I featured the Beaudette book on the front page at LENR-CANR.org, but
people have not been downloading it in large numbers. Apparently,
readers do not pay much attention to my recommendations. I suppose
that is good because it means that they pay attention to other
peoples' recommendations out there in the cybernetic continuum. There
is a buzz out there somewhere.
If you haven't read the book, you should. Below are some quotes from
it that define the controversy better than anything else I have read.
- Jed
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There has been virtually no controversy in the science itself, while at the
same time there has been great controversy in the public domain. A scientist
performs the electrolytic cell experiment after the example of Fleischmann
and Pons, and successfully demonstrates the generation of excess heat. He
submits a report of his experiment to an established journal of
science where it
passes peer-review and is published. During subsequent years the
publisher receives
no assertion of procedural error to invalidate the published paper. The
report is established as valid science. However, let that same
scientist try to use
a government auditorium to discuss his results with a peer group, or let him
try to patent his innovative cell configuration, or let the government try to
award a research grant to this scientist to extend his experimental
work, and it
is likely that the sky will fall down. The arousing cry from the
skeptics will be
"almost all scientists agree there is no such thing as cold fusion." With that
demagoguery and follow up efforts, permission to use the auditorium will be
revoked, the patent office will refuse the patent, a select panel
will be appointed
to revoke the grant award. In this strange fashion, the controversy has
been played out for twelve years, violating the most ordinary, well-established
scientific methodology. Thus peer-reviewed publication counts for nothing,
and demagoguery counts for everything.
And the skeptics response to determined questions asserting the presence
of published, peer-reviewed, yet unscathed, reports of excess heat,
after dismissal
of the "where are the nuclear products" gambit, generally turns to rumor-
mongering those reports: the peer-review was incestuous, the reports are
incomplete, the experiment is not reproducible. These are criticisms that the
skeptics dare not address to the publishers for review and publication.
The indictment against the skeptics is perfectly straightforward. It is not
that the skeptics ought to accept the calorimetric data as valid; it
is perfectly
proper for them to reject it if that is their considered conclusion. What is
unconscionable is that they have hidden their decision from the scientific
community. . . .
p. 340
