Steven Krivit wrote:
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V -
I was havin' a chat will fellow CF author the other day about proper
scientific refutations. He brought to my attention that a valid refutation
of a claim is one which identifies a specific "error of procedure" in an
experiment, such as a specific error pertaining to calorimetry,
interpretation etc.
The distinction we discussed focused on the point, subtle perhaps, of
distinguishing specific "errors of procedure" from speculative or
hypothetical errors.
The discussion arose from my review of the numerous speculative
refutations of F&P given at the APS Baltimore meeting on May 1, 1989.
I'd like to explore this topic further here, if anybody would care to
engage in such.
-S
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Hello, Mr. Krivit.
I fear that "proper scientific refutations" will be few and far between.
These require detailed examination of the original experimental records,
photographs, etc.; maybe examination of the original equipment,
questioning of the researchers; possibly even an attempt to exactly
duplicate the original experiment. Almost nobody has time for such
endeavors. You will note that exact experimental duplications are almost
never done anywhere in science except for the most important results.
In a study to see if such examinations were possible, one social scientist
asked for copies of the laboratory records associated with
recently-published papers from a number of researchers in the physical
sciences. The positive response rate was _extremely_ low. Most
responders claimed that the relevant records were "lost".
Researchers also often want to keep records confidential with the idea
that further analysis could serve as the basis for additional papers.
IIRC the Japanese consortium that did the studies on neutrino oscillations
wrote specifically in one of their papers that their raw data would not be
made available to other researchers. Of course this data was originally
generated at extremely high cost, but surely there should be a time limit
on such restrictions!
If you are of the opinion that the published work itself is always an
adequate guide as to the details of an experiment, may I direct your
attention to a wonderful little book, "Artificial Experts: Social
Knowledge and Intelligent Machines" by Harry Collins (MIT Press, 1990).
Collins became a "knowledge engineer" in the field of growing crystals by
reading the work of and doing detailed interviewing of the experts in this
field, watching their laboratory work, etc. The idea was to produce a
computer program to aid non-experts in growing crystals. But among the
other problems he encountered was the fact that extremely tiny and often
critically-important details of the lab work were never documented in the
writings of the experts or in his interviews of them. For the experts
these details were "obvious" or just unimportant eccentricities. But
without knowing these details -- or being an expert oneself -- one
couldn't grow the crystals.
Taubes' book "Bad Science" noted a recurring complaint regarding
Fleischmann and Pons' pre-cold fusion work: Industrial technicians could
not duplicate some of their contracted lab results. In one case this was
true even when F&P's lab work was videotaped. Does this prove that before
cold fusion Fleischmann and Pons were already conscious frauds? Or maybe
instead that tiny but important details of their lab work were being
overlooked, even with close examination?
Jed Rothwell notes that to duplicate F&P's original experiment requires
one to have a Ph.D. in electrochemistry followed by several months of
preparation. I also remember reading somewhere that everyone thinks
electrochemistry is easy -- except electrochemists, who whenever possible
try to avoid doing doing it. Clearly the editors of general science
journals do not themselves have the expertise to directly criticize the
methodology of most CF papers. It's much simpler to rely on their
previous conclusions.
In the absence of a "proper scientific refutation",
critics/skeptics/scoffers can always fall back on what I'm now calling
"The UFO explanation". If you debunk 1000 UFOs with a dozen different
explanations, additional UFO reports can be safely ignored. With cold
fusion some early "replications" were clearly and admittedly wrong. Other
results were just believed to be wrong. That plus the theoretical bias
that would require "too many miracles" for CF to work, meant that CF must
be wrong. And, just as you can ignore the second 1000 UFO reports, you
can ignore 1000 later cold fusion papers, first one by one if need be,
then collectively.
Believer in cold fusion == believer in UFOs == crank. Simple, really.
I do not wish to denigrate the work of all CF critics. In a recent thread
on usenet's sci.physics.fusion group ('Wikipedia "Cold fusion
controversy"') several scientists repeated their criticism of both the
calorimetry and mass-spectography in some CF papers. Some of the
references made it to Wikipedia for a time. In my opinion cold fusion
researchers need to closely examine and respond to these criticisms.
Good luck with your research, Mr. Krivit.
- Walter
