3 ms·

Then I hope you see the irony in your comment, and why the first reply was a little incredulous. I'm not defending Rossi, BTW. The odds are very, very, very g

Then I hope you see the irony in your comment, and why the first reply was a little incredulous. I'm not defending Rossi, BTW. The odds are very, very, very good that it's another scam. But it's not impossible that he's on to something and that's exactly what the article's author points to, along with lamenting how tragic it would be if cold fusion turned out to be real and we wasted 20 years not pursuing it because of the reputation trap.

mannykannot 11y ago
I am wondering if we read the same article. The author uncritically cites already-discredited studies in favor of the E-Cat without noting the doubt that surrounds them, and only mentions fraud as being so improbable as to effectively dismiss it. He is apparently literally salivating over his expectation that he will be proved right. FWIW, I know cold fusion is not definitively ruled out by physics, I would be thrilled if it were realized, I think it is a valid area of research and I always thought that Pons and Fleischmann were treated far too harshly, but ignoring strong indications of fraud is only going to make that case harder to make. I hope you can see that these are not mutually contradictory opinions.
- paganel 11y ago
  I know almost nothing about cold fusion and theoretical physics in general, but as a guy who has read some Popper and Hume I'll chime in with an obviously subjective opinion, and say that after reading all the HN comments and parts of the article the first thought that came to my mind was this: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Interestingly enough that exact quote is present in TFA, but in a manner that makes it debatable: > This is not to deny that there is truth in the principle popularised by Carl Sagan, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We should certainly be very cautious about such surprising claims, unless and until we amass a great deal of evidence. But this is not a good reason for ignoring such evidence in the first place, or refusing to contemplate the possibility that it might exist Paragraphs like this one remind me of a work-colleague of mine, who I try to convince from time to time during our cigarette breaks that aliens have not visited our planet and that they're not just "about to arrive", impending asteroid apocalypse be damned. At which point she almost always responds to me like this: "paganel, yours are valid opinions, but we cannot refuse to contemplate the possibility that one day they may arrive". This also reminds me of how early Christians actually believed that the second arrival of Christ was just around the corner. Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science." You say that, but you're ignoring the thrust of his argument. Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment seem somewhat dubious. Easy to dismiss a single flawed experiment, right? However, there have been at least four separate reproductions of the experiment results since then (article mentions reports of similar results from Sweden, Italy, Russia and China). The main question raised by the article can be summarised as: If evidence of a reproducible experiment with unexplained results exists, which is usually a key indicator that the experiment warrants further investigation, why is there sometimes reluctance to investigate when this reproducibility comes along? Science is not served well by dogma. Interesting results can come from unexpected places. The wilful ignorance of the reproducibility is the issue here.
    - emmelaich 11y ago
      There were many confirmations of N-rays too. "120 other scientists in 300 published articles" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray
      - ZenoArrow 11y ago
        That's one possible outcome, but we can't be sure until more research is done. A growing body of evidence of new phenomena should be examined scientifically, even if it turns out there's nothing new at all.
    - mannykannot 11y ago
      > Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment seem somewhat dubious. You would not know it from the article, but 'somewhat dubious' is a mischaracterization that suggests the problems might merely be experimental difficulties. In reality, the demonstrations have shown a sustained pattern of concealment and other highly dubious behavior, and there are also significant purely scientific problems, such as the isotope ratios of the alleged by-product. That's before we get into Rossi's earlier activities in high-tech waste management, which led to at least allegations of fraud. You may want to check out the links several of us have provided in these comments, and then ask yourself whether Huw Price has accurately described the situation.
roywiggins 11y ago
But that's a Pascal's Mugging, isn't it? How unlikely does a claim of LENR have to be, exactly, before we can dismiss it out of hand?
Retra 11y ago
It would be more tragic to have smart people investigating something that is very likely a fraud, when they could be doing something more productive.

mannykannot 11y ago

I am wondering if we read the same article. The author uncritically cites already-discredited studies in favor of the E-Cat without noting the doubt that surrounds them, and only mentions fraud as being so improbable as to effectively dismiss it. He is apparently literally salivating over his expectation that he will be proved right. FWIW, I know cold fusion is not definitively ruled out by physics, I would be thrilled if it were realized, I think it is a valid area of research and I always thought that Pons and Fleischmann were treated far too harshly, but ignoring strong indications of fraud is only going to make that case harder to make. I hope you can see that these are not mutually contradictory opinions.

paganel 11y ago
I know almost nothing about cold fusion and theoretical physics in general, but as a guy who has read some Popper and Hume I'll chime in with an obviously subjective opinion, and say that after reading all the HN comments and parts of the article the first thought that came to my mind was this: "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Interestingly enough that exact quote is present in TFA, but in a manner that makes it debatable: > This is not to deny that there is truth in the principle popularised by Carl Sagan, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We should certainly be very cautious about such surprising claims, unless and until we amass a great deal of evidence. But this is not a good reason for ignoring such evidence in the first place, or refusing to contemplate the possibility that it might exist Paragraphs like this one remind me of a work-colleague of mine, who I try to convince from time to time during our cigarette breaks that aliens have not visited our planet and that they're not just "about to arrive", impending asteroid apocalypse be damned. At which point she almost always responds to me like this: "paganel, yours are valid opinions, but we cannot refuse to contemplate the possibility that one day they may arrive". This also reminds me of how early Christians actually believed that the second arrival of Christ was just around the corner. Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "Whatever this guy writes about and whatever he believes in, it is not about science." You say that, but you're ignoring the thrust of his argument. Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment seem somewhat dubious. Easy to dismiss a single flawed experiment, right? However, there have been at least four separate reproductions of the experiment results since then (article mentions reports of similar results from Sweden, Italy, Russia and China). The main question raised by the article can be summarised as: If evidence of a reproducible experiment with unexplained results exists, which is usually a key indicator that the experiment warrants further investigation, why is there sometimes reluctance to investigate when this reproducibility comes along? Science is not served well by dogma. Interesting results can come from unexpected places. The wilful ignorance of the reproducibility is the issue here.
  - emmelaich 11y ago
    There were many confirmations of N-rays too. "120 other scientists in 300 published articles" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      That's one possible outcome, but we can't be sure until more research is done. A growing body of evidence of new phenomena should be examined scientifically, even if it turns out there's nothing new at all.
  - mannykannot 11y ago
    > Let's say, for argument's sake, that the results from Rossi's experiment seem somewhat dubious. You would not know it from the article, but 'somewhat dubious' is a mischaracterization that suggests the problems might merely be experimental difficulties. In reality, the demonstrations have shown a sustained pattern of concealment and other highly dubious behavior, and there are also significant purely scientific problems, such as the isotope ratios of the alleged by-product. That's before we get into Rossi's earlier activities in high-tech waste management, which led to at least allegations of fraud. You may want to check out the links several of us have provided in these comments, and then ask yourself whether Huw Price has accurately described the situation.

roywiggins 11y ago

But that's a Pascal's Mugging, isn't it? How unlikely does a claim of LENR have to be, exactly, before we can dismiss it out of hand?

Retra 11y ago

It would be more tragic to have smart people investigating something that is very likely a fraud, when they could be doing something more productive.