > Otherwise, adios. It's been a slice. > > It is a pity that J Cude is leaving. While I enjoy a True Believer > site as much as anyone, after a while it is like eating nothing > but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of > articulate skeptics. > >
