What is wrong with what Steorn is doing?

Horatius said:
Then there's the Guardian Article where they "showed" him the apparatus.
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From the artical referenced above" said:
A motor rotates the wheel bearing the magnets and a computer takes 28,000 measurements a second. The magnets, naturally, act upon one another. And when it is all over, the computer tells us that almost three times the amount of energy has come out of the system as went in. In fact, this piece of equipment is 285% efficient.
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T'ai Chi,

Don't you see how ridiculous this claim is? If they are getting 285% of the energy of the motor out of the wheel it is absolutely trivial to make it self-propelled, yet they do not demonstrate that. Instead they demonstrate a computer printout asserting that 285% of the input energy is being produced.

IXP
 
T'ai Chi said:
People in the organized skeptical movement still don't have a good reason why they are against people (enough to ridicule them) going through the standard channels of science and ignoring challenges from the organized skeptical movement.
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Huh? Did you write that? Did you read it after you wrote it?

The ARE NOT going through the standard scientific channels. Are you so busy trying to one-up the other posters that you haven't read anything on the topic. I once again refer you to Goodwins' article.

http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/rupertgoodwins/0,39020691,39281444,00.htm


None of this makes sense. Here's why.

There are two sorts of scientific discovery: the predicted and the unpredicted. Predicted is great: you have a theory, you come up with some physical ramification of that theory......you go and look and, if you find what you're looking for, your theory is all the stronger. Unpredicted science is even better, when you see something happen, go "Hold on a sec..." and try and work out why. If you can't work that out using the very best science of the time, then you could be onto something.

Chances are, you're not. You've missed experimental error, an aspect of existing theory, even a straightforward misinterpretation of results. To catch this, you put out a paper saying: "I've found this, and I think it's important". Others — not as attached to your discovery as yourself — then check what you've done. They repeat the experiment, but not to reproduce the results: instead, the idea is to pick holes in your logic, find problems, show why it's not important after all. Get past that stage and then and only then is it deemed good enough to build further theories.

McCarthy says Steorn won't do that bit, and won't really explain why. Or rather, he says it will — but in private with hand-picked scientists, because it wants to have a really good explanation of how it works before it's prepared to demonstrate that it does. Despite returning to this point repeatedly with him, I could never quite fathom that. Put the plans up on the site, I said. What would it hurt? Multiple independent demonstrations are difficult to refute.
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Grimoire said:
Wait, are you saying that he seriously thinks that no response in 14 minutes is a clear signal that we have nothing to say?
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Yes. 14 minutes is evidence that he has cornered all skeptics here: We are all stunned by T'ai's logic, and are left speechless.
 
IXP said:
T'ai Chi,

Don't you see how ridiculous this claim is? If they are getting 285% of the energy of the motor out of the wheel it is absolutely trivial to make it self-propelled, yet they do not demonstrate that. Instead they demonstrate a computer printout asserting that 285% of the input energy is being produced.

IXP
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What does me seeing an article as ridiculous or not have anything to do with asking why people are angry when people ignore a challenge from an organization in the skeptical movement?
 
T'ai Chi said:
What does me seeing an article as ridiculous or not have anything to do with asking why people are angry when people ignore a challenge from an organization in the skeptical movement?
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OK, so I completely don't get it. Who's angry?
 
Why is there so much negative resistance when a pet challenge gets ignored?

It is like a lot of emotion is riding on it or something.
 
T'ai Chi said:
Why is there so much negative resistance when a pet challenge gets ignored?

It is like a lot of emotion is riding on it or something.
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People around here tend to get like that when they see a scam in progress.
 
T'ai Chi said:
But why? You must explain your belief.
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I have. Many times. You've chosen not to understand. I will paraphrase:

They claim to have invented something that will revolutionize the world, and violates the laws of physics as we know it.
They won't tell anyone how they did it.
They won't sell it.
They claim it has been authenticated by scientists "off the record".
No scientist has come forward to assert their claim.
They publicly advertise for scientists to become members of a jury to endorse their product.
This gives the general public (and any VCs) the idea that what they are doing really is science. It is not.
They will release their results in a closed manner that is susceptible to censorship and out-right lying.

This is not how legitimate business create new products.
This is not how science is done.

This is how scams are run.

That is the justification for my beliefs, as I and others have stated many times. You really should stop trolling now.
 
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T'ai Chi said:
But why? You must explain your belief.
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Considering you don't explain your own beliefs.... :rolleyes:

But your question reveals more about you than the skeptics. You ask why people get concerned when they see a scam in progress? You don't see a problem with people being scammed?

Why? You must explain your belief.
 
There's certainly nothing wrong with their marketing department. Companies with million dollar advertising budgets have had less global publicity.

If there is any truth in their claims, time will tell. I'm hanging onto my power company stocks for the present.
 
SO we've concluded that there is nothing wrong with Steorn ignoring a challenge from an organization in the organized skeptical movement, and focusing more on the standard channels of science.
 
T'ai Chi said:
SO we've concluded that there is nothing wrong with Steorn ignoring a challenge from an organization in the organized skeptical movement, and focusing more on the standard channels of science.
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You ask why people get concerned when they see a scam in progress? You don't see a problem with people being scammed?

Why? You must explain your belief.
 
T'ai Chi said:
SO we've concluded that there is nothing wrong with Steorn ignoring a challenge from an organization in the organized skeptical movement, and focusing more on the standard channels of science.
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And we also seem to have established a consensus that they are not "focusing on the standard channels of science".
 
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