On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Alain Sepeda <[email protected]>wrote:
I have no doubt that the result will be evewhelmingly against,
> meaningless, and based on ignorance...
>
I'm not so sure about that. I think that we should give people some credit.
By that I mean that it is my impression that professionals will generally
readily acknowledge when they don't know anything about a subject, which I
suspect is the case for most with regard to cold fusion. Following is an
imaginary breakdown of how professionals in the STEM fields (science,
technology, engineering and mathematics) view cold fusion. The breakdown
is not intended to be an accurate one, just a plausible one that could
potentially show what an accurate one might look like.
- Of those who have not looked into the matter (perhaps they didn't know
to), they assume from the press coverage back in 1989 that cold fusion has
been debunked as a falsehood. Their opinion to this effect is based solely
on what they heard at the time, and if asked, they would acknowledge this.
Perhaps the large majority of people -- 90 percent or more.
- Of those who have followed the more recent developments:
- Some find the whole thing to be impossible or highly unlikely and
the cold fusion work to be the output of a group of unfortunate, deluded
semi-professionals. This would be about 10 percent of the remaining 10
percent -- 1 percent in all.
- Some are not sure what to make of cold fusion and recognize that
they don't have all of the information needed to make an
informed judgment.
Perhaps 70 percent of the remaining 10 percent -- 7 percent in all.
- Some have seen enough to be persuaded that there is an a priori
case to be made for investigating the matter further. Perhaps 15 percent
of the remaining 10 percent -- 1.5 percent in all.
- Some have seen enough to be convinced that there is definitely
something anomalous underlying cold fusion, although they don't have a
strong opinion about what that might be. Perhaps 5 percent of the
remaining 10 percent -- 0.5 percent in all.
An important point here is that the 90 percent in the first category cannot
be counted as being persuaded against cold fusion -- they simply don't know
anything and would readily acknowledge as much if the matter were brought
to their attention.
Eric
