Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Jed, I am quite neutral on that. Wheter it is Gerischer or Brian Josephson, or even Laughlin, whom I admire. Their opinion does not matter substantially. Those are fringe-opinions, which do not influence mainstream science a lot. They eventually are heard by people like You and me, but that's it. The 'mainstream' consists of people with access to the money in the science-community, via politicians with open ears, promoting 'progress', or what they understand by that, with synergy-effects to the carreers/money-pots of both . By that, the system stabilizes itself. To break that alliance of self-interest and ignorance is bordering the impossible. Now the freaky amateures step in: (Rossi, DGTG, etc.) What chance do they have? This says the pessimist in me. OK? Guenter Von: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com An: vortex-l@eskimo.com Gesendet: 22:01 Dienstag, 11.September 2012 Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy Guenter Wildgruber gwildgru...@ymail.com wrote: This is a completely different institute, and one probaly has to know the intricacies of the Max-Planck organization. The same or different, you would think that the Director's opinions might have weight when it comes to accepting or rejecting a important claim. Cold fusion is not the sort of thing you should try once and the put aside. In view of the fact that hundreds of other labs successfully replicated, it is incumbent upon any scientific organization to look carefully, and not to jump to conclusions. PLEASE DO NOT COMPARE THOSE! I am not comparing them. I am pointing out that German's leading electrochemist endorsed cold fusion. Foreigners naturally do not understand the fine-print of such a delicate institution. I can understand that. Altogether too delicate. Subject to fainting spells, no doubt. They can't bring themselves to take a second look at the most important breakthrough in the history of technology. Poor dears! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: Yes you did say. You said that hot fusion researchers are trying to 'suppress' it and indeed hot fusion research is operating with extremely big money. As noted that was Abd, not me. However, it is true that the plasma fusion scientists played a leading role in suppressing cold fusion. I suppose they did this mainly to protect their budget. There is no doubt they played a leading role. They did it quite publicly, in the mass media. They are proud of what they did. I suppose plasma fusion funding is big money. It is far bigger than most academic funding. But I take the expression big money to mean businesses, Wall Street, the DoD or political parties. Academic funding is microscopic in comparison. The opposition to cold fusion is caused by academic politics, in two ways: 1. Scientists tend to be conservative and unwilling to believe new information. Most of them know nothing about cold fusion but they are certain it must be wrong. 2. Academic funding may be small, but it is how these people make their living. If cold fusion is funded many academic researchers in other areas related to energy will lose their livelihoods. So they will fight it tooth and nail. I suppose I would too, if I were in their place. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: Yes you did say. You said that hot fusion researchers are trying to 'suppress' it and indeed hot fusion research is operating with extremely big money. ... I suppose plasma fusion funding is big money. It is far bigger than most academic funding. But I take the expression big money to mean businesses, Wall Street, the DoD or political parties. Academic funding is microscopic in comparison. This is a perfect case-in-point for the situation described in Institutional Incompetence, Conspiracy Theories and Pol Pothttp://jimbowery.blogspot.com/2011/07/institutional-incompetence-conspiracy.html : Part of the problem is that almost all institutional incompetence derives from faulty incentive structures, so it is easy to impute to the critic the claim that such incompetence is not incompetence at all but, rather, is self-interest. The critic is hard-pressed to deny this (except insofar as such self-interest is unenlightened hence incompetent in that meta-sense) and is thence imputed to theorize a conspiracy of self-interested individuals as the basis for the maintenance of the institutionalized incompetence. Again, the critic may not have put forth nor even have thought of such a theory but he is hard-pressed to disprove that a conspiracy -- in some sense -- is at work so he cannot very well vigorously deny such a theory. This vulnerability of the critic is then viciously attacked. This all goes on within a subtext of the conversation so it is a rare critic that recognizes how the burden of proof has been shifted from the institutionally incompetent needing to prove that the critic has theorized a conspiracy (which, of course, would require defining conspiracy) to the critic needing to prove that such a conspiracy (the definition of which is, after all, in the mind of the institutionally incompetent) is clearly out of the question despite the vagueness of the term multiplied by the lack of information with which to support or deny even a clear definition. So, the institution of Critics are crazy people. successfully defends all institutional incompetence.
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Von: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com An: vortex-l@eskimo.com Gesendet: 16:12 Dienstag, 11.September 2012 Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: Yes you did say. You said that hot fusion researchers are trying to 'suppress' it and indeed hot fusion research is operating with extremely big money. As noted that was Abd, not me. However, it is true that the plasma fusion scientists played a leading role in suppressing cold fusion. I suppose they did this mainly to protect their budget. There is no doubt they played a leading role. not over here (Germany). As far as i know, the MPP, which is the biggest May-Planck-Institute, tried to replicate F/P and failed. so the issue was settled. They did it quite publicly, in the mass media. They are proud of what they did. Not really over here. This was a standard scientific issue of failure of replication. Maybe erroneous and for the wrong reasons, as it now seems to be the case. I suppose plasma fusion funding is big money. It is far bigger than most academic funding. It is big money, yes, but is PURE government money. Per 2010 16 Billion Euro, with 6.6 european money. But I take the expression big money to mean businesses, Wall Street, the DoD or political parties. Academic funding is microscopic in comparison. The opposition to cold fusion is caused by academic politics, in two ways: 1. Scientists tend to be conservative and unwilling to believe new information. Most of them know nothing about cold fusion but they are certain it must be wrong. this is Kuhnian Structure of Scientific Revolutions. nothin new here. 2. Academic funding may be small, it is not. but it is how these people make their living. If cold fusion is funded many academic researchers in other areas related to energy will lose their livelihoods. Ofcourse. So they will fight it tooth and nail. I suppose I would too, if I were in their place. No, they do'nt. It is sufficient to ignore the issue. The fusion guys have a lot of problems with their own design, and them to even CONSIDER cold fusion as a relevant contender, is outside of any reasonable consideration. So to even consider a Rossi as a significant contender wrt funding-money, is so far out, that one safely can consider this irrelevant. To my experience, the direction of funding and its possible redirection to competing fields is an EXTREMELY slow process, and can be measured in decades, not years. Guenter - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Guenter Wildgruber gwildgru...@ymail.com wrote: not over here (Germany). As far as i know, the MPP, which is the biggest May-Planck-Institute, tried to replicate F/P and failed. so the issue was settled. I do not know about this test, but it would be ridiculous to reject cold fusion based on one test in 1989, especially after 100 other labs replicated successfully. In any case, in 1990 the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry wrote that he was certain the effect is real. See: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GerischerHiscoldfusi.pdf - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Von: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com An: vortex-l@eskimo.com Gesendet: 20:23 Dienstag, 11.September 2012 Betreff: Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy Guenter Wildgruber gwildgru...@ymail.com wrote: not over here (Germany). As far as i know, the MPP, which is the biggest May-Planck-Institute, tried to replicate F/P and failed. so the issue was settled. I do not know about this test, but it would be ridiculous to reject cold fusion based on one test in 1989, especially after 100 other labs replicated successfully. In any case, in 1990 the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry wrote that he was certain the effect is real. See: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GerischerHiscoldfusi.pdf - Jed This is a completely different institute, and one probaly has to know the intricacies of the Max-Planck organization. Max-planck Directors are basically completely independent feudal lords, and the institute is resumed, when the 'master' retires. at least this was the idea when the Max Planck Institutes were termed 'Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft'. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft_zur_Foerderung_der_Wissenschaften#Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute Never mind. The IPP is different, in that it is so large that the old concept does not apply anymore. It -the old concept- applies to budgets of several millions, and not hundreds of millions. The IPP is the biggest of all Max-Planck institutes, and therefore has 10 Directors., which form a collective, and is alien to the original -as said- feudal conception of a scientific lordship. PLEASE DO NOT COMPARE THOSE! Foreigners naturally do not understand the fine-print of such a delicate institution. I can understand that. Wikipedia does not tell the story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_of_Plasma_Physics. The German wikipedia neither, btw. in German it reads like this: ... Im Mai 2010 teilte die Europäische Kommission mit, dass laut einer aktuellen Kostenschätzung ihr Anteil an den Baukosten von ehemals geplanten 2,7 Milliarden Euro auf 7,3 Milliarden Euro steigen wird. Daraus errechnen sich Gesamtkosten in Höhe von 16 Milliarden Euro. ... Die EU deckelte daraufhin ihren Anteil bei 6,6 Milliarden Euro. Sie will die Kostensteigerungen durch Umschichtungen aus dem Agrar- und dem Forschungsetat decken. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER#Finanzierung You do not need to be a native german speaker to know from where the wind blows. This is BIG money, and it is government money! Guenter
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Guenter Wildgruber gwildgru...@ymail.com wrote: This is a completely different institute, and one probaly has to know the intricacies of the Max-Planck organization. The same or different, you would think that the Director's opinions might have weight when it comes to accepting or rejecting a important claim. Cold fusion is not the sort of thing you should try once and the put aside. In view of the fact that hundreds of other labs successfully replicated, it is incumbent upon any scientific organization to look carefully, and not to jump to conclusions. PLEASE DO NOT COMPARE THOSE! I am not comparing them. I am pointing out that German's leading electrochemist endorsed cold fusion. Foreigners naturally do not understand the fine-print of such a delicate institution. I can understand that. Altogether too delicate. Subject to fainting spells, no doubt. They can't bring themselves to take a second look at the most important breakthrough in the history of technology. Poor dears! - Jed
[Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: Besides that your idea about the funding cuts is silly conspiracy theory and if you are throwing such lazy arguments, it will not help the field. It irks me when people write this! Why does this nonsense about a conspiracy so often come up? Who said anything about a conspiracy? A conspiracy is surreptitious and organized. The suppression of cold fusion has been done openly. It is not organized as far as I can tell. If it is they are not doing a very good job at organizing things. Let us look at the specific instance we are discussing here: helium correlation research by Melvin Miles. Miles was a Fellow of the Institute at China Lake. A Fellow means someone who can study any subject he wants, like a tenured professor. Despite this designation, when he applied for additional funding to continue the research, they took away his telephone, they took away his lab privileges, and they reassigned him to work a menial job as a stockroom clerk. If that is not suppression, what would be?!? There was nothing secret about it. The person who did this was the head of the Chemistry Department, Robin A. Nissan. Nissan's memos ordering this have been circulated, and Miles described the events in several publications such as this one: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMisoperibol.pdf (see p. 19) Every cold fusion researcher I know has been subjected to opposition, and sometimes extreme harassment. Saying that cold fusion has not been suppressed is like saying that all women in the 1950s enjoyed complete equal pay in the workplace and never experienced sexist discrimination. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Unfortunately, Jed, the accusers of conspiracy theorizing may have a legal leg to stand on given this plain language instruction to the jurors in California civil cases regarding conspiracyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(civil)#California_.22Plain_Language.22_jury_instructions_on_conspiracy:_essential_factual_elements : Such an agreement may be made orally or in writing *or implied by the conduct of the parties*. Of course, this has little or nothing to do with the connotation play being made by the accusers -- which is that the person complaining about abuse is positing that those acting so as to suppress cold fusion research were meeting in secret to coordinate their actions with the knowledge that cold fusion should rightfully have been funded. Basically, I addressed this in Institutional Incompetence, Conspiracy Theories and Pol Pothttp://jimbowery.blogspot.com/2011/07/institutional-incompetence-conspiracy.html . If I wanted to concoct a conspiracy theory, it would be that those suppressing cold fusion research were Satanists who wanted to create something like the Reign of Terror so they could have lots of human sacrifices to their Satanic Majesty and saw a golden opportunity, in the announcement of March 1989, to so-discredit established institutions that the eventual backlash would be a genocidal rampage against the academic authorities (hence my reference to Pol Pot). On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: Besides that your idea about the funding cuts is silly conspiracy theory and if you are throwing such lazy arguments, it will not help the field. It irks me when people write this! Why does this nonsense about a conspiracy so often come up? Who said anything about a conspiracy? A conspiracy is surreptitious and organized. The suppression of cold fusion has been done openly. It is not organized as far as I can tell. If it is they are not doing a very good job at organizing things. Let us look at the specific instance we are discussing here: helium correlation research by Melvin Miles. Miles was a Fellow of the Institute at China Lake. A Fellow means someone who can study any subject he wants, like a tenured professor. Despite this designation, when he applied for additional funding to continue the research, they took away his telephone, they took away his lab privileges, and they reassigned him to work a menial job as a stockroom clerk. If that is not suppression, what would be?!? There was nothing secret about it. The person who did this was the head of the Chemistry Department, Robin A. Nissan. Nissan's memos ordering this have been circulated, and Miles described the events in several publications such as this one: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMisoperibol.pdf (see p. 19) Every cold fusion researcher I know has been subjected to opposition, and sometimes extreme harassment. Saying that cold fusion has not been suppressed is like saying that all women in the 1950s enjoyed complete equal pay in the workplace and never experienced sexist discrimination. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: Unfortunately, Jed, the accusers of conspiracy theorizing may have a legal leg to stand on given this plain language instruction to the jurors in California civil cases regarding conspiracyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(civil)#California_.22Plain_Language.22_jury_instructions_on_conspiracy:_essential_factual_elements : Ha! Well, I do not care whether there is a conspiracy or not. I do not see what difference it would make. Several members of the secretive Jason committee are strongly opposed to cold fusion. I have heard they often pull strings to prevent funding. I guess that would constitute a conspiracy of sorts. Maybe they are coordinating and conspiring. More likely they just happen to be members of an elite, influential, conservative group of old farts who get together periodically to give Uncle Sam bad advice. Several of them have it in for cold fusion. So what? Lots of people have it in for cold fusion. I think that I know why Jouni Valkonen accused me of being a conspiracy theorist. He did that to make me look silly or gullible. People often accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist because in the minds of most people, a conspiracy theorist is a paranoid person who wears a tinfoil cap and believes silly things. They also accuse me of being a true believer, and they say that I believe people are hiding the data. A few people have the odd notion that I personally wrote hundreds of papers and uploaded them to the Internet. Here is a typical recent exchange along these lines in a blog: Skeptic: Most people don’t have the time to commit dozens if not hundreds of hours reading the quote-unquote literature produced by everyone on the web . . . Me: These papers were published in the J. Electroanal. Chem., J. Fusion Energy, Jap. J. of Applied Physics, and by institutions such as BARC, the ENEA, the NSF, China Lake and EPRI. They were not published on the web, although I later put some of them there. Skeptic: . . . who claims some amazing truth that ‘they’ don’t want you to know about. . . . Me: I do not know who 'they' would be. EPRI, the NRL and China Lake have no objection to your reading peer-reviewed research they paid for. They are not hiding anything. Go to any university or national library and you will find these papers. Skeptic: . . . The smart money is on you turning out to be just another crank/conspiracy theorist. . . . Me: I do not embrace any conspiracy theories. You brought that up; not me. I know more than a thousand cold fusion researchers. Every one of them is from a mainstream organization. Not one of them is engaged in a conspiracy, or believes that anyone is conspiring against them. Frankly, that notion is ridiculous. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
I wrote: Miles was a Fellow of the Institute at China Lake. A Fellow means someone who can study any subject he wants, like a tenured professor. Speaking of tenured professors, see: http://art-by-comics.imagekind.com/store/imagedetail.aspx/1e1ac97a-833f-4a40-819c-9c05dc89a2aa/Professor_Bob__Pearls_Before_Swine Part of dialog: Pig: What does tenured mean? Mouse: It means his university has given him a teaching position for life, so now he can do pretty much anything he wants. Pig: Oh yeah? So what do you want to do, Professor Bob? Professor Bob (holding up gasoline tank): Blow some $@#% up. Sounds like a real professor to me! And: http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2009/08/16 - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Jed sez: ... I think that I know why Jouni Valkonen accused me of being a conspiracy theorist. He did that to make me look silly or gullible. People often accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist because in the minds of most people, a conspiracy theorist is a paranoid person who wears a tinfoil cap and believes silly things. Well, I know I've never accused you of wearing a tinfoil cap. OTOH, a pocket protector? Defintely. I bet I believe in more silly things than you do. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Jed, many people and thousands of scientist have looked the data and they are concluded that scientific data is nowhere near sufficient. It is in best case speculative, suggestive and inconclusive. There is no 'big money suppression'. That kind of idea is silly and non-informative and it is an argument that turns any reasonable people away from you. Perhaps not in here, but if you are saying that in any other respected forum, such as in wikipedia, you will get banned. It is true, that people often base their argumentation on assumptions and they often cannot separate facts form assumptions. It is difficult and arrogant people do often this kind of naïve categorisation, because they think that they know everything. And if someone presents ideas that are against their prejudices, then they are usually fiercely attacked by ad hominem arguments. Actually you did this also. I did not say anything what I think about cold fusion. But yet, you immediately labelled me as a 'skeptic', although in reality I am a firm believer of cold fusion. It is sad that I need to use the word 'believe', because there are not sufficient and conclusive scientific evidence. It does not help that Miley and Celani does refuse to let other scientists to replicate their quantum reactor although they both claim extremely high reproducibility and power density. If Celani would made just a single demonstration set of his device that is broadcasted in youtube and is supervised by independent respected scientists (in plural), this would be enough to convince every person in the world. There is no need for peer review process that is very easy to abuse, and the idea itself to publish validation results through peer review process is somewhat silly. Youtube is good enough medium, (yes, welcome to the digital age!). The only thing is that any magic tricks should be eliminated. And with Celani's and Miley's ultra high power densities, this is no problem to verify. But both of them, who are self-claimed as scientists, explicitly reject any attempts to replicate their cell. This kind of attitude has nothing to do with science. Science is about openness and sharing information and ideas. —Jouni
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: Jed, many people and thousands of scientist have looked the data and they are concluded that scientific data is nowhere near sufficient. Thousands of scientists download papers from my website every week. I hear from them often. Not one of them has told me that. There is no 'big money suppression'. Did I say anything about big money? Do you think the head of the Chemistry Dept. at China Lake works for big money? Does Pam Boss's supervisor or Mizuno's Dept. head work for big money? This is academic politics. That kind of idea is silly and non-informative and it is an argument that turns any reasonable people away from you. Yeah, well, I did not say that, I never have said that, and you just put those nonsense words into my mouth. So you are saying that people are turning away from me because of what Jouni Valkonen imagines I said. I do not see what I can to prevent your fantasies. How about: you should read what I write, instead of making up my views as you go along. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
On Sep 11, 2012, at 4:56 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: There is no 'big money suppression'. Did I say anything about big money? Yes you did say. You said that hot fusion researchers are trying to 'suppress' it and indeed hot fusion research is operating with extremely big money. It is often matter of millions of dollars for annual budget. That is huge amount of money for academic research! yet again you jumped on conclusions solely that was based on your prejudice about what I meant. ―Jouni
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion has been suppressed -- no evidence for a conspiracy
There is no 'big money suppression'. Did I say anything about big money? Yes you did say. Actually perhaps it was Abd who said: »But the physics community, dependent upon large subsidies for hot fusion research, did not operate, here, by the normal standards of science. They, instead, demanded that nature comply with their expectations, that cold fusion researchers produce what many observers have said could take a Manhattan-scale project. And, of course, without the project results in hand, they would oppose any funding.» sorry that I mixed you two. —Jouni
