ROGER ANDERTON <r.j.ander...@btinternet.com> wrote: > This is getting too diverted. What you were saying sounded like a > conspiracy theory. > Perhaps it did sound like that, but it was not. Because --
1. A conspiracy is organized and surreptitious. The opposition to cold fusion was unorganized and very much in the open. Opponents published books, papers, newspaper editorials, editorials in Nature and so on. They were proud to lead the attack against cold fusion. 2. It is not a "theory;" it is a fact. You can read the books and editorials. A "conspiracy theory" means an assertion that a hidden group of people carried out an organized campaign of opposition. There is no proof, and you don't know who the people are. Although you might speculate about who they are. If I had said: "we don't know who opposed cold fusion, but I suspect it was the editors at Nature and the plasma fusion researchers" that would be a theory. I am not saying that. I am saying: "we know who opposed cold fusion, because the editor at Nature published signed editorials excoriating it, and the plasma fusion researchers at MIT called Boston newspaper reporters and demanded that Fleischmann and Pons be arrested for fraud." Those researchers never denied doing that. We have the news reports and quotes from them. There is a world of difference between an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory and attacks carried out in public by people who bragged about their role in destroying cold fusion. Calling that a "theory" is like saying "perhaps it was the Japanese navy that attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, but we will never know for sure."
