At 08:45 PM 2/25/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
Why does this sound so familiar?
"Until someone can propose a plausible mechanism that will explain
cold fusion, I will consider it impossible."
Wrong comparison. The comparison you should make is:
"Until someone can prove otherwise, I am sure that cold fusion is a mistake."
If you have no evidence it is a mistake, that hypothesis is not
allowed. No evidence it is fake, that hypothesis is out.
Uh, Jed, what I wrote was about parallel language, "familiar." You
had written this:
Impossible. Until someone can propose a plausible a way to fake the
two Rossi demos, I will consider that impossible. Without specifics,
the claim that "it might be faked" cannot be tested or falsified.
I noticed the parallel between "util someone can propose a plausible
way to fake the two Rossi demos" (your language) and what I've heard
from skeptics, over and over, a drumbeat: "until someone can propose
a plausible mechanism that will explain cold fusion."
Sorry, this is a report of a personal experience, not a claim of
identity. I'm seeing a similar kind of logic. "Until someone can
prove otherwise," what you now introduce, is quite different.
Any hypothesis has to be supported by evidence. It is a positive
assertion. It has no meaning without supporting evidence. It cannot
be right or wrong.
Well, we can make hypotheses with little evidence. It is not usually
"none," even if the evidence is not stated. Stated as a hypothesis,
it's correct, it cannot be right or wrong. Period. It doesn't matter
if there is evidence or not! A hypothesis with lots of evidence can
be wrong, and one with no evidence may be right. Lucky guess. But, as
I said, "no evidence" is rare. Unstated evidence is much more common.
A plausible mechanism, on the other hand, is not needed to support
an observation because the observation alone is the positive
assertion. There are any number of unexplained observations. As long
as you can prove cells divide, you don't need to explain the
mechanism (DNA, in this case).
You are correct about not needing evidence for observations. However,
the trouble typically comes in with the interpretation of
observations. What we call observations are often complex
conclusions, inferred or deduced from observations. There are degrees
to this, in a sense every "observation" is an inference, indirect, at
least as tranlated into language....
Very philosophical. All about pointing out that my general
observation <-- that word! is that it's possible to create very
convincing fakes, often by playing on assumptions. Such as a
limitation on power that could be transferred through a power cord of
a certain size. Yes, I'm sure there is a limit, but a series of
assumptions were made in Jed's comments on this, and magicians play
on and use common -- but inaccurate under the special conditions of
the "trick" -- assumptions of the observer.
As a practical matter, regarding this particular hypothesis, stage
magicians do not have detailed knowledge or skill in physics or chemistry.
Oh, then never mind. Obviously, since Rossi has some detailed
knowledge or skill in physics or chemistry, he culd not possibly be a magician.
Uh, Earth to Jed! I'm talking about human ingenuity. Are you saying
that Rossi could not possibly be ingenious enough to create a fake demo?
They would not know how to do an experiment that would confuse a
professor of physics.
That's correct. It would take a magician familiar with physics,
perhaps. Certainly that would be the case here. Ordinarily, magicians
can fool physicists about as well as they can fool anyone else. But
in this case, the fooling would be about creating an impression for a
physicist, so, yes, knowledge of physics would be necessary. The demo
would not be impressive to a short-order cook, perhaps. Or maybe it
would.... I don't want to underestimate the capacity of a short-order
cook to appreciate fine magic!
[...]
It is at least plausible that Rossi has hired cat burglars who
sneaked into the university and changed the watt meter and
thermocouples to produce false readings. That is physically
possible. The notion that a stage magician could accomplish
something like this on site as the experiment is underway by
swapping the meter when no one is looking is ruled out by video and
computer data recordings.
Ah, if this demo was at the university and Rossi had no access to the
power arrangements, his device was just brought in and plugged in,
the speculations about wiring are completely off. This would take
collusion or a "cat burglar," so to speak. Could be done. I can
imagine this as the plot of some TV intelligence agency mystery. But
it all gets much more complicated. Factory demo, far easier.
The thing gets much more difficult if that tin-foil thing was carried
into a neutral site and the apparatus was plugged in. The
high-voltage idea is out.
Tell me again, what is the harm of allowing a patent on a perpetual
motion machine? If the "inventor" pays the fees?
It would take up valuable time of Patent Office examiners. It would
be like paying them to dig holes and fill them up. We should not ask
professionals to waste their time doing pointless things outside
their job description.
The applicant pays for the time, presumably, with the application
fee. This is very poor thinking, and what you've done, Jed, is to
justify the application of impossibility theories to patents. That's
precisly why cold fusion patents were rejected.
The job description of a patent examiner should not be to determine
the practical or economic feasibility of the invention. It should be
to determine if the patent conflicts with others, and if it is
adequately described to allow independent construction by those
familiar with the necessary arts.
