I think they gave the reviewers all those papers because years ago I
was in someone's office, and I noticed a cardboard box full of papers
with familiar titles. I asked "what's all this?" and the person said
"that's what we gave the reviewers. Those are all the references in
Peter's paper."
It was clear from the reviews that some of panel members read the
material and understand cold fusion, and others did not. I do not
think Hagelstein's paper was difficult to grasp, and these were
distinguished professional scientists, so they darn well should have
done their homework and figured out the helium versus heat part. But
as Lomax pointed out, they got that wrong. That's sloppy. But even
the best scientists sometimes make mistakes and jump to unwarranted
conclusions. See the endorsement blurbs on the back of Taubes' book
by Lederman, Richter, Schwartz, Seaborg and Rowland. Four Nobel
laureates and the director of the AAAS! All of them full of bunk.
Yeah, they should have known better, but they didn't. I expect it was
an honest mistake. I know it was a sloppy one.
I'll bet if you contacted those people today (the ones still alive),
you would find they have not learned a thing about cold fusion and
they would not change a word of their endorsements.
- Jed
