[Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
I have never seen such a dense collection of nonsense about cold fusion or science in general: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/a1045883 See, for example: Does a phenomenon have to be totally or partially reproducible to be real? As far as science is concerned, the answer is 'totally'. Reproducible phenomena imply reproducible and well-understood conditions, which then gives the theorists something to get their teeth into. What an incredible thing to say! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
That an experiment is reproducible is the cornerstone of the scientific method. What, precisely, is your issue with the statement? As has been stated before, that is the difference between scientist and inventor. For an inventor, getting it to work now and again is enough. for a scientist, it must be reproducible under the same conditions. On 5/29/07, Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have never seen such a dense collection of nonsense about cold fusion or science in general: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/a1045883 See, for example: Does a phenomenon have to be totally or partially reproducible to be real? As far as science is concerned, the answer is 'totally'. Reproducible phenomena imply reproducible and well-understood conditions, which then gives the theorists something to get their teeth into. What an incredible thing to say! - Jed -- That which yields isn't always weak.
Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
That's an old article, by the way. There is no point to responding. I found it noteworthy because it is such a high-purity distillation of nonsense. A sort of all-in-one expression of pathological skepticism. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
Considerable confusion seems to exist around the concept of reproducibility. A phenomenon must be easily reproduced in order to be studied by science in general. Difficult to reproduce phenomenon are frequently studied by experts in an effort to discover the variables preventing easy reproducibility. Easy reproducibility is not required to believe a phenomenon is real. Acceptance is a psychological event that is characteristic of the individual. Some people require some phenomenon to be shown to work in an applied device before they will accept their existence, while other people will accept what they see happen once. In general, most scientists base their belief on who does the experiment, how well described the results are, and where it is published. The phenomenon does not have to be easily reproduced by anyone who tries to make it work. This criteria is only reserved for cold fusion and similar phenomenon. Ed leaking pen wrote: That an experiment is reproducible is the cornerstone of the scientific method. What, precisely, is your issue with the statement? As has been stated before, that is the difference between scientist and inventor. For an inventor, getting it to work now and again is enough. for a scientist, it must be reproducible under the same conditions. On 5/29/07, Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have never seen such a dense collection of nonsense about cold fusion or science in general: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/a1045883 See, for example: Does a phenomenon have to be totally or partially reproducible to be real? As far as science is concerned, the answer is 'totally'. Reproducible phenomena imply reproducible and well-understood conditions, which then gives the theorists something to get their teeth into. What an incredible thing to say! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
leaking pen wrote: That an experiment is reproducible is the cornerstone of the scientific method. What, precisely, is your issue with the statement? *Making* an experiment *more* reproducible is one important aspect of the scientific method, but it not the be-all, end-all goal. Many important experiments are difficult to reproduce but everyone accepts they are real. Electrochemistry, catalysis and surface effects are notoriously difficult. Well into the 1950s, the failure rate for some transistor types in actual production (not in the laboratory) was still 50% to 90%. The reproducibility of biological experiments is often very low, as Beaudette pointed out in his discussion of cloning. Many of the key experiments in high-energy physics are so difficult to reproduce, nobody even tries. After one successful experiment they declare victory. Examples include the top quark, the PPPL tokamak, and of course, fission and fusion bombs. As often noted, one-off events not under human control such as supernovas are fully part of science, even though they are utterly irreproducible. Global-scale catastrophes such as global warming are certainly part of science, even though we hope to avoid actually doing the full-scale real-world global warming. Many scientists have made a reputation because they were able to reproduce finicky, or extraordinarily difficult experiments. It is odd that some of these same researchers -- especially in plasma fusion -- say that cold fusion should not be believed because it is so difficult to reproduce. They would be incensed if someone said: I will not believe the PPPL tokamak is real until you can teach a high school kid to make one. As has been stated before, that is the difference between scientist and inventor. For an inventor, getting it to work now and again is enough. for a scientist, it must be reproducible under the same conditions. Must be in what sense, for what purpose? Textbooks and journals are full of experiments that are problematic and difficult to reproduce. If an experiment must be reproducible before it is accepted or published, then no experiment would ever progress from partially reproducible to fully reproducible. No theorist would begin work on the theory that is needed to make the effect more reproducible. And, needless to say, cold fusion will never become a practical source of energy. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
I wrote: Many of the key experiments in high-energy physics are so difficult to reproduce, nobody even tries. After one successful experiment they declare victory. Examples include the top quark, the PPPL tokamak, and of course, fission and fusion bombs. The North Koreans recently demonstrated how difficult it is to replicate a nuclear bomb. Their test failed either partly or fully, despite the fact that they spent lavishly, this was 60 years after the first bomb, and hundreds of nuclear bomb tests have been performed in other countries. The North Korean scientists must be highly motivated to succeed -- or to avoid failure. I assume they were sent to concentration camps or summarily shot. Along the same lines, the Chinese government today sentenced the former head of the food and drug safety administration to death for corruption and incompetence. That's one way to deal with an incompetent official! I do not endorse it, but I suppose it may be more effective than giving the guy a Gold Medal and putting him in charge of the World Bank. Someone here remarked that the US Postal Service is not renowned for efficiency or competence. They recently raised their rates. Since I often mail things to Japan, I went to their website, http://postcalc.usps.gov/ to download the latest rates. The International Rate Charts (HTML) link gives you: The page cannot be found. The International Rate Charts (PDF) link leads to a long convoluted document explaining the rules for mailing human ashes and firearms to Japan, without -- so far as I can find -- a single mention of how much it costs to mail something to Japan. In other words, the International Rate Charts do not include any rates. A small matter, you might say, and I would not want to see the person in charge condemned to death, but if the option were available I might be tempted to administer a painful shock . . . Perhaps they could put a link on the page: Click here to administer a painful shock to the USPS webmaster. Chances are it wouldn't work, given their inability to implement web page features, but it might give the reader a moment of psychological satisfaction. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
Jed sez: ... Perhaps they could put a link on the page: Click here to administer a painful shock to the USPS webmaster. Chances are it wouldn't work, given their inability to implement web page features, but it might give the reader a moment of psychological satisfaction. - Jed I believe the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. dealt with a variation of this in his issue in his classic novel The Sirens of Titan. There is a chapter where the design of a rocket ship was being hammered out by a group of engineers. The space ship's sole purpose was to transport a colony of humans on a one-way ticket to a planetary destination. It was designed as a fully automated vessel where all the pilot had to do was, once everyone was on board and accounted for, push the green start button. This ship's automated controls would take care of everything else. However, the psychologists involved in the design project suggested they should also add a red stop button alongside the green start button. They believed this would lend an added sense of control and security to the pilot and passengers board. The engineers couldn't come up with a serious objection, and thus, the red button was incorporated into the control panel. The red button was, of course, not connected to anything. I miss ol'Vonnie. -- Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
RE: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC
There's a famous psychological case we read about in college: In an office cube floor, the temperature could never be set to please all. Mgmt. Added thermostats at each cube, and morale improved. The thermostats weren't connected. -Original Message- From: OrionWorks [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 1:25 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Bollocks from the BBC Jed sez: ... Perhaps they could put a link on the page: Click here to administer a painful shock to the USPS webmaster. Chances are it wouldn't work, given their inability to implement web page features, but it might give the reader a moment of psychological satisfaction. - Jed I believe the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. dealt with a variation of this in his issue in his classic novel The Sirens of Titan. There is a chapter where the design of a rocket ship was being hammered out by a group of engineers. The space ship's sole purpose was to transport a colony of humans on a one-way ticket to a planetary destination. It was designed as a fully automated vessel where all the pilot had to do was, once everyone was on board and accounted for, push the green start button. This ship's automated controls would take care of everything else. However, the psychologists involved in the design project suggested they should also add a red stop button alongside the green start button. They believed this would lend an added sense of control and security to the pilot and passengers board. The engineers couldn't come up with a serious objection, and thus, the red button was incorporated into the control panel. The red button was, of course, not connected to anything. I miss ol'Vonnie. -- Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
