Re: [Vo]:Yet another ignorant attack on cold fusion
i think what hes expecting is.. a fight. and yep, you got one, jed have fun with it! On 31/08/2007, Harry Veeder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jed, What do you expect from a blog named cocktail_party_physics ? Harry On 30/8/2007 4:04 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Here is the comment the Blogger chopped. She cannot even tolerate even this minor level of dissent. No sane, educated person would disagree with what I say here EXCEPT in the context of cold fusion, which transforms educated people into maniacs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You wrote: Seeing as how the point of the post was the media coverage of the issue, the focus on media sources was perfectly appropriate. Well, okay. That's a valuable service. But don't you think it would be a good idea to fact-check the media claims? Since you are a science writer, it seems to me you should compare the media claims with the actual science, and tell your readers which accounts are accurate, and which are not. Whether cold fusion is right or wrong, a reporter should not invent nonsensical claims that someone amassed . . . a statistically significant sampling of instances. That never happened. No one would do that with calorimetry. Some reporter dreamed up the notion that cold fusion researchers have their own journal. (Perhaps he or she thought that Infinite Energy magazine is a journal, but it is not, since it never publishes original research.) You can fact-check this easily at a university library or at LENR-CANR. I do not think it is evenhanded or unbiased for you to treat all newspapers as equally credible when some publish blatant errors while others report facts. Most of these errors are without malice, by the way. Many newspaper reporters have difficulty understanding the experiments, and they have not read the papers. Some media errors make cold fusion look better than it is. - Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org -- ∞
Re: [Vo]:Yet another ignorant attack on cold fusion
Esa Ruoho wrote: i think what hes expecting is.. a fight. and yep, you got one, jed have fun with it! It would be a lot more fun if the Blogger would play by the rules of academic discourse, and stop deleting my messages whenever I make a decisive point. I really should stop adding messages, because she will only delete my work. It is good practice I suppose, but I guess I have enough practice by now. Chris Tinsley as I used to moan about how shallow people's education is these days. They learn facts, facts, facts but nothing about the fundamentals of logic, clear thinking, how to conduct a fair debate. This blogger supposedly writes books about science yet she is constantly coming up with strawman arguments, ad hominem, and other logical errors, and apparently she never learned that you are supposed to read original sources rather than second and third-hand newspaper reports. Even if the authors of the original sources are mistaken, you will learn what they actually said, rather than what some reporter heard from some other reporter. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Yet another ignorant attack on cold fusion
Jed, I was tempted to wade in to this fight, but I think you not only made the necessary points but showed that this person is not worth the trouble. She is a good writer, but her style is very common these days because it gets uneducated people's attention. She and Robert Park have a lot in common. For this reason, the fight can not be won by direct assault. As she says, it is her blog and she will say what she wants. We have LENR.org, which has much more influence on the thinking of responsible people than her little effort. Ed Jed Rothwell wrote: Esa Ruoho wrote: i think what hes expecting is.. a fight. and yep, you got one, jed have fun with it! It would be a lot more fun if the Blogger would play by the rules of academic discourse, and stop deleting my messages whenever I make a decisive point. I really should stop adding messages, because she will only delete my work. It is good practice I suppose, but I guess I have enough practice by now. Chris Tinsley as I used to moan about how shallow people's education is these days. They learn facts, facts, facts but nothing about the fundamentals of logic, clear thinking, how to conduct a fair debate. This blogger supposedly writes books about science yet she is constantly coming up with strawman arguments, ad hominem, and other logical errors, and apparently she never learned that you are supposed to read original sources rather than second and third-hand newspaper reports. Even if the authors of the original sources are mistaken, you will learn what they actually said, rather than what some reporter heard from some other reporter. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Yet another ignorant attack on cold fusion
The insanity continues: http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2007/08/genie-in-a-bott.html After deleting one of my comments, the author deigned to allow two others . . . for the time being. See 'em before they are censored. This is a prime example of a skeptic who honestly believes herself to be without bias. What a common delusion that is! No instrument and no mind is without bias. The worst bias of all is to imagine that you are the measure of all things and therefore without bias. As Francis Bacon put it: The images or idols by which the mind is preoccupied are either adventitious or innate. The adventitious have crept into the minds of men either from the dogmas and sects of philosophers, or the perverted rules of demonstration. But the innate are inherent to the very nature of the understanding, which appears to be much more prone to error than the senses. For however men may be satisfied with themselves, and rush into a blind admiration and almost adoration of the human mind, one thing is most certain, namely, that as an uneven mirror changes the rays proceeding from objects according to its own figure and position, so the mind when affected by things through the senses does not act in the most trustworthy manner, but inserts and mixes her own nature into that of things, whilst clearing and recollecting her notions. The first two species of idols are with difficulty eradicated, the latter can never be so. I would tell her that, but she would probably erase all my comments in fit of pique. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Yet another ignorant attack on cold fusion
Here is the comment the Blogger chopped. She cannot even tolerate even this minor level of dissent. No sane, educated person would disagree with what I say here EXCEPT in the context of cold fusion, which transforms educated people into maniacs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You wrote: Seeing as how the point of the post was the media coverage of the issue, the focus on media sources was perfectly appropriate. Well, okay. That's a valuable service. But don't you think it would be a good idea to fact-check the media claims? Since you are a science writer, it seems to me you should compare the media claims with the actual science, and tell your readers which accounts are accurate, and which are not. Whether cold fusion is right or wrong, a reporter should not invent nonsensical claims that someone amassed . . . a statistically significant sampling of instances. That never happened. No one would do that with calorimetry. Some reporter dreamed up the notion that cold fusion researchers have their own journal. (Perhaps he or she thought that Infinite Energy magazine is a journal, but it is not, since it never publishes original research.) You can fact-check this easily at a university library or at LENR-CANR. I do not think it is evenhanded or unbiased for you to treat all newspapers as equally credible when some publish blatant errors while others report facts. Most of these errors are without malice, by the way. Many newspaper reporters have difficulty understanding the experiments, and they have not read the papers. Some media errors make cold fusion look better than it is. - Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Re: [Vo]:Yet another ignorant attack on cold fusion
Jed, What do you expect from a blog named cocktail_party_physics ? Harry On 30/8/2007 4:04 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Here is the comment the Blogger chopped. She cannot even tolerate even this minor level of dissent. No sane, educated person would disagree with what I say here EXCEPT in the context of cold fusion, which transforms educated people into maniacs. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You wrote: Seeing as how the point of the post was the media coverage of the issue, the focus on media sources was perfectly appropriate. Well, okay. That's a valuable service. But don't you think it would be a good idea to fact-check the media claims? Since you are a science writer, it seems to me you should compare the media claims with the actual science, and tell your readers which accounts are accurate, and which are not. Whether cold fusion is right or wrong, a reporter should not invent nonsensical claims that someone amassed . . . a statistically significant sampling of instances. That never happened. No one would do that with calorimetry. Some reporter dreamed up the notion that cold fusion researchers have their own journal. (Perhaps he or she thought that Infinite Energy magazine is a journal, but it is not, since it never publishes original research.) You can fact-check this easily at a university library or at LENR-CANR. I do not think it is evenhanded or unbiased for you to treat all newspapers as equally credible when some publish blatant errors while others report facts. Most of these errors are without malice, by the way. Many newspaper reporters have difficulty understanding the experiments, and they have not read the papers. Some media errors make cold fusion look better than it is. - Jed Rothwell Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
