Bob Higgins <rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com> wrote: Jed, you certainly have a right to your opinion and to express it. In the > case of LENR, there are well respected scientists in positions of power in > the US government that claim LENR doesn't exist - "it is bad science". >
Yes. I know those people well. I have met with them, and I have read all of their books, and all of the articles they have written in magazines and newspapers. Those people are all -- without exception -- ignorant fools who know nothing about cold fusion. Their opinions count for nothing. As I said, you might as well ask the cash register lady at the grocery store what she thinks of cold fusion. See for yourself! Gene Mallove collected some of their choice comments here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MalloveEclassicnas.pdf See also the Sci. American compendium of mistakes: http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?p=294 And the DoE panel, as I said: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/DOEusdepartme.pdf > They say this either from being right (I don't think so personally), > from being wrong (even though they are respected experts), or because they > have a purpose for claiming the LENR research false even though they know > it to be true. > I doubt they have any purpose for claiming LENR is wrong. They would not make such fools of themselves if they had a rational goal. If it ever becomes widely known that cold fusion is real, these people will be held up as a laughingstock for generations to come, like the scientists who claimed that airplanes were impossible before 1908. This is human nature. Most people despise novelty. They hate and fear new discoveries and change. Even scientists are often like that. You can find hundreds of quotes such as the Nobel laureates who tried to stop Townes from discovering the laser: "You should stop the work you are doing. It isn't going to work. You know it's not going to work. We know it's not going to work. You're wasting money. Just stop!" See also: http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j38 There are politicos that are using their "Global Warming" position to > bolster their political support - whether they believe in the science or > not is irrelevant because they are getting something for having taken the > position (I.E. Gore). > There may be such politicians, but that has no bearing on the scientific validity of the claims. You cannot use that fact to judge the technical arguments. > In any business, all of the scenarios are equally examined. > This is science, not business. The only opinions that count are those of experts in climatology. Asking anyone else what is likely or what we should do about it is like asking me how to perform heart surgery. There is a reason why it takes many years to get a PhD and why science is so difficult. This is not to suggest that all experts are always right, but non-experts are never right, and they cannot be right, even in principle. If they happen to be right, it is a lucky guess. Like if you asked me what scalpel to use in the operating room and I happened to point to the right one. > What would the situation be if we do nothing? What would happen if the > world truly made its best possible effort? > These are complex technical issues. Only people who have studied them for many years have any clue what the answers may be. Those people may be wrong -- as I said -- but the rest of us have no basis for even addressing the questions, and no way to judge. We have to trust in their expertise just as you must trust the pilot of an airplane you board, or the surgeon who is about to operate on you. In life you must often defer to expert opinion. That is the whole basis of civilization. People know different things, and if you don't know what they know, you cannot judge them. It has been that way for thousands of years. If you are not a stone mason you cannot judge which stones will likely cause the cathedral to collapse. You could not have judged that in the year 1400, and you could not do it today. Of course, when someone makes a terrible mistake, you know he is not an expert. He may thinks he is, but he is mistaken. When rock gives way and the cathedral collapses, you are not dealing with qualified stonemasons. When Gen. Burnside ordered an attack at Fredricksburg, Lincoln could see he should be fired, even though Lincoln himself was no military expert. And when DoE "experts" claim that cold fusion has never been replicated, anyone can see they are not experts! They are nitwits. - Jed
