Jed Rothwell wrote:
Ed Storms wrote me a not saying we should not re-hash stale debates in the Knol article, and we should not try to make the skeptics case for them, because that's like trying to make the case for the Flat Earth Society. I agree, but that is not quite what I had in mind. My response to Ed -- I was thinking of the "history" section in an encyclopedia article. I will leave the physics part to you -- or use your old text. An encyclopedia should cover not only the science, but also the history and social effects of a phenomenon, in different sections of course. Not all mashed together the way they are in Wikipedia! For example, an article about evolution will be mainly devoted to modern evolutionary theory, but to be comprehensive it should also a section about the development of the theory, how it has changed since Darwin with the discoveries of Mendel and then DNA, and so on. It might also discuss, or link to, articles about Darwinian social theory and capitalism, and creationism as the social backlash to evolutionary theory. It is not directly relevant of course, but someone who wants an overview may be looking for it. People looking up cold fusion may want to know what all the fuss is, and why it is so controversial. We should tell them. If we write anything about the history of the field, I think we should mention the NHE program, and say that it failed. . . .
I think talking about the NHE program is worthwhile, but I'm not sure it is accurate to say it failed. Granted, it did not establish that the phenomenon could rise to a commercial level at that time. However, it did educate the Japanese workers about the issues. This education has allowed the Japanese to move ahead much faster than some of the other countries. Note that the Japanese have a cold fusion society that meets regularly. As a result, the phenomenon is being understood in Japan faster than in any other country, thanks to the foresight of creating the NHE laboratory.
I agree history is important, but I suggest it be written as history and not as a debate that the reader has to resolve. Using your example, the history of evolution does not need to include intelligent design, which would be equivalent to including the skeptical arguments in a discussion of cold fusion.
Also it wouldn't hurt to say that many experiments did fail in the early days, and some still do, but for the most part we know why. I do not think that fact ever reached the Wiki article before it was trashed. It is okay to talk about technical difficulties. It is not a weakness. Storms himself has spotlighted more bad cold fusion calorimetry than all the skeptics combined, in this paper: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEcalorimetr.pdf That's what I meant by making the skeptical case.
A good example, but this was written while many of the claims were being debated. Now the time for debate has passed. We all know that some of the work was both wrong or seriously in error. Such work is no longer relevant any more than the maps used by Columbus are relevant to modern navigation. Now we should use the good data and show what it means and where work needs to be done to advance understanding in the future.
Ed
- Jed
