At 04:29 AM 5/29/2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
Lomax> As Rothwell said. Cude is simply repeating a common myth.
That mainstream science regards CF as a mistake is a fact you have
admitted. Not a myth.
Cude's understanding of what I say is shallow and biased.
There is no "mainstream science," so I'd never say that. "Mainstream
science" is an abstraction, not a reality, it's a judgment, not a
sentient being that can "regard" anything.
Mainstream science is undefined here. If Cude defines it, we might
make some progress and find some agreement.
This is what I suspect is the bottom line. Cude imagines that his
views and opinions are "mainstream." And therefore, what differs from
them, what he regards as a "mistake," is what "mainstream science
regards as a mistake."
He is, I suspect, a graduate student, and his work is to understand
what his peers will accept. Were he to open his mind to cold fusion,
he might find, in his field, immediate rejection. Remember, "in his
field." Not "mainstream science," which must include, for example, chemists.
"cold fusion" was a misnomer at the beginning, because, in fact, it
was not known to be fusion. That fusion is involved is now a very
substantial conclusion, based on the finding of helium correlated with heat.
The original question, though, has never been answered with any rigor
at all: if the FPHE effect is not fusion, what is it?
The chemists say, largely, it's not chemistry, that's impossible, it
must a nuclear reaction. The nuclear physicists say, largely, it
can't be a nuclear reaction, that's impossible, it must be chemistry.
Which one of these factions is "mainstream science"?
My answer is, both are. "Cold fusion" is, at this point, a set of
results in chemistry and thermodynamics. Practically none of the work
involves the methods of nuclear physics. Nuclear physicists are,
essentially, only competent to comment on *conclusions,* i.e., the
conclusion of the chemists that it must be a nuclear reaction, and
for the physicists to discount and discredit the competence of the
chemists as to work well within their expertise was a major failure
of scientific courtesy and process.
In the other direction, for the chemists to insist that this was a
"nuclear reaction" without showing direct nuclear evidence was
certainly premature. It's possible to assert it, now, because of the
helium, because that is, indeed, a nuclear product, but it wasn't at
the beginning. Helium was considered a very long shot.
