I just ran into trouble because I used the phrase "true believers" properly. This is because the true "true believers" have captured the phrase "true believers" to refer to scientists.
This kind of hypocritical projection is standard operating procedure in religious and political circles. To illustrate with mathematical rigor why the phrase "true believers" is more properly applied to folks often referred to as "skeptopaths" or, worse, "skeptics", let please note that the mathematical model of "belief" in relation to "theory" and "experiment" is well understood: http://www.aispace.org/bayes/index.shtml On the above link you will find a tool for the mathematical modeling of what is known as a "belief network" -- in particular with relation to "decision networks". Decision networks are how rational actors go about deciding what experiments to invest in. Note I said "invest in" rather than the more general "perform". Investment must take into account the value of the information obtained by the experiment in ratio to the cost of the experiment. This is why decision theory is taught in places like Harvard business school: Business is largely about obtaining information and obtaining information has associated costs. If you can't treat those costs rationally you go out of business in short order. Nowhere is this more the case than in resource constrained science targeting knowledge of potentially profound value. In belief networks, you have what is known as the "Bayesian Prior Probability Distribution" -- which amounts to the cumulative experience prior to the present, distilled in a model that tells you the probability of various outcomes based on various decisions. This "Prior" (as it is often abbreviated) is, simply, "knowledge" -- recognizing that all "knowledge" is tentative. The key word here is "tentative". What does "tentative" mean in relation to "knowledge"? It means all of your theoretic understanding of the world is mere "belief" subject to further experience. The sin qua non of a "true believer", then, is a person in whom "knowledge" prevents experience from modifying their "Bayesian Prior Probability Distribution" because they refuse to knowledge that all knowledge is tentative -- that all knowledge is belief. Such commitment to belief is the only reasonable criterion for applying the phrase "true believer". If someone is open to questioning their beliefs based on new experience, then they are not "true believers". So how did the true believers in the currently dominant interpretation of physical theory successfully project their own pathology onto scientists who question the currently dominant interpretation of physical theory? Simple: The true believers focused on a "belief" in the _possibility_ Fleischmann and Pons had not victimized the world with their "incompetence" and/or "delusion", to use the characterization now adopted as "knowledge" by the true believers. This is tantamount to portraying the scientific method as a "belief" on the same par as someone who is impervious to experimental evidence. Since they were powerful and the press ignorantly committed to fashion set by the powerful, they succeeded.
