At 01:07 PM 3/19/2010, you wrote:
D. Goodstein, "On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front
Lines of Science"
<http://www.amazon.com/Fact-Fraud-Cautionary-Tales-Science/dp/0691139660/>http://www.amazon.com/Fact-Fraud-Cautionary-Tales-Science/dp/0691139660/
This is complete & utter ignorant, infuriating bullshit. (Strong
letter to follow.) Look inside the book on p. 94 to see what I mean.
The author claims that coldl fusion is irreproducible and that "very
little has changed" sinced 1989.
Page 129 he's clear that cold fusion was not fraud. Goodstein is a
disappointment. Certainly he overstates the "irreproducible" thing,
my impression is that he really hasn't done an overview and is
relying on old information and what he knew before.
You really should look at the next page. He acknowledges that fusion
may have taken place in some of these experiments. His comments, in
fact, cut both ways.
However, given what we now know about the field and the overall body
of research and what went wrong in 1989-1990, Goodstein's report is
shallow, he's very ambivalent, as he was years ago. There is now a
great deal more known, and with hindsight we really can understand
the problems with the research. It's almost like he hasn't moved in,
what, about 15 years?
Overall, this has to be taken as a relatively positive publication,
in spite of the obvious errors. He's acknowledging open research
questions, he *attributes* the negative conclusions to scientists of
the time, and says that the problem is that the normal process of
science broke down and is staying broken down because "nobody is listening."
Well, it's not true that nobody is listening, but it's true,
probably, in the circles he moves in! I suspect he'll come around,
because it's going around. He hasn't painted himself into a corner,
like others did, with confident, smug skepticism.
