Unfortunately, Jed, the accusers of "conspiracy theorizing" may have a legal leg to stand on given this "plain language" instruction to the jurors in California civil cases regarding conspiracy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(civil)#California_.22Plain_Language.22_jury_instructions_on_conspiracy:_essential_factual_elements> :
Such an agreement may be made orally or in writing *or implied by the conduct of the parties*. Of course, this has little or nothing to do with the connotation play being made by the accusers -- which is that the person complaining about abuse is positing that those acting so as to suppress cold fusion research were meeting in secret to coordinate their actions with the knowledge that cold fusion should rightfully have been funded. Basically, I addressed this in "Institutional Incompetence, "Conspiracy Theories" and Pol Pot<http://jimbowery.blogspot.com/2011/07/institutional-incompetence-conspiracy.html> ". If I wanted to concoct a conspiracy theory, it would be that those suppressing cold fusion research were Satanists who wanted to create something like the Reign of Terror so they could have lots of human sacrifices to their Satanic Majesty and saw a golden opportunity, in the announcement of March 1989, to so-discredit established institutions that the eventual backlash would be a genocidal rampage against the academic authorities (hence my reference to "Pol Pot"). On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jouni Valkonen <jounivalko...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Besides that your idea about the funding cuts is silly conspiracy theory >> and if you are throwing such lazy arguments, it will not help the field. >> > > It irks me when people write this! Why does this nonsense about a > "conspiracy" so often come up? Who said anything about a conspiracy? > > A conspiracy is surreptitious and organized. The suppression of cold > fusion has been done openly. It is not organized as far as I can tell. If > it is they are not doing a very good job at organizing things. > > Let us look at the specific instance we are discussing here: helium > correlation research by Melvin Miles. Miles was a Fellow of the Institute > at China Lake. A "Fellow" means someone who can study any subject he wants, > like a tenured professor. Despite this designation, when he applied for > additional funding to continue the research, they took away his telephone, > they took away his lab privileges, and they reassigned him to work a menial > job as a stockroom clerk. If that is not suppression, what would be?!? > > There was nothing secret about it. The person who did this was the head of > the Chemistry Department, Robin A. Nissan. Nissan's memos ordering this > have been circulated, and Miles described the events in several > publications such as this one: > > http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMisoperibol.pdf (see p. 19) > > Every cold fusion researcher I know has been subjected to opposition, and > sometimes extreme harassment. > > Saying that cold fusion has not been suppressed is like saying that all > women in the 1950s enjoyed complete equal pay in the workplace and > never experienced sexist discrimination. > > - Jed > >
