On 11-06-17 06:51 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Someone here said that Rossi is offering "an appeal to authority."
Strictly speaking, he is not.
Yes, he is. His evidence that the steam is dry is "So-and-so says so."
But no data is presented to back So-and-so's opinion; all we have is a
bare conclusion by someone who is "an authority". What probe was used?
What property of the effluent was measured? What was the measured
value? Nobody knows! What are the error bars on the dryness measure?
What's that, they don't have any? Oh, no, of course not -- it's an
absolute statement: "It's *dry*".
If that's not "appealing to an authority" then I don't know the meaning
of simple English sentences.
Jed has speculated that Rossi has performed his own simple tests to
determine if the steam is dry (pass hand through steam, judge by feel)
but AFAIK no evidence has ever been shown that even such simple tests
were done.
That would be a logical fallacy, called a "Fallacious Appeal to
Authority, Misuse of Authority":
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
Bosh. Their definition is far narrower than the way the phrase "appeal
to authority" is actually used, and is far narrower than makes sense.
The argument "Joe said so", by itself, is never deductively valid, never
fully conclusive, no matter how much of an authority Joe is. It only
becomes a solid argument when we can not only quote Joe, but also cite
the evidence Joe used to arrive at that conclusion.
In this case, Rossi has quoted an authority regarding the steam ... but
the evidence used by that authority has never been revealed.
Consequently, we are left with a simple "appeal to authority", which, by
itself, can never prove anything.
Show us the data -- heck, just tell us what measurement was actually
done and what probe was really used to do it -- and then we'll have some
evidence that the steam was dry (or wasn't). But without that, we have
nothing but -- well -- hot air.
Rossi is citing actual, bona fide authorities in the relevant field
such as Dr. Galantini. That is a legitimate thing to do ...
Not with a complete lack of cited data, not in any scientific forum.
Galantini can say "It's dry!" 'till he's blue in the face, but unless
he's willing to add something like, "And I know that because I measured
XYZ property and it was less than ZYX value" it's just so much noise.
This is the difference between science, and everything else: In
religion, in the military, in government, in business, in school, you
can say "Joe Blow Honcho said we should all JUMP!" and everybody jumps.
In science, you can say "Joe Blow Honcho said we should all JUMP!" and
the usual response is, "What was his reasoning, and what's his data?"
Galantini said "It's dry". So, that's nice; if he'd said "It's sopping
wet" it would have been Game Over. But where's his data?
