Merged Cold Fusion Claims

[Dancing David]

I see you are still dancing, David. You didn't read the comment on how difficult it is to replicate the electrolysis experiments, did you.

And that is sophistry on your part, which shall avail you not. If thousands of people can't replicate, there seems to be a problem. Like confirmation bias.

So that waffle needs some special pleading syrup.

 

[Reality Check]

You didn't read the comment on how difficult it is to replicate the electrolysis experiments, did you.

pteridine, The science is that people have been replicating electrolysis experiments for centuries (since 1800!).
That these electrolysis experiments claiming cold fusion cannot be duplicated is the evidence that they are not cold fusion !

The fact is that any fusion (hot or cold) produces known products that have not been detected in cold fusion experiments.

 

[Dancing David]

To me, a non-expert, the whole "Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. You have to get just the right conditions, but we don't really know what they are" thing is a dead giveaway.

And a long running thread about the paranormal in General Scepticism
Being skeptical should go both ways. A true masterpiece of sophistry in action.

 

[pteridine]

You keep talking about this "body of evidence" as though it existed.

I've looked for the body of evidence, pteridine. Neutrons, gamma rays, helium, calorimetry. Everything I've seen, especially in my area of expertise, was utterly incompetent, and incompetent in particular in was that allow you to think you've seen a signal when you have not. I've talked to calorimetry experts (here at JREF) who say the calorimetry is equally bad. I know one of the physicists who performed the 2004 DOE review, he told me the whole review packet was full of crap.

Tough luck for you, pteridine. A bunch of crackpots convinced you, and themselves, and each other, that there is a body of data supporting cold fusion. They did this by overselling their pile of ill-analyzed noise data. You fell for it. The rest of the world did not.

I am so happy for you looking at the body of evidence and proclaiming that everything you have seen is "utterly incompetent." Usually, people are said to be incompetent but this is so evil, everything is incompetent.
It must be tough to live at such a level of perfection in your own work. It is a wonder you can get anything done surrounded by lesser lights. If all the JREF experts say it is all bad, then of course it must be because JREF experts are never wrong.
Tough luck for me, those crackpots convinced me that 5kW is more than noise. I should have known better but I am old and gullible. I haven't even made any money from the Liberian who wants to transfer $25 million to my bank account.
What will you do if the 1 MW generator works? I predict that, after some wishful denial, you will say that had you been provided the detailed data, you would have seen that the effect was real. You will then describe the mechanism of the effect, certain you are correct, and likely want to name it the BenM effect. Tough luck for you because by then, I will know not to trust crackpots.

 

[ben m]

To me, a non-expert, the whole "Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. You have to get just the right conditions, but we don't really know what they are" thing is a dead giveaway. These folks did some sloppy work, and let the outliers fool them into thinking they really had something. It's too bad. It would be so cool if it worked. I has really high hopes when Pons and Fleishmann made their announcement, one day before the Exxon Valdez spill (quite a coincidence). At this point, I see no reason to believe that it was anything other than a mistake.

Yep. The evidence for psychic powers, for example, works the same way. I used to read the MDC applicants subforum, and it was always the same thing. According to the applicant, their skill is "hard to control", and doesn't work if they're not "in the zone", with no "influences" nearby. The effect is always claimed to be small (telekinesis that can move a feather, but never bricks; ESP that can transmit a vague image of a house, but never numbers; astral-diagnosis that can sense vague humours or latent imbalances, but misses genders, amputations, and cancer). And the applicants, of course, always succeed at their amateurish home tests but fail under controlled conditions.

And you have applicants that spend years, or decades, "practicing" these "skills" but that never get any better at them.

So, what does the data look like? A bunch of mixed successes and failures, of exactly the sort you expect under the null hypothesis. The "failures" get written off, after the fact of course, to these mysterious subtleties. The "successes" get remembered and held up as evidence. If you try to tell the applicant, "Um, I don't believe you have any powers" they get all indignant because they remember all this evidence. A vast body of evidence.

 

[Reality Check]

I am so happy for you looking at the body of evidence and proclaiming that everything you have seen is "utterly incompetent."

ben m is stating what he has observed, i.e. that the body of evidence that he has looked at consists of utterly incompetent experiments.

I will agree wth him: the body of evidence that I have looked at consists of utterly incompetent experiments.

But this thread is about the Rossi claims. Anyone with a good knowledge of science can see that his experiments are obviously incompetent and are likely to be fraudulent (Proof of Rossi’s Deception).

 

[Kid Eager]

I am so happy for you looking at the body of evidence and proclaiming that everything you have seen is "utterly incompetent." Usually, people are said to be incompetent but this is so evil, everything is incompetent.
It must be tough to live at such a level of perfection in your own work. It is a wonder you can get anything done surrounded by lesser lights. If all the JREF experts say it is all bad, then of course it must be because JREF experts are never wrong.
Tough luck for me, those crackpots convinced me that 5kW is more than noise. I should have known better but I am old and gullible. I haven't even made any money from the Liberian who wants to transfer $25 million to my bank account.
What will you do if the 1 MW generator works? I predict that, after some wishful denial, you will say that had you been provided the detailed data, you would have seen that the effect was real. You will then describe the mechanism of the effect, certain you are correct, and likely want to name it the BenM effect. Tough luck for you because by then, I will know not to trust crackpots.

Would those be the generators that don't exist and nobody is actually using???? Again, where's the evidence?

 

[ben m]

I am so happy for you looking at the body of evidence and proclaiming that everything you have seen is "utterly incompetent."

Seriously, pteridine: this is Cold Fusion. You know darn well that most people think it's incompetent---don't feign surprise and offense that the N+1th person has said the same thing.

What will you do if the 1 MW generator works?

Well, darn, I guess I shouldn't reject anything, just in case it turns out to be true! Pascal's Wager for everyone! "What will you say if the world ends when the world ends on the Mayan calendar?" "What will you say when Jesus comes again, and is angry that you ignored the Bible Codes?" "What will you say if the Higgs Boson is discovered at 85 GeV, and it turns out that the LEP 'exclusion' was statistical bad luck?"

Seriously, pteridine. My best reading of the evidence is that Cold Fusion does not actually happen. Therefore my best scientific prediction is that Rossi's 1 MW generator will not work, and I base my behavior on the things I actually expect to happen, not the opposite. Might I be wrong? Sure, about this and many other things. That's how science works. Adopting the scientific method includes a probability that you'll be wrong sometimes.

 

[Reality Check]

Andrea Rossi is an inventor and engineer. He does not know why the reaction works-- he only knows that excess heat is released. ...

pteridine, have you realized that you wrote this on 28th January 2011 - over a year ago! - and Andrea Rossi has still not produced any credible evidence that he has a reaction the produces excess heat?
Where are the MW power plants that he was promising to have up and running by Octoover 2011?

 

[attaboy]

I see you are still dancing, David. You didn't read the comment on how difficult it is to replicate the electrolysis experiments, did you.

David is a sufferer of selective reading syndrome.

 

[Dancing David]

I am so happy for you looking at the body of evidence and proclaiming that everything you have seen is "utterly incompetent."

Which research do you think is done well and why.

You could avoid the whole melodrama thing and actually explain what is well done about the research.

So which one would you like to talk about and why do you feel it means something?

 

[Dancing David]

David is a sufferer of selective reading syndrome.

And you still haven't presented compelling evidence.

 

[phunk]

I see you are still dancing, David. You didn't read the comment on how difficult it is to replicate the electrolysis experiments, did you.

If something can be done once but not replicated, you have to consider that maybe that first time was measurement error.

 

[EHocking]

If something can be done once but not replicated, you have to consider that maybe that first time was measurement error.

Ohhhh, like neutrinos being measured as going FTL?

How did that turn out again?

Oh, yes, scientists in the field reviewed the experimental results and REPLICATED the experiment to determine the validity of the results.

 

[catsmate]

OK, Ben. I don't affect publication standards and only read the papers. Any unfunded research area has to expect varying levels of standards, instrumentation, and number of experiments. I understand your position.

It's been twenty years since the Pons and Fleischman debacle, in that time no cold fusion experiment has given verified, repeatable evidence that the phenomena actually exists.

The latest from Rossi is that a 45 MW unit is under construction. There will be no way to sneak 45 MW into the system. If it works, it will be difficult to deny the phenomenon exists, bad neutron counters or not.

Rossi's been claiming he's shipped tens of 1MW units, starting six months ago; none of them appear to exist outside the imagination of him and his supporters, certainly none have been independently tested.
And he's still listing a dead psychologist as one of the "advisers" on his "journal" website.

Read again! I said high probability - - - not certainty.
People on here are far too combative to be given much credence.

You mean because we fail to accept your unsupported opinions as fact you don't want to listen to us?
Pathetic.

 

[catsmate]

It wasn't just the R&D funding, it was the idea that there was somethng entirely new that all the big egos had completely missed. Being trumped by two electrochemists with a battery and borrowed palladium was too much for the folks who had worked for years hoping to show progress with a 10% return or maybe even the big goal; "break even."
See my post to Ben, above, for the replicating part. It also doesn't make much sense to reject LENR out of hand given the body of evidence that the phenomenon is real. Because of the value of such technology, it is likely that much of the work is unreported.

Rubbish. You obviously understand nothing of how science works or how many people attempted to replicate the 1989 claims. With no success.

Something should be produced in addition to heat. The question is what is being produced and how would it be measured, especially if it is a low energy particle inside a metal reactor. The proof is still in the heat output being greater than that from any chemical reactions.

There's no evidence of additional energy being produced.

I am so happy for you looking at the body of evidence and proclaiming that everything you have seen is "utterly incompetent." Usually, people are said to be incompetent but this is so evil, everything is incompetent.
It must be tough to live at such a level of perfection in your own work. It is a wonder you can get anything done surrounded by lesser lights. If all the JREF experts say it is all bad, then of course it must be because JREF experts are never wrong.

Gee, more pathetic personal attacks (ad hominem fallacy). Alas this is standard practice for believers when their foolishness is exposed.

Tough luck for me, those crackpots convinced me that 5kW is more than noise. I should have known better but I am old and gullible. I haven't even made any money from the Liberian who wants to transfer $25 million to my bank account.

What 5kW is that? Rossi's previous scam?

What will you do if the 1 MW generator works? I predict that, after some wishful denial, you will say that had you been provided the detailed data, you would have seen that the effect was real. You will then describe the mechanism of the effect, certain you are correct, and likely want to name it the BenM effect. Tough luck for you because by then, I will know not to trust crackpots.

That'd be the 1MW generators Rossi was claiming to have already sold? The ones made additionally mysterious by their lack of existence?

 

[Aepervius]

If something can be done once but not replicated, you have to consider that maybe that first time was measurement error.

Well, as a joke in my old department , we proposed to rename "journal of irreproducible result" into "cold fusion review" .

Seriously pterydine and attaboy are what I call "faithful" : hopeful that there is something, so much that they are ignoring, consciously or not, everything which goes against their belief.

I mean I liked his "rossi is an inventor" he is also a convicted fraudster.

 

[Aepervius]

Ohhhh, like neutrinos being measured as going FTL?

How did that turn out again?

Oh, yes, scientists in the field reviewed the experimental results and REPLICATED the experiment to determine the validity of the results.

Well to phunk defense, the local researcher first thought was that it was an experimental error, or a problem with the equipment. They were also extremely cautious when communicating the results (contrast with the jubilation of nearly every cold fusion researcher using Ni-H presenting their paper lately in the Rossi affair). Furthermore whereas it is true some team attempted to replicate, they actually did not replicate the results, and indeed found neutrino going at speed of light, and finally the GPS unit was implicated into the faulty results.

 

[phunk]

If something can be done once but not replicated, you have to consider that maybe that first time was measurement error.

Ohhhh, like neutrinos being measured as going FTL?

How did that turn out again?

Oh, yes, scientists in the field reviewed the experimental results and REPLICATED the experiment to determine the validity of the results.

Maybe I wasn't clear, it seems from the tone of your post that you're disagreeing with me but then you post a good example of exactly what I'm talking about. The "something" in my post was referring to the experiment AND results. The ftl neutrinos are a good example, the results couldn't be replicated, and now they've found evidence of it being a measurement error in the original experiment.

The difference with all these cold fusion proponents is that they aren't wondering why it can't be replicated, and they aren't going back to see what might have gone wrong in the supposedly positive results.

 

[attaboy]

This thread reminds me of the old Al Capp cartoon regarding SWINE. In this case it could be interpreted as Skeptics Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.