On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:19 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
Cude>>Maybe, but Rossi OK'd them. Lomax> Yes, he did. However, the point was that this was not simply what Cude claimed, using "his own designates." OK. I used the wrong word. I don't think my message is significantly weakened if I make the same claim using "vetted observers" or something like that. > It is accepting the designates of someone else. Sure, Rossi could possibly somehow figure out that these people would somehow be gullible. However, consider who they were. A physicist sitting on the Nobel committee. An official of the Swedish Skeptics Society. If Rossi were not confident of his demonstrations, do you think he'd approve those two? Indeed, almost certainly, he'd reject Essen, at least. First, I'm not interested in second-guessing. I'm interested in evidence, and if it has to be second-hand, then it should come from someone who is clearly on record as a skeptic of CF. And preferably from several such people in contexts they control, without restriction on the measurements they make, short of opening the black box. In spite of Essen's associations, he had publicly expressed sympathy for Rossi. He was not skeptical. Secondly, this sort of argument might become relevant in future demonstrations (or with respect to Levi in the secret experiment), but it's not in the January or in the Swede demos, because even the evidence they reported does not support excess heat in my estimation. They arrived at different conclusions largely because they assumed the steam was dry. They however gave no evidence that it was, and in the Lewan and January experiments, the evidence strongly suggests it was very wet. > What Cude is doing is demonstrating how, given a held belief, one can create endless suspicion and doubt, and there is no end to this. Not true. The demonstrations are simply very poorly done. Rossi appears to have discovered that when the water in a conduit reaches boiling, it starts spewing out as a mist, which people can be persuaded is dry steam, and voila, he gets a factor of 6. Then a few other discrepancies with flow rates and using thermal mass to underestimate power, and he can get an even bigger apparent gain. Most of these objections can be avoided. And I've described ways. The problem is that his later demos were no better than the January demo. > None, beyond massive fully independent confirmation, Or, as I've argued, fully visible. > Now, I've corresponded with scientists at Wikipedia who were actually skeptical but who did not want to be known as even thinking that cold fusion might be real, or as willing to look at evidence, they were afraid for their careers. I agree, this is a problem. Many would simply dismiss the idea and not want to waste their time. So yes, finding credible experts is a problem. Sending ecats out under NDAs would be easier, but also not likely to happen. That's why I'm fixated on a completely visual demonstration. Boiling 1000 L of water in the middle of an open field with nothing but an ecat would attract attention. The thing about this revolutionary claim is that a visual demonstration is possible. Why not give one. > Were they fooled? Maybe. Actually, reading Essen and Kullander, they are pretty careful. They've described appearance, and have not claimed reality. But, *still*, we have anonymous pseudoskeptics like Cude claiming gullibility and even possible collusion. On the crucial question of dry steam, they claimed it was dry based on two visual inspections and measurements of relative humidity. That claim is not believable, and I don't care what that says about Essen and Kullander. The dry steam makes a 6-fold difference in energy; how can they be so sloppy about determining it? On the other hand, the temperature is not expected to change during that 6-fold increase in power, and yet they measure it every few seconds. That's just a bad experiment. > There are two things to keep in mind about Cude. First of all, he's obviously certain about what is not possible, which is not a scientific position, it's a religious belief. Wrong. I have specified the experiment that would be convincing of excess heat. I don't think there is an experiment that would convince some CF advocates that they are wrong. > Well, let's put it this way: they were inadequate as proof. Right, > And from what I can tell, that's exactly what Rossi wants at this time. Fine. But I if even Rossi agrees that his demos don't give evidence of excess heat, why exactly should I think there is excess heat? > Fraud? Maybe. It's looking really unlikely to me, but "really unlikely" is not "impossible." What I know is that LENR is possible, that's not in question, Hmm. I thought you said belief like this is not a scientific position. It's religious. A little bit of the pot calling the kettle black. >> No. He talked to them. He read their interviews, and what they wrote. He probably got the sense that they were prepared to believe that the output flow of mist and steam was pure vapour. He might have gotten a gentleman's agreement that they would accept the experimental setup as it was, and simply read the meters. > Basically, Cude can speculate and speculate and create whatever story out of these speculations he wants. I agree this is all speculation. And unimportant. You goad me into speculating and second-guessing people's motives, when all I'm interested in is evidence. Which is still absent. > And this logic can be used to reject *any* evidence that would counter the held belief. Again, I'm not rejecting evidence based on any of this speculation. I'm simply saying as you did, the proof is not adequate. Until it's adequate, I will remain skeptical. > Just consider this: if he does a bulletproof, conclusive demo, he would attract, to his competitors, who would exponentially multiply, large venture funding. It would be a crash program to do what he did, and patent first. Probably right. Doesn't change the fact that a conclusive demo has not been done, and so I have no reason to conclude there is excess heat. Sorry, Rossi's word doesn't wash. > In other words, Cude, and those like him, are demanding that Rossi commit economic suicide. Please. I'm not demanding anything. I'm just saying I won't believe a claim without evidence. And having fun doing it. But I don't think you're right that it would be economic suicide. I think it would be, as it was for the Wrights, the dawning of the Rossi age of energy. He would rich, famous, and loved all over the world. > Pons and Fleischmann bypassed normal protocols by announcing with a press conference, but, when a discovery can have major economic impact, that's actually fairly common. What was the rush to rejection? > Look, it's obvious. Would Cude come up with the possible explanations himself? I'm not holding my breath. If you're hinting at a conspiracy, you're right, I don't believe it for a minute. Cheap, clean, and abundant energy would benefit everyone but oil barons, and even they could easily get in on it. The US government in particular, since P&F were in the US, stood to benefit strategically from eliminating the dependence on foreign oil; environmentally from fewer oil spills and smog and acid rain… , not to mention CO2; and economically from selling the technology, and saving money not having to drill baby drill (not to mention the costs of pollution). No, a conspiracy theory is just stupid. Sorry. >> The Wright Brothers were very secretive, avoiding the press and others, limiting the photographs, until they had an offer on the table. But after the first *obvious* public demonstrations in 1908, "the Wright brothers catapulted to world fame overnight". The demonstration did not rely on experts' testimonies, or invitee's accounts. Anyone who wanted could witness it with their own eyes. > There were prior eyewitness accounts that were disregarded. Sure, eventually it broke through. Yes. Limited eye witness accounts of rather less impressive demos. So people remained skeptical of the Wright Brothers' success. But notably, not of the principle of heavier-than-air flight. Apart from a very few skeptics of the time, most scientists believed it was inevitable. It violated no fundamental principles or theories. After all, birds are heavier than air. When the Wrights made it obvious, and openly public, then people believed not just in flight, but in the Wrights. Rossi, if his claims are true, is at the position to make it obvious and openly public. But he hasn't. And this is for a phenomenon that is not believed to be inevitable, but highly unlikely. And so, people remain skeptical. > Yes. I'm confident about that. Again. Religiously. >[after I cited Cook] > Any scientist who points out the real situation about cold fusion[…] is suspect. "Sympathetic to CF," which, presumably, disqualifies him, since anyone sympathetic to CF is a lunatic believer, Q.E.D. You said he didn't have a history as an advocate. I was just pointing out that he was on record from the start as sympathetic. That means he's got a little pride to protect. But the point of this was to counter my claim that CF is rejected within the scientific community in general. One example of a psychologist who says it could be real doesn't really contradict the point. > Yes, this guy is multidisciplinary. Just note that he was publishing in nuclear physics in 1989. Linus Pauling wrote about Vitamin C. Does that cast doubt on his chemistry? Bad example. Pauling should have stuck to his field. His meanderings about vitamin C were nutty, and have been widely discredited. > In a way that fits neatly into what exists. Grad students who make ground-breaking discoveries that contradict previous paradigms don't generally get their PhD based on this. Any examples of grad students who did this and did not get PhDs based on it? And spare me the CF example until CF is accepted in the mainstream. >> After all, a few Nobel prizes have been awarded for graduate work, including those awarded to Mossbauer, Josephson, and de Broglie. > yeah, but it's rare. Because it's rare that graduate students do work worthy of the prize. >> And my attitude toward CF is shared by the likes of Gell-Mann, Glashow, Weinberg, and so on. The Nobel committee clearly feels their level of understanding is solid. > understanding of what? Of nuclear physics and quantum mechanics. > This is really weird, you know. Cude will discount Josephson, I'm sure, and he'll also discount Schwinger and Ramsey, because they are or were "sympathetic to cold fusion," I already have in the first two cases. Josephson because of his paranormal leanings, Schwinger because he was old and his CF papers were rejected by APS journals. I'm not aware of Ramsey's support for CF, other than his insistence that the 1989 panel soften its criticism. He's a nice guy. So what? > Okay, I'd love to see their attitude, where is it expressed? > This is classic Cude, again, make a strong claim with no evidence whatever. What did those eminent scientists say, and when, and what was it based on. They vote with their feet. The unanimity of scientists' skepticism about CF is expressed by the fact that they don't work on it. But for the specific names: Murray Gell-Mann at a public forum (lecture at Portland State University in 1998): “It’s a bunch of baloney. Cold fusion is theoretically impossible, and there are no experimental findings that indicate it exists” Sheldon Glashow in an interview somewhere: Devins: I guess there are stories where people don’t do that too, but those are not the ones that advance science. Glashow: Yeah, there’s cold fusion, there’s the French story about n-rays, which is a long story about something which doesn’t exist. Steven Weinberg: The evidence for all these miracles seems to me to be considerably weaker than the evidence for cold fusion, and I don't believe in cold fusion. >> Scientists do, yes. But this does not describe most of the CF advocates, who most certainly accept what they think is known with fervent belief. > There are people like that, I think. I just don't know any, among the major CF researchers. "Fervent belief" is a very personal opinion, unless you have a fervent-beliefometer. Your opinion is that my belief is religious, and mine is that yours is. Neither of us have a meter for the purpose. But I am prepared to admit the possibility of CF, and in fact was hopeful for it after P&F, and have described an experiment that would merit full blown investigation into CF. You, and others, have claimed absolute certainty about CF. Can you describe an experiment (in more than vague terms) that would get you to admit it is not real? >This, again, is characteristic of pseudoskeptics: make up presumably negative psychological states and ascribe them to anyone who disagrees with them. Between you and me, who has done this repeatedly, in every post? Hint: It's you. > However, what I'm seeing is that Cude is describing himeslf, he is a fervent believer in the impossibility of cold fusion. Nope. Just its unlikelihood. Extreme unlikelihood. > Without evidence, all that he can come up with is alleged "absence of evidence," That's really all that's possible to deny the existence of something. > The day of reckoning is coming. Don't make it sound like a threat. I'd be every bit as thrilled as you if CF turns out to be real. I shudder at the legacy of climate change we are leaving to our descendants. And I hate paying for gas.
