I wrote:
That depends. If he is making a lot of money and enjoying high status then he may be lying. But if he has invested his life savings in the oil, and destroyed his marriage, and he is one step away from being a homeless bum then I assume he believes it.
Along similar lines, consider what Bertrand Russell called "evidence against interest." Christopher Hitchens described this:
"Bertrand Russell used to employ the method of 'evidence against interest'; in other words of deciding that a critique of capital punishment, say, carried more weight if it came from a prison governor. (My friend John O'Sullivan puts it like this: If the pope says he believes in God, he's only doing his job; if he says he doesn't believe in God, he may be on to something.)"
When someone puts on an unconvincing demonstration it could mean he hopes to fool investors, but absent other evidence, it probably means this is the best he can do. He is making himself look incompetent because he is incompetent! I have seen many bad cold fusion experiments and papers that convinced me the authors were wrong. That was not their intention. They were doing their best to convince the reader they were right.
- Jed
