Alain Sepeda <[email protected]> wrote: there are case where communities of scientist were locked in groupthink, > often locally because until recently science was not globally judged. > > N-Ray was very popular in french science. > Wegener was very Impopular > LENR is unpopular >
Those are bad examples: The N-Ray was briefly popular among a small number of scientists. It was never confirmed. Most scientists paid no attention to it. Polywater, which was similar, was only partially confirmed by one laboratory. Many others look for it, found nothing, and never claimed a replication. Wegner was unpopular but most scientists paid no attention to his findings or data. They did not know what he claimed, so they had no business criticizing it. Most scientists who criticize cold fusion know nothing about the subject. They are not experts in any sense. LENR is unpopular among scientists who know nothing about it. Their opinions count for nothing. As far as I know, every scientist with expertise in a relevant field, such as electrochemistry or tritium detection, who has looked at the data carefully has been convinced that cold fusion is real. Nearly every scientist, except for Dieter Britz. Seriously, asking a scientist who has read nothing about cold fusion to express an opinion is an absurd thing to do. How can they know anything?!? By ESP? You might as well ask police officers or cashiers at a grocery store whether cold fusion is real. It is like asking a typical Georgia politician whether global warming is real. Most of them are so ignorant they think the world is 6000 years old! What is so funny is that many of these politicians predicate their response by saying, "I am not a scientist but . . ." I would tell them: "Okay, if you are not a scientist then shut up! Since you are not a scientist you should defer to the scientists. Would you advise doctors how to perform brain surgery? Would you tell NASA how to fix a complex problem with the Curiosity robot explorer on Mars?" > What can lock people who seems honest is "Groupthink". > I think it is mostly just old-fashioned stupidity. Also the Dunning-Kruger effect. - Jed
