On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>wrote: > > > If you examine what's being published, you don't find an attempt to prove > it's real, not lately, anyway. You find, in primary research, reports of > phenomena that imply reality, discussion of possible explanations that > assume CF is possible, etc. In secondary reviews, and there have been > nineteen published since 2005, you find acceptance of the phenomenon as a > reality.
The 19 reviews outnumber the primary research, an indication of a moribund field. The reviews do read like they're trying to convince, and not like the field is already accepted. The latest is Storms (2010) published in Naturwissenschaften, "Status of cld > fusion (2010)." That review now represents what mainstream reviewers will > accept. It represents what reviewers at Naturwissenschaften will accept ... in a review. The dearth of primary research in peer-reviewed journals, and the fact that Storms references, especially later ones, are mostly to conference proceesings, represents how little mainstream reviewers accept. > There were many negative replications published. Later work shows that > those replication attemps could be expected to fail to find anything, > because they did not, in fact, replicate, they did not reach the apparently > necessary 90% loading. At that time, 70% was considered to be about the > maximum attainable. To go above that took special techniques that the > replicators did not know and understand. > Well, good. But this loading requirement has been known since the very early 90s, and still, in reviews as late as 2007, reproducibility of 1/3 is reported. And still they can't make enough power to power itself. If you want to know the opinion of "mainstream science," there are > generally, two ways. You can look at the results of a review panel, or you > can look at what is being published in the way of secondary sources under > peer review or under independent academic supervision. The 2004 DoE panel > results completely contradict the impression you are giving, here, Joshua. > Are you aware of that? If you want to know the truth, read the whole damn > review, not just cherry-picked excerpts quoted from it by people who have an > axe to grind! Read it, come back, and tell us. > OK. I've read them. They are more critical than I expected. Only one of the reviewers (maybe a token believer, for all I know), found the evidence for nuclear reactions conclusive. Several, as we've discussed, found the excess heat results compelling, but most were pretty ambivalent about it. None found them sufficiently compelling to recommend special funding. The report criticized poor technique, poor documentation, poor identification of goals, poor calorimetry, poor experimental techniques. They concluded it is all more of the same since 1989. No progress to speak of. Not a ringing endorsement. > > Rothwell writes polemic. I would not claim that you are not a scientist > because you don't "believe" anything. However, if you have become familiar > with the evidence, which, to assume good faith, I'll assume you are not, and > you cling to a *belief* that cold fusion is impossible and that therefore > the levels of heat reported are impossible, I'd say -- then and only then -- > that, within this field and this issue, you are not functioning as a > scientist, you are functioning as a "believer." > I don't believe it's impossible, just highly unlikely. And none of the evidence I've seen is in the least persuasive. To repeat, after 22 years, if it were real, they could do better. > But let's look at scientific progress in the last 22 years. In the field >> of cold fusion: score zero. In fields outside cold fusion: too much to list >> of course, but perhaps the sequencing of the human genome by what you call >> non-scientists tops the list. >> > > Eh? Cold fusion is probably the most difficult theoretical question to have > been presented to physicists in the 20th century. Obviously. How do you come up with a theory for something that doesn't work. Nothing is more difficult than impossible. The fact remains, progress, experimental or theoretical, has been completely consistent with pathological science. None to speak of. > Here is why fusion: in some experiments, helium has been collected and > measured. Notice, one can run a series of identical cells, and only in some > cells is excess heat seen. Miles, who was an original negative replicator > covered in the 1989 DoE report, began to see results. In his ultimate series > as reported by Storms (2007 and 2010), he found heat in 21 out of 33 cells. > In 12 cells, he found no excess heat. Helium samples were measured by an > independent lab that did not know which samples were from which cells, they > did not know if the samples had shown excess heat or not. > > Of the 12 cells that showed no excess heat, no helium beyond measurement > background was found. (This is far below atmospheric ambient, by the way). > Of the 21 cells showing excess heat, 18 showed significant helium. (Storms > notes some anomalies about the three exceptions, but set that aside for the > moment.) > > This is very strong correlation, and Huizenga noticed this in 1993, > considered it an amazing result, but then dismissed it as probably something > that would not be confirmed, and, of course, impossible, since no gamma rays > were seen. > > Do you understand, Joshua, the significance of Huizenga's "gamma ray" > comment. Huizenga was *assuming* that if there were a nuclear reaction, it > would have to be d-d fusion. His argument depends on that assumption. And, > in fact, the entire facade of theoretical rejection of "cold fusion" depends > on that assumption. It was assumed that what Fleischmann called an "unknown > nuclear reaction" was, if real, a *known* nuclear reaction. A very basic > error, and one easy to see in hindsight. > If the helium-heat correlation is so significant, why is there so little work on it. And why is the work that has been reported, (since Miles 1993 work) not been published in peer-reviewed journals? You seem to regard peer review as essential to the field. And why is the reported work so flimsy that a non-scientist (Krivit) can tear it to pieces? Helium is the only nuclear reaction product from fusion that is present in the background at levels *above* that required to explain the heat. Is it a coincidence that it is also the only one that is found to be correlated to the heat. Given that the experiments are working close to detection limits for helium, a little cognitive bias could explain the correlation. If the levels are too high, the scientists will immediately suspect a leak, which is probably what it is, and they will patch it, and then ignore those results. If the levels are too low, nothing is observed, and the experiments are ignored. If they are just right, they get written up. In any case, the quality of the results -- in some cases a kind of binary decision of present or absent -- are simply not convincing. If helium-heat is real, as with the heat itself, it seems more people would pursue it, it could be scaled up to produce unmistakeable amounts, and it would be accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. (And by itself, publication in something like Naturwissenschaft wouldn't add much to the credibility.) > The evidence for tritium and commensurate helium is not quite as >> overwhelming but I have never seen any rational reason to doubt it. I >> wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Cude to provide one. >> >> >> For me, the absence of a reason to doubt, is not a reason to believe. And >> I am not holding my breath waiting for a rational reason to believe the >> claims. >> > > Don't hold your breath. You will think more clearly if you breathe. > > The absence of a reason to doubt is certainly not, logically, a reason to > believe. But those who doubt the reports of others when they have no reason > to doubt are essentially sick. That's pathological doubt, what's called > pseudo-skepticism. Call it what you want. Doubt is what science is about. Those who can't describe their experiments so that others can reproduce them are called incompetent. > Science normally assumes good faith, assumes that the reports of those who > do and publish experimental work are sound, that is, not fraudulent and not > entirely stupid, either. > True, but failure to reproduce trumps good faith. And McKubre himself has said quantitative reproducibility has not been demonstrated in the field, and interlab reproducibility has not been successful without exchange of personnel. > > People make mistakes. In the normal process of science, if someone > publishes an experimental result that is rooted in some unidentified > artifact, the artifact is then identified and shown by controlled > experiment, or better analysis of already-available data. > Not necessarily. Not if the claim is too outlandish. Then it is simply ignored, until a better experiment, more difficult to dispute comes along. That's the situation with perpetual claims of perpetual motion. Scientists feel no obligation to find the artifact in every new claim. They are content to wait until a car can driven indefinitely without fuel. > This never happened with cold fusion. Instead, experimental evidence was > rejected because it was *believed* that it *must* be artifact. Maybe, but the answer to that is a better experiment for which artifacts can be excluded. Like Rothwell's palpably warm beaker. Bring it on. > That was turning science on its head, abandoning the scientific method. > Theory was treated as controlling, which, in effect, made the theory not > falsifiable, thus the theory was, for these people, made into pseudoscience. > The theory was in control because the experimental data is so weak. You need good data to overthrow a theory. There is no good data. > In fact, that was just shallow theory. There was no theoretical reason to > reject the possibility of *any nuclear reaction* at low temperatures, and > known counterexamples existed. What if the F-P effect was simply a new > exception, not previously noticed? > No one said no nuclear reaction was possible. In fact some people calculated the rate of nuclear fusion. It can happen at room temperature, but it's really really rare. There was and is sound theoretical reason to be very skeptical of observable heat produced from such reactions. > > What I expect, if you care about science, is that you will explore this, > openly, and that you will first disclose any fixed, non-negotiable beliefs > that you have. Nothing is non-negotiable. A palpably warm Rothwell beaker will bring me around. Excess heat experiments, not so much.
