Rothwell wrote: "Cude and others conflate many different assertions and issues. They stir everything into one pot. You have to learn to compartmentalize with cold fusion, or with any new phenomenon or poorly understood subject. "
That's nonsense. It's the believers who are forever using tritium and neutrons at ridiculously low levels to prove P&F were right. The skeptics are skeptical of both, but are fully aware that even if low level neutrons a la SE Jones were valid, it wouldn't prove P&F right. That's why Jones got into nature and P&F didn't. Turned out, Jones retracted, until he made claims again. But they're marginal too. > In this case, the tritium findings by Storms and soon after at TAMU and NCFI proved beyond doubt that cold fusion is a real, nuclear phenomenon. After they published that 1990 it was case closed. Every scientist on earth should have believed it. Unfortunately computer programmers don't get to tell every scientist on earth how to make scientific judgements. Morrison followed the field in detail until 2001, and he had the background and experience to make credible judgements and he was skeptical. So did Huizenga. And I'd put more credence in the Gell-Manns who considerd it briefly than the Rothwells or Storms who devoted their lives to it, but can't tell a likely charlatan (Rossi) from a scientist or inventor. And if the tritium was so conclusive, why were the results so variable, and given the variability, why has tritium research stopped before anyone settled anything about it? That's not the behavior of scientists. It's the behavior of pathological scientists. > The excess heat results proved that it is not a chemical effect, in the normal sense. Perhaps it is a Mills effect. Again, there is so much evidence for this, at such high s/n ratios, it is irrefutable. > The helium results support the hypothesis that this is some sort of deuterium fusion, at least with Pd-D. There is no doubt about the helium, but no one has searched for helium or deuterium from Ni-H cells. > All the other claims are fuzzy, in my opinion. There is not as much evidence for them. All the results are fuzzy, and the levels are determined by the quality of the experiment. Heat levels comparable to inputs, or chemical background, or typical artifacts. Helium levels comparable to atmospheric background. Neutrons and tritium, for which instruments are far more sensitive, appear at guess what, far lower levels. > The point is, DO NOT CONFUSE THESE QUESTIONS. Do not conflate them! Gee. Someone learned a new word, and is gonna get all the mileage he can from it.
