Both Koonin and Lewis took a hatchet to F&P for the same psychologicl and professional reasons as other "skeptics". Koonin's denialism was based on the standard nuclear physicist arguments drawn from experience in d+d, 2-body interactions in vacua (i.e. nothing to do with LENR in condensed matter). Lewis took an absolutist stand on the stirring issue early on even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. He quickly quieted down, and has remained quiet for years, but the damage was done and he has never backed off of his claims. He and Koonin leveraged the APS pulpit to slander cold fusion science only after a couple months of exploration. This is antithetical to science in many ways.
On Sat, Dec 28, 2013 at 5:43 PM, Alain Sepeda <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi, > I'm continuing to read Excess heat and I fall on the story of the first > caltech conference. Chapter6 (4 press conference) > > Beaudette present it as a big manipulation of press, with Lewis behaving > in a very unscientific way, pretending his failure was an evidence, > claiming lack of stirring, without the least doubt expressed... finally > joking nastily on F&P... > > F&P argued on the stirring with evidence (colorant mixing shown) but it > was too late, and Lewis even caused a nearly lynching in a conference with > F&P... > > It seems that since then, media, journals and officials followed that > vision. LENR was forbidden in USA, but surviving abroad... (until US > influence won in most place)... > of course all was supported by a deep desire not to admit cold fusion, > lose dominance, and endanger funding, but the key event was that few press > conference were Lewis say he was sure, sure, and sure it was nothing. > > Beaudette explain that Lewis and his colleague were not important > scientist, except by that claim... > > I imagine you know that position. > Is is a vision that you share here? > > as you know, based on Taleb vision, history should be soon rewritten to > hide that academic tragedy. > One way could be to blame a scapegoat, and Lewis could be a good candidate > ... > > who is he today ? > would he be the useful idiot needed to save the community ? > >
