Lawrence de Bivort wrote:
Yes. It is human nature when things are complicated and much unseen to
conclude that the situation must be caused by a cabal or a conspiracy.
The situations with cold fusion and global warming denial do not seem
complicated or "unseen" to me. I don't know much about global warming
politics, but I know who is denying cold fusion, and what motivates
them. It is not because they work for "big oil" or anything like
that. One of the infuriating things about this situation is that the
main reasons people attack cold fusion are trivial, and personal.
Opposition is mostly driving by people and institutions who went out
on a limb denying it back 1989. Most are too lazy or stupid to take a
second look. Lemonick, the guy at Time, is so dumb he could not
understand a simple cold fusion paper. (He really is astoundingly
stupid, as you see from the letters I posted in the News section. You
wonder how he ended up as science editor at a major U.S. magazine!) A
few, such as Robert Park, are so ego driven they don't want to take
another look because they fear being ridiculed if they admit they were wrong.
Most others just parrot what they read in Wikipedia.
It is hard to know what motivates a guy like Charles Petit. I think
he is just telling the audience what they want to hear. Bashing
defenseless people is a good living: cold fusion researchers can't
bash him back. No editor will criticize him for attacking people that
"everyone knows" are wrong. He probably has convinced himself that
cold fusion is "more like a hobby than science" as he told me. I am
sure he does not care what effect his article has on public opinion.
His attitude toward me is friendly and nonchalant, as if none of this
matters any more than last week's golf tournament scores. I do sense
that people like him see this sort of thing as a political game:
who's up and who's down. The fact that it might solve the energy
crisis and that people like him are preventing that from happening
never seems to have crossed his mind.
I would add another 'cause' of these situations -- and would include
cold fusion and global warming in these -- the relative ineptitude
of the 'good guys' (however you define them!) to communicate their
PoV. Too often the 'good guys' resort to attack and invective.
Advocacy is substituted for effectiveness, righteousness for influence.
I agree that cold fusion researchers have done a poor job of public
relations, but you have to cut them some slack. They are researchers.
They have no experience in public relations or politics. They have
absolutely no influence! The opposition is made of influential people
who are specialize in public relations, and who know little or
nothing about science, such as magazine hack writers and congressmen.
- Jed
