Talk:Cold fusion

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New version of this article by E. Storms is available

Happy New Year everyone.

At the top of this article there is a notice: "This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject."

I think this is true. Fortunately, I was able to persuade Edmund Storms (Los Alamos, ret.) to write a revised version of this article. Storms is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts in this field, and he has written a number of reviews including two peer-reviewed journal articles. Storms prepared a draft incorporating most of the statements and issues raised in the current article, except for the early history. It is shorter than the present article (4,300 words versus 7,800) and it is written in the style of a formal scientific paper or encyclopedia entry, much like the Wikipedia article on plasma fusion.

The draft is written in Microsoft Word, and the footnotes are in EndNote format. Before I upload it, I will have to convert these formats to the Wikipedia format. (Is this basically HTML?) This will take some time. I also have to insert some last-minute changes from the main article that people made after Storms began editing.

The skeptics may or may not be happy with this draft. I would not want to do all this work only to have them undo it. So before I upload, let me post it here. I am not sure how to proceed and I would appreciate advice, especially from the skeptics. I would also appreciate advice on how to deal with the footnotes. If the article is changed in the future we will have to manually renumber them. Is there some way to make them automatically numbered? Some of them can be hyperlinked to online papers, but most of these references are not on line.

If the skeptics object to this version, I suggest we split the article down the middle. The skeptics can write the first 3,200 words, then we insert Storms' 3,200 words, and then 1,100 in common, starting with "Cold fusion in fiction." I realize this is not how Wikipedia articles are formatted, but I see no reason why they all have to be formatted the same way. What harm would there be in making an exception for this subject?

In the first section, the skeptics would be welcome to delete all references to the literature, all of the rebuttals to their claims, quotes from Schwinger and so on, and they can say that the "vast majority of scientists" think that cold fusion is pseudoscience. They can even quote Robert Park, who says it is fraud.

Anyway, the unformatted draft is here.

--JedRothwell 16:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Jed - first let me say this is very cool, I'd love to get this contribution in. It needs minimal formatting (headers etc), wikification, and a merge with some parts of the current text (especially web links). I think a few areas could be expanded a bit, and it needs some copyediting, but we can do that later. Do you happen to know which exact version of this page it was based on? (so we can merge later changes?) Some docs on Wikipedia formatting (which is not at all like HTML) are at Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page#Wiki_markup, and for formatting footnotes WP:CITET and Template:Ref/examples. I will be quite happy to handle those parts, if you don't mind. ObsidianOrder 10:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S. regarding the "split it down the middle" idea, I don't think that's necessary (or usual practice). If there's anything notable that is missing, people can simply add it. I don't see this as an "us vs them", "supporters vs skeptics" kind of thing, and I sincerely hope other people don't either. We are all simply trying to make this a better article, and I think most editors will agree the Storms draft is hands down better than the current version. ObsidianOrder 11:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be unusual to split the article. Perhaps unprecedented. But I see no harm in doing it. If I were a skeptic, and I believed that the vast majority of scientists think that cold fusion is pathological science, and that cold fusion has never been replicated, I would not be satisfied by Storms' draft. I would want my views represented. It is difficult to integrate both views in the same stream of text, so why not separate them? Also, the skeptics may wish to preserve statements about the early history of cold fusion. Storms felt these were irrelevant. Perhaps they should be moved to a new encyclopedia article, "History of Cold Fusion"?

I sincerely wish to avoid squelching the skeptical point of view, or riling the skeptics, so I favor letting them have their say, but I cannot see how their views can be added to the Storms draft and still have the document make any sense. It would sound schizophrenic. I would like see Noren or some other skeptic here take the present article and delete everything he disagrees with. We can place that version first. I, for one, would promise not to touch it. --JedRothwell 16:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Please see a first try at a formatted version at User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion. Comments? I'm trying to decide whether it would be better to use Harvard style references in the text eg. (Bockris 1990) instead of [17]. ObsidianOrder 11:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That looks great, except that the footnotes are out of synch. There was a problem with the EndNote records and I think one of the DoE footnotes is missing. It is supposed to list the DoE summary + the DoE review panel members comments.

Ed has sent me some minor changes and patches. This version is based on a copy of the existing article made Dec. 30, 2005, so it is mostly up to date.

I can change the footnote formats to Harvard style by changing a parameter in EndNote. Either way is fine with me. After this is uploaded I will insert the hyperlinks to the footnoted documents that are available on line, such as the DoE document (at the DoE website). I have a master list of these.

--JedRothwell 16:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Jed - you probably don't need to re-export from EndNote, I think just change {{ref|Bockris1990}} to {{ref_harvard|Bockris1990|Bockris 1990|}} should work. I can run a script to do that en-masse. I changed the first footnote on User:ObsidianOrder/Cold_fusion to that style as a test, see if it works for you. ObsidianOrder 22:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

This is better than the current state of the article and does represent a great starting point to move forward. There are some problems, but overall I believe they're all reasonably easily fixable. Some are simple style problems such as the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article shouldn't give a historically derived explanation for a term, but an overview or definition of what it is currently considered to be. That's not an insurmountable problem. Overall it too many times states opinions of the writer as facts, even those that are later discussed to be disputed. An egregious example is "Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met." Obviously they are not met to the satisfaction of many very prominent scientists or there wouldn't be a controversy. Instead of being stated as a fact, the debate must be characterized. That could more neutrally be written as "Cold fusion researchers [possibly including "such as foo and bar"] believe that all the demands...". There are similar examples, but I believe they are all fixable. Another problem that is carried over from the previous article is it is not made clear what we are talking about with cold fusion. Are we only accepting processes that involve excess heat or is muon catalyzed that doesn't involve excess heat counted? It still suffers from the obvious problem of being written from the perspective of a cold fusion proponent, but it's closer. Again this is an improvement and a better starting point. I suggest improving it in a temp page such as cold fusion/temp until there is a consensus that the version is better than what is in the current article. - Taxman ^Talk 18:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Taxman writes:

"Another problem that is carried over from the previous article is it is not made clear what we are talking about with cold fusion. Are we only accepting processes that involve excess heat or is muon catalyzed . . ."

In the interests of clarity, I think this article should be devoted to metal-deuteride cold fusion. Other Wikipedia articles (or "stubs") can be established to cover muon catalyzed fusion, sono-fusion and so on. Naturally these articles should include links to one-another.

"Overall it too many times states opinions of the writer as facts, even those that are later discussed to be disputed."

I figured you would feel that way. You can amend or delete these sections to make minor adjustments, but if you wish to make major changes, I urge you add a section to the beginning instead. (Call it a sort of "mini-split"). I have in mind something along these lines:

Skeptical Assertions [claims, views, opinions . . . or whatever you would like to call them]

Many skeptics do not believe that cold fusion exists. They make the following assertions:

The vast majority of scientists believe it does not exist.

The effect has never been replicated.

While the output power is higher than the input power during the power burst, the power balance over the whole experiment does not show significant imbalances. . . . A "power store" discovery would yield only a new, and very expensive, kind of storage battery, not a source of abundant cheap fusion power.

etc., etc. Make it as long as you feel necessary to express the views not covered by Storms, plus the views that you feel are his opinions. (You can be sure, however, that all cold researchers agree with him. He only included consensus views.) I am not recommending this in order to "segregate" views or invent a new Wikipedia standard, but only because the article is very difficult to follow when polar opposite views are mixed together in the same paragraph.

If Taxman agrees this is a good start, I think we should move it into the main article soon, so that we do not accidentally erase or overwrite recent changes.

--JedRothwell 19:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Taxman - I agree with your comments, I think there are quite a few places that could use editing precisely as you describe. I would like to see if I can come up with something which is both substantial and fair, but as you say I think we should start trying to get there from the Storms draft which is quite good in some respects. ObsidianOrder 22:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The draft has serious problems with POV. I really wish there were someone competent and willing to evenhandedly revise it. The sentence

Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met.

is, as noted above, about as POV as you can get. If you look at the references, the work of Pons and Fleischmann occurred in 1989. If you look at the references, after 1991 the only peer reviewed papers referenced are [11] and [20], published in 1993 and 1994 in the Journal of Electroanalytic Chemistry, and [27], published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, in 2002. Where are publications in top flight journals, like the Physical Review, Nuclear Physics, Nature or Science? Or any of the fusion journals? Peer review is the scientific gold standard and it is outside the competence of Wikipedia to judge the status of cold fusion research outside of the publication record. Storms writes:

The issue has left the realm of trivial skepticism and has now entered the process described by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his seminal work on scientific revolutions. [31] The stakes are now too high for trivial skepticism to operate. All of the world needs the energy and the country that finds the secret first will dominate for a long time.

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Any historian, Kuhn amongst them, would agree that you cannot identify the stages in a historical event as they are happening. –Joke 19:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Joke writes:

Most disagreement over the validity of the results, that continue to the present day, ignores the fact that all of the demands by skeptics have been met. is, as noted above, about as POV as you can get.

It is the point of view of the researchers. If you assert that the demands of the skeptics have not been met, that would be the point of view of a skeptic. Your view is also "as POV as you can get" because you are saying all the experiments are ignored, and they should be ignored (presumably because they are all wrong). You are saying, for example, the autoradiograph from BARC and hundreds of others like it prove nothing because they are mistakes.

There is simply no reconciling these two views. The only thing we can do is clearly spell out both.

If you look at the references, after 1991 the only peer reviewed papers referenced are [11] and [20], published in 1993 and 1994 in the Journal of Electroanalytic Chemistry, and [27], published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, in 2002.

Those are only examples. There are hundreds of others. See the indexes at LENR-CANR.org.

Or any of the fusion journals?

See: Li, X.Z., et al., A Chinese View on Summary of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science. J. Fusion Energy, 2004. 23(3): p. 217-221. [1]

This paper confirms that cold fusion produces tritium, and it calls for additional funding for cold fusion research. I gather J. Fusion Energy is a major fusion journal, because it is edited by the plasma fusion lobbying group in Washington, DC, Fusion Power Associates [2]. They send experts to testify before Congress every year so I assume they represent the consensus views of plasma fusion researchers. I am delighted to see they now endorse cold fusion.

--JedRothwell 19:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

An article is not meant to be written from the point of view of proponents or skeptics. It is meant to be written from a neutral point of view, so that it represents the point of view of the majority and any significant minority points of view. Anyways, I tool a look at lenr-canr.org, and found that some papers were published in Phys. Lett. A in the 90's, one in Phys. Rev. C, one in J. Fusion Energy since 1990, one in JETP since 1993, three in Europhys. Lett., nothing in J. Appl. Phys. or Appl. Phys. Lett. or Rev. Sci. Inst. or Nucl. Phys. or Nucl. Fusion or Rev. Mod. Phys. nothing in Nature since 1990, nothing in Phys. Plasmas, Physics of Plasma (not that that's surprising) etc... In short, the recent publication record in prestigious, mainstream journals that physicists and (hot) fusion researchers publish in amounts to almost nothing. That is clear evidence to me that the majority scientific view is one of doubt and that this should clearly be presented as the majority point of view in the article. Storms' draft is cheerleading. –Joke 20:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Joke writes:

It is meant to be written from a neutral point of view, so that it represents the point of view of the majority and any significant minority points of view.

Well, as I pointed about previously, there has been no poll so we do not know what the majority view might be. The DoE review panel was split evenly, 7 No, 5 Yes, 7 maybe. However, if you are convinced this is the majority view, you should write a section or sections explaining this point of view. Put it in the front, as I said. You can make it as long as Storms, or longer.

This is your POV, and there is not a single cold fusion researcher who would agree with you. Just because you do not agree with them, that does not make your POV magically neutral. You have a bias just as strong as Storms and I do. Storms and I believe that hundreds of replicated, high sigma autoradiographs, calorimeters and mass spectrometer results are correct, and you think they are all mistakes. That is really all there is to it. Both are points of view and both should be represented.

NOTE: The article has been reverted to the previous, mainly skeptical point of view, so all you have to do is delete a few sentences that support cold fusion, delete all references to the experimental literature, and your version will be ready. Then we will slip in the Storms version and write a few paragraphs tying them together, as it were. Why is this such a problem? I will do it if you feel it is too much work, but I think a skeptic who agrees with the present, reverted, version can do a better job eliminating all traces of "pathological science." It is sometimes difficult for me to judge what it is that bothers the skeptics so much, and what exactly their point of view is. They seem to be on a campaign to eliminate the conservation of energy.

--JedRothwell 21:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Your characterization of the DoE responses is unusual to say the least. Calling people that find some aspects to be convincing, but do not believe there is valid evidence for fusion to be yeses is outright bias. It does appear the DoE summary was a bit more negative than I would characterize the responses, but the DoE's summary is closer than your even split. Given that the DoE review did consider the most important and what proponents considered the best evidence for cold fusion, and found it wanting, that establishes where the NPOV policy has to emphasize and not. - Taxman ^Talk 22:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Taxman wrote:

Your characterization of the DoE responses is unusual to say the least.

Not that unusual. Most of the reviewers themselves agreed with me. That is why they leaked their reviews, and why the DoE tried to cover them up. Anyway, you are welcome to read through the reviews, make your own tally, and come to your own conclusions.

Given that the DoE review did consider the most important and what proponents considered the best evidence for cold fusion, and found it wanting. . .

The review found it wanting; the reviewers themselves were split 7 No, 5 Yes, 7 undecided. That's my tally, but the fellow who wrote the DoE summary tallied it differently. You can decide for yourself who is right. --JedRothwell 22:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Are there any anti-CF web sites?

I made a minor change to the link to LENR-CANR. Someone had it:

". . . information and links from pro-cold fusion research, and an online library of over 450 full-text papers from the peer-reviewed literature and conference proceedings."

That's fine, except that strictly speaking, we do have some anti-cold fusion papers by Jones, Morrison, Shanahan and others. We have links to other anti-CF papers, including the 1989 ERAB paper, the recent DoE review, and so on. We would have more negative stuff but the skeptics have not published much, and I doubt that many of them would want to give us papers. (Everything at LENR-CANR.org comes from the authors, with their permission.) This is nitpicking, but I changed that to:

". . . information and links on cold fusion research (mainly pro-cold fusion) . . ."

Does anyone know of an anti-cold fusion website that includes technical papers? I will link to it.

Hundreds of web sites mention cold fusion, either for it or against it, but only a few include research papers. I have links to all the ones I know about.

--JedRothwell 20:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

OO's outline for rewrite

I find OO's outline for rewrite very good. For example, I like the "proposed mechanism" section. (I would replace the "Other kinds of cold fusion" section with a link to the fusion article).

I'm in favor of a full rewrite. Rewriting the article would make it shorter while more informative: a big plus. Also, the new article should avoid arguing with itself. I believe this is easier to do by starting a new article rather than editing the current one. Pcarbonn 22:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources will help in the rewrite, but a big issue is "which sources should we trust?". I suggest to have a discussion on this, i.e. to define the minimum criteria we set for source citation in cold fusion. Pcarbonn 22:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, the article should reflect the world view, not the American one. (see Anglo-American focus policy). The skeptical view is very strong in America, but much less so elsewhere (at least that's what I perceive from here in Belgium). This is something to keep in mind when rewriting the article. Maybe we need more international contributors on this page. Pcarbonn 22:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn - thank you ;) The draft is on hold for a month or so since I am extremely busy. I hope to pick it up afterwards, depending on what people have done in the meantime. My notion for how to write something based on the draft was basically to expand each bullet point to one or two sentences, without changin its meaning and for the most part keeping the wording as well - a direct translation, in other words ;)

I agree the article shouldn't argue with itself, and yes, that would be easier in a rewrite.

Sources to trust (or at least include, if not "trust"): I would say published work by anyone who is a scientist with some work outside the field of cold fusion. "Published" here does not mean necessarily in a peer-reviewed journal, it could be a tech report or something presented at a conference - most of the really interesting stuff only exists in that form anyway - but not stuff that wikipedia usually regards as self-publishing. The rationale is that if there is a bias in editorial boards against CF, then requiring journal articles would be unfair. On the other hand, if a scientist with a reputation to worry about is willing to go on the record (in print) saying that X, then, regardless of any concerns about technique, experimental errors, data analysis etc (which are all the reasons why per review exists), it is a fair bet they believe that X, which is in this context noteworthy. ObsidianOrder 14:10, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Adopt a summary style ?

Why don't we adopt the Wikipedia:Summary style, and create spin-off articles on Cold fusion controversy and Continuing efforts on cold fusion ? The controversy could be discussed in full (eg. discuss each criteria of pathological science), and other chemically assisted nuclear reactions could be discussed in more details in "continuing work". Pcarbonn 09:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Moved Sound waves induce nuclear fusion

I moved Sound waves induce nuclear fusion Physorg.com (January 2006) to the bubble fusion page because that is where it belongs. Not trying to be a jerk or anything, but there is an established page for bubble fusion and there is no reason to post an off-topic article like this one on the cold fusion page. Rock nj 03:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevent news section additions

We seem to be getting a lot of links added in the news section regarding work on bubble fusion and pyroelectric fusion — both of which have their own articles, but are often referred to as cold fusion by the media (perhaps due to the emotional impact of saying things like "X University Team makes Cold Fusion Work". Should we add a comment to the effect that these two phenomena have their own articles at the beginning or end of the news section? -- Pakaran 18:25, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Good idea. --JedRothwell 22:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, since these are identified in the press so often as cold fusion (and, literally, the claims meet the definition of a process that is both cold and fusion) links ought to go in the article's leader, as well. –Joke 22:19, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Ed Storms and others think the Taleyarkhan effect is plasma fusion (hot fusion) that occurs on a microscopic scale. The Taleyarkhan cell walls are cold, but for that matter so are the walls of a tokamak reactor. You might say that with the Taleyarkhan effect the bubble is the containment vessel. We listed some other differences between the two at http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm:

The Taleyarkhan effect produces a neutron/tritium ratio of ~1.2, which is close to conventional plasma fusion (n/t = 1), whereas cold fusion produces a ratio of roughly 10E-9. There are other important differences:

• Cold fusion produces far more concentrated excess heat, so it seems more likely to become a practical source of useful energy.
• Cold fusion appears to be a more radical departure from textbook expectations about fusion.
• Cold fusion has been replicated hundreds of times; the Taleyarkhan effect has only been replicated once so far, by Xu and Butt (Perdue). This is no reflection on the quality of Taleyarkhan’s work; only a few people have undertaken replications.

We conclude: "Despite these differences, Taleyarkhan’s research is important and it bears watching, so even though it is somewhat off-topic, we may add material about it soon."

--JedRothwell 20:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The other difference, for better or worse, is that the Taleyarkhan effect is accepted science. Cold fusion is not. Whether it *should be* is not something for Wikipedia to decide, but I honestly think the article needs to say more about critical views. The problem is finding critics who make actual arguments, rather than dismissing it out of hand (we can't have every other sentence be "again, it should be emphasized that most physicists disagree with this and believe cold fusion is utter crap"). Just a thought, I'm very concerned that this article is swinging to pro-cold-fusion bias (which I happen to share, but that's beside the point). I also believe that the role of theory is to reflect reality. The fact that there's no theory for CF does not, by itself, mean CF does not exist. Before Einstein there was no theory to explain anomalies in the orbit of mercury; this was not reason to conclude that all observations of Mercury were made up by pseudoscientific cranks. -- Pakaran 19:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Nonetheless, I don't think adding a link would do any harm. –Joke 18:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Certainly. A link is called for. And actually, McKubre and some others suspect that Taleyarkhan could be seeing a cold fusion effect after all. They think he should look more closely at the ratio of heat to neutrons, and "he may be surprised by the results." So perhaps the discussion belongs here after all. Maybe we should mention that a few cold fusion researchers feel this way? McKubre calls this a "hunch," but he usually has good reasons for his hunches. --JedRothwell 20:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Plasma, liquid or solid: what phase is better?

With all due respect, and interest in your expertise on the subject matter, I must point out several problems with your contribution.

1. Your post seems to be more of a "chat" type discussion rather than something to be considered as part of an encyclopedic reference.

2. Your post is highly technical, somewhat speculative, and your point is not clear. These aspectcs too, are not a good fit of your post for this article as it is written.

3. This is a minor point, and I respect that English is probably not your first language, but the English that you used here is unnacceptable for Wiki. Don't let this be a barrier for you however.

My suggestions:

1. Make use of the TALK page to engage in a dialogue with others to help develop your contribution so it is more appropriate to Wiki.

2. Refine your content on the TALK page and ask for help to improve the English - I'm sure there are numerous people who would be glad to help you out.

STemplar 17:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

"thousands" of articles published???

I would like to see a specific source or otherwise some validation for the claim that "thousands of peer-reviewed cold fusion papers have been published." The link in the article does not provide any information for this claim. MrDarwin 15:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

That should be "hundreds" or "about a thousand." The LENR-CANR database lists 3,300 papers. Roughly a third are in peer-reviewed journals. See: http://lenr-canr.org/DetailOnly.htm There are probably several hundred more we have not heard about, especially in Chinese, Japanese and Italian. --JedRothwell 18:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Powerpedia

I'm a bit concerned about the link to PowerPedia, which seems to have content regarding, for example, companies claiming to have systems which violate the laws of thermodynamics (permanent magnet motors, etc). For better or worse, it seems very likely that such systems are scams. Should we put a disclaimer on the link that material at that wiki (and particularly non-CF material) should be taken with a large pile of salt? -- Pakaran 19:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

All of those things are very similar- the same people claiming cold electrolytic fusion works are claiming methods to obtain energy from ether, perpetual motion, etcetera work. It is unfortunate that this article doesn't reflect this, but it all should be taken with large piles of salt, no need to qualify it with particularly non-CF. --Noren 20:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

"the same people claiming cold electrolytic fusion works are claiming methods to obtain energy from ether..." - and your source for this is? (e.g. please quote any such statement by Fleischmann, Bockris, Oriani, Miley, McCubre, Szpak, Iwamura, Mizuno, Mallove, Storms, ... or in fact any other prominent CF researcher). If you cannot back up your statement, please kindly retract it. ObsidianOrder 01:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Certainly. [Here's] a letter written by Eugene Mallove proclaiming immenent 'breakthroughs' in the fields of 1. Cold Fusion, 2. "Vacuum energy, Zero Point Energy or "ZPE" for short, aether energy, or space energy." and 3. "Environmental energy, i.e. energy from sensible thermal energy (in particular, energy of molecular motion), through significant extensions to the Second Law of Thermodynamics." --Noren 07:28, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Heh, touche. However Mallove can only very loosely be described as a researcher - he was fairly well known, but more on the popular-science side of things. Also, to nitpick, he didn't actually say you can do those right now as you imply. What anyone thinks may be discovered in the future is necessarily extremely speculative. ObsidianOrder 14:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It is inconsistent for you to argue the legitimacy of Mallove as a CF researcher immediately after you listed 10 "prominent CF researcher"s including his name. If your position is so poorly thought out yet so firmly held that you must retract your own description of people on your own list, I wonder if any argument or evidence would suffice to sway your position or if any conflicting fact would be dismissed similarly. Also, your nitpick is factually incorrect. In the letter under 2. Mallove claimed of a ZPE experiment "In its several embodiments, it already produces kilowatt-level electrical, thermal, and mechanical output power." To use your phrasing, if you cannot back up your statement, please kindly retract it. --Noren 00:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

As ObsidianOrder said, Touche. You have listed one person, and you might be able to find a few others. For that matter, if you look closely at plasma fusion researchers, or people working on wind power, or Members of Congress, you might find a few. You can also find some plasma fusion researchers who believe in magic, faith healing and creationism. (I have met one or two like that.) However, that would not justify the statement: "the same people claiming plasma fusion works are claiming that creationism works." That would be an unfair generalization. You should say: "some of the same people" or "at least one or two of the same people" That does not have much impact, does it? --JedRothwell 15:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Atomic temperatures

Last thing I remember is that temperature is related to the average energy of a large number of particles -- thus talking about the "atomic temperature" doesn't make sense -- it does make sense to talk about atomic energies, and one can even use K, but it's still energy. I've thuse removed references to "atomic" temperature from the first paragraph.

Keithdunwoody 18:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

A single atom can indeed have an equivalent temperature, which is simply the would-be temperature of a bunch of identical atoms with the same kinetic energy. Assuming classical Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics, a single atom with velocity v has a temperature T = (8*m*v^2)/(pi*k). In some of the "macroscopically" cold fusion (e.g. pyroelectric) there are certainly small numbers of atoms with an very high equivalent temperature. However, there is pretty much no basis for the claim that there must be atoms at near-thermonuclear-fusion temperatures in CF (e.g. compare with muon-catalyzed fusion), so that's a different reason to remove those references. ObsidianOrder 00:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Please stop using conditional grammar incorrectly!

Natalinasmpf & SCZenz should please stop using hypothetical and conditional statements inappropriately. This is bad grammar.

I understand what you want to convey. You are saying that many skeptics believe cold fusion is theoretically impossible, and they believe that all experiments are mistakes or fraud. You can say the results are "disputed." Go ahead and say those things, but do not try to express these notions by making sentences conditional or hypothetical. You make it sound as if the experiments may or may not have occurred, and claims may or may not have been published, and researchers may or may not be using metal hydrides and electrolytic cells.

Whatever the cold fusion effect may be -- nuclear, chemical, or experimental error -- it definitely does occur in metal hydrides (and deuterides). Let us say that without qualification, and then, if you insist, you can go on to explain that this apparently violates theory. (Many theorists disagree, but that is another story.)

You should reserve conditional grammar for that which is conditional, and hypothetical grammar for that which is hypothesized. It is not a hypothesis that devices fit on the desktop and that they involve hydrides. These are facts. The implications of the facts are disputed, not the facts themselves.

Also, Natalinasmpf wrote: "A variety of experimental methods would be used in such a reaction; initial concepts used electrolytic cells. . . ." These are not "concepts." Electrolytic cells are objects. Let us not confuse "concepts" with equipment or with methods. It is not a concept or hypothesis that electrolytic cells are used. It is a fact. The implications of the results are disputed, not the existence of the results.

--JedRothwell 16:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The point is, you cannot start the article by stating as fact things that the majority of scientific community does not believe exist. To state that cold fusion exists is precisely such a fact, because most scientists do not believe that any fusion whatsoever is occuring in these experiments. The problem is that the article is not about the experiments; it's about the alleged process in the experiments—and many do not believe that any such thing exists. I was trying precisely to convey this, but if you don't like how I did it find a better way. In the meantime, this article needs an NPOV tag until the first paragraph is clear. -- SCZenz 16:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You are quite right that this is NPOV. The skeptical opinions have no scientific backing and they should be removed, but the skeptics will only put them back.

You are wrong about what the "majority of the scientific community" believes. The majority has no opinion. But even if you were right, this is irrelevant. Truth in science is defined by experiments. When an experiment has been replicated hundreds of times at high signal to noise ratios, that makes it true. That is the only standard, and beliefs, opinions and majorities have nothing to do with it.

However, as I said, I understand you want to stuff these beliefs and mythical majorities into the article, even though they are inappropriate, unfounded, totally POV, and would not be included in any other article about scientific experiments. You want to express doubts about the results. Well, go ahead! Add all the POV nonsense and pseudoscience you want. However, please do not mix in your POV stuff with actual statements about experiments. The experiments are not hypothetical. Electrochemical cells are real objects in the real world, not "concepts." You are not winning anyone over to your point of view; you are merely confusing the issue.

I am disputing your grammar, not your POV. I don't care how much skeptical nonsense you add, just stop making the article hard to read and ungrammatical. --JedRothwell 17:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I am not saying the experiments did not happen. I am saying that whether cold fusion exists is disputed—unless you're saying that "cold fusion" is the name for the experimental results, and not for a process that neccessarily involves actual fusion. -- SCZenz 16:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You can make it quite clear that cold fusion is disputed without using hypotheticals in the wrong parts of the wrong sentences. You can add as many disclaimers about the majority of scientists as you want. No one reading the introduction as it is presently written will be misled into thinking that cold fusion is accepted by the majority of scientists, but if you would like to emphasize that fact even more, please go right ahead and do it. Put it in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS if you like.

As for the cold fusion reaction, it does, in fact, neccessarily involve actual fusion, and it is absurd for anyone to dispute that. (But go ahead and dispute it! You are in good company!) It is a fact that the reaction produces thousands of times more energy than any chemical reaction could with no chemical ash, and it is a fact that it produces copious nuclear ash including helium & tritium, and also x-rays and gamma rays. By definition, that makes it nuclear fusion. These are facts proved by replicated experiment and there is no other criteria and no other standard by which anything is ever proved in science. Anyone who disputes these facts proves only that he is not a scientist, at least with regard to this subject. --JedRothwell 17:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there an actual source stating that the "majority of scientific community does not believe" cold fusion exists, or is that just a personal opinion? --James S. 17:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

No, this is a myth. All of the actual public opinion polls and surveys conducted in the U.S. and Japan show the majority of scientists have no opinion about cold fusion, and those who do have an opinion are about evenly divided. --JedRothwell 17:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed, if you could substantiate this statement with sources, it would certainly clarify the debate. This statement should then be added to the article. Pcarbonn 09:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there are not many realistic estimates of public opinion. I would list:

1. A poll taken by the Japanese magazine "Trigger," June 1993, Vol. 12, No. 6. which I translated. To summarize, 300 "decision makers" in the Japanese scientific establishment were polled. The response rate was 63% which is phenomenal even for Japan. 97% of them favored continued research in cold fusion. (It was a long questionnaire. I can e-mail you details if you are interested.)--JedRothwell 16:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting! Is this available on the net in Japanese somewhere ? If not, Jed, could you publish your Japanese copy somewhere ? Then, we could ask someone on the talk page of the Japanese article on cold fusion to summarize it in English (hoping that he would do it without bias. If the summary is published as a wikipedia article, several Japanese contributors could attest to its neutrality). After all, let's avoid having an American bias ! Pcarbonn 21:28, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

"Trigger" magazine is defunct, so I doubt the text is on the net. I can dig up my translation. But it seems unimportant. Worse, it is a distraction, and a bad idea to discuss the matter. The skeptics make the bogus claim that the "majority" agrees with them. All you have to do is glance at the recent claims made by Sci. Am., for example, or at any paper by a skeptic, and you see this "majority" consists of people who know nothing about the subject. Their views have no merit and should be ignored. A majority of the U.S. population does not believe in Darwinian evolution, but no serious discussion of evolution takes their opinions into account. It is is beneath our dignity to answer nonsensical claims about "majorities" just as it would be for us to address accusations of fraud. --JedRothwell 19:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

2. The 2004 DoE review. By my count that was split 7 No, 5 Yes, 7 maybe. My gut feeling is that professional scientists split roughly the same way, but I have no hard proof of that.

3. The response of the students attending lectures on cold fusion by Krivit (Princeton University this month) and Nagel (Johns Hopkins University last year). Large turnouts; highly positive, but no direct poll the audience as far as I know. (I did not attend.) These were both self-selected audiences, but the Princeton group probably tends toward skepticism, because the course is titled "Crank Science" and the guy teaching it has published rabid attacks against cold fusion in national magazines.

4. The ratio of serious scientific papers presenting positive experimental evidence to papers in which the authors attempt to find experimental errors. (The latter are all incorrect in my opinion.) This ratio is roughly 3,000 to 5. If skeptics were capable of finding an experimental error in cold fusion, surely one of them would have found something and published it by now! There have been many editorial attacks claims made by skeptics, but they all lack scientific merit. They fall in three categories: 1. Factually incorrect claims such as those published by Sci. Am. (http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#SciAmSlam); 2. Violations of the scientific method; i.e., claims that theory overrules replicated high Sigma experiments; 3. Ad hominem; i.e., Nature's demand in March 1990 that cold fusion be repressed with "unrestrained mockery, even a little unqualified vituperation" (D. Lindley), and claims published by the Washington Post, the APS and Time magazine that all cold fusion results are fraudulent, criminal or insane.

5. The response of readers at LENR-CANR.org. This is a self-selected audience, and I cannot tell how many are "return visitors" (repeat visitors), but there have been 844,000 visits and 514,000 downloads as of April 2006. They are mainly from academic institutions such as universities and national research laboratories. I suppose 844,000 represents a statistically significant fraction of the total number of researchers at such places. I seldom hear opinions directly from this audience although I have received a few hundred messages, mainly asking for more information. The papers are excruciatingly boring, so I cannot imagine many people download them only in order to poke fun at them. No skeptic has written a critique of the papers as far as I know. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that in four years I have received hundreds of positive messages and not a single complaint from a skeptic. Perhaps the skeptics seldom read papers, or they do not bother to write to me, but in any case they seem to be the minority of serious readers. --JedRothwell 16:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The initial conception for implementation started with electrolytic cells. The initial concept for Darth Vader was originally a normal man in a space suit, to use an analogy. The concept then evolved appropriately. The concept is being used in the sense of "design concept". The conditional tense was not being used. If cold fusion is a possibility, then cold fusion would occur in tabletop apparatus. It is only logical. What else then? "The possibility of cold fusion is disputed, but it occurs in equipment the size of a tabletop"? Now that's logically unsound. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 19:07, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Natalinasmpf writes:

If cold fusion is a possibility, then cold fusion would occur in tabletop apparatus. It is only logical.

That is logical, but confusing. The same thought can be expressed more elegantly by breaking it into two parts:

"Cold fusion experiments are performed with desktop apparatus. Whether the results are nuclear fusion or not is disputed."

"The possibility of cold fusion is disputed, but it occurs in equipment the size of a tabletop"? Now that's logically unsound.

Agreed, but it is better to fix the problem by separating the two thoughts into two sentences, as we have done. SCZenz would like to put the "disputed" part into the first sentence, but that makes it difficult to follow. He is upset that we have 43 words in front of the statement that skeptics do not believe the results, but I think he is being petulant.

The nonsensical POV stuff about "majority of scientists" has drifted down to the third paragraph. You are welcome to move it back to the top. I wouldn't care if you made that the first paragraph in the article. Just as long as the writing does not confuse people I do not care how bigoted or innacurate it is. --JedRothwell 22:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Totally disputed

Science and Nature are pretty much as reputable as reputable sources get, but their objections to the existence Cold Fusion are being completely ignored in this article. Instead, our primary source is: a website devoted to promoting cold fusion. I am tired of bandying about uncited rumors and being told not to trust the editors of major scientific journals. I dispute the tone of this article and many of its facts, but I do not have time to fix it—and especially not to fight for every word along the way. So I am putting a {{totallydisputed}} tag on this article; I find it most unlikely that it will be reasonably removed anytime soon. -- SCZenz 19:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You apparently didn't even read the third paragraph, where the critisism in Science, Scientific American, and Nature is discussed in detail. --James S. 19:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

They're not discussed in detail. They're mentioned in passing. If major journals have reviewed the subject and found it implausible, they should be the primary sources for this article. -- SCZenz 20:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

So, why should editorial comments in general science journals have more weight than the fact that, these days, several peer-reviewed journals specializing in fusion and electrochemistry regularly publish cold fusion articles? In retrospect, the controversy was because the signal was faint, and the effect hard to reproduce. That just isn't the case anymore. Do you have any actual sources to the contrary, other than unsupported slights in major jornals? --James S. 20:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you please leave the tag for the time being? I most definitely assert this article has POV issues, merely from the order of presentation and wording used in the first paragraph if nothing else. -- SCZenz 20:07, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

What, specifically, do you think represents bias in the order of presentation or first paragraph's wording? --James S. 20:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

For two entire sentences, it states that cold fusion exists as though this is a fact. Then it refers to "some skeptics" not agreeing with cold fusion results, which greviously understates the numbers and prestige of those in opposition. It must be made immediately clear that the subject is not mainstream science. -- SCZenz 21:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Two entire sentences?!? Two whole, endless sentences ... 43 words! Arghhhh! How awful. How can you even read this stuff?!? Except that you told us you agree with sentence #2. (Or do you now argue that cold fusion -- whatever it is -- does not occur in hydrides and deuterides?) So actually that's one sentence of 23 words, but that's bad enough, by gum. We should let the skeptics dominate the discussion from the first sentence. After all, they represent the majority -- or so they say, without a vote, a poll or any other evidence. Anyway they are loud and sure of everything and they say they are a majority, and that must count for something. Right? The imaginary majority must rule! So let's start with Robert Park's comments instead. Cold fusion is "error delusion and fraud caused by easy corruption, gullible politicians, greedy administrators, foolishness and mendacity." "What began as wishful interpretations of sloppy and incomplete experiments ended with altered data, suppression of contradictory evidence and deliberate obfuscations." If that's what you want to say, be my guest. Source: Washington Post, 1996. Look it up. Its authoritative as all get-out. --JedRothwell 23:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz complains that official skeptical views published in Science and Nature are underrepresented here. I agree! I have been trying to insert these views for years. Please, go ahead and add the objections in as much detail as you like. Especially you should quote the Scientific American in detail, and the exchange of letters between the present and previous editors of the Scientific American and me. See: http://lenr-canr.org/AppealandSciAm.pdf. You should emphasize the part where the editors brag that they know nothing about the subject, they have read no literature, and they think it is their job to report the "majority opinion" only, without questioning it or consulting with the minority, even when they are completely ingnorant of the subject.

That may sound bizarre, and of course it violates all traditional scientific norms, but these people make no bones about their views and their standard operating procedure. On the contrary, they brag about it. I wish everyone knew this is what they base their editorial stance on. But if I were to add this to this article, people would think I am exaggerating or inserting agitprop. So you should do it, since you are a skeptic and you seem to agree with them.

I have spoken with editors and writers at Science and Nature and many other mainstream journals, and they also brag about their ignorance. Unfortunately they have not put this in writing, but if you communicate with them they may tell you this. They are often forthcoming and open. The other day a top science writer at Time magazine wrote a blistering attack against cold fusion. Then he sent me a mind-boggling series of messages which revealed that not only does he know nothing about cold fusion -- zip, zero, nada -- he knows nothing about science and research in general. He asked questions so naïve, confused and misguided, I would not expect them from a high school kid. See: http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm --JedRothwell 21:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a secondary source. It is not in a position to evaluate the quality of primary sources (or reviews), but rather to report what they say. In essence, Wikipedia reports the mainstream viewpoint; if you think the mainstream viewpoint is wrong, convince the physicists and the journal writers—WP:NOT a vehicle for advocacy. -- SCZenz 21:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, Wikipedia reports the mainstream viewpoint primarily, and then minority views secondarily. The fundamental objection to this article is that it does exactly the opposite. -- SCZenz 21:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Why do you claim that the editorial comments of a few major publications are more "mainstream" than the peer-reviewed publications of specialized fusion and electrochemistry journals which frequently publish cold fusion articles these days? --James S. 22:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz, do you intend to answer this question? --James S. 18:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Article removed from Wikipedia:Good articles

This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because this article is being edited heavily and forcefully by cold fusion advocates, with frequent POV and factual disputes. The content needs to be settled and NPOV (by consensus, not by declaration) for this to be considered a good article. -- SCZenz 19:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say just the opposite. The article has been heavily edited by people who have not read the literature and who clearly know nothing about electrochemistry, calorimetry or fusion. They forcefully add irrelivant insert POV statements and absurd mythology about magical majorities of scientists, while they ignore peer-reviewed, replicated experimental proof. This article should be held to the same standards that any other scientific article would be, but the skeptics insist on dragging in these wierd distractions and comical distortions. That has been the story of cold fusion ever since 1990. By every proper, traditional, accepted, rigorous standard of science cold fusion was proved beyond any doubt in hundreds of experiments performed in world-class laboratories, but fringe "skeptics" keep shouting that it is not true!

We agree that the quality has suffered because some people cannot distinguish between scientifically proven facts and their own opinions & fantasies. --JedRothwell 20:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's the very essence of a POV dispute; each side thinks the other is going too far. Now's the point when, in principle, we could start working out neutral wording based on closely following reputable sources, but I don't think we agree on which sources are reputable. But we can always check; give me a moment and I'll make a list. -- SCZenz 20:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I have already made a list; see below. It did not take me a minute, however. It took me about 10 years. To make it, I read a few hundred papers, attended a dozen conferences, visited laboratories around the world and observed the experiments, and I wrote, edited and translated a dozen papers and three books.

Are you sure you can do this in a moment? How quickly can you read and evaluate papers, anyway? Fleischmann is one of the world's top electrochemists and a Fellow of the Royal Society, yet he pondered the subject for 30 years and then did intensive research for five years before he drew a conclusions. Richard Oriani is also one of the top 10 electrochemists, and he told me that in his 50-year career this is the most difficult experiment he has ever done. You must have an awesome intellect if you can draw up a list of authoritative journals and articles in a few minutes. By the way, have you read the 35 peer-reviewed journal articles already listed in the Wikipedia article? That's a good place to start. --JedRothwell 21:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Reputable sources

Here are the sources I would consider the most reputable, and thus the ones that should be the primary sources for our Wikipedia article, on the subject of the current state of cold fusion research:

1. Peer-reviewed journals, like Science and Nature, the vast majority of which have concluded that Cold Fusion research isn't worth publishing—we should read their explanations for why not.
2. The recent DOE review, in which half the 18-member panel thought that some of the experiments had produced power in the form of heat, the other half did not, and all "agreed there is not enough evidence to prove that cold fusion can occur" [3].

If your position is that the major reputable sources are wrong, Wikipedia can't help; reputable sources are what we use. -- SCZenz 20:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Note that the DoE review is discussed in detail here, and there are hyperlinks to the DoE site as well as the secret review panel comments (which we have made un-secret, much to the chagrin of the DoE), and ~90 or so of the papers they reviewed. I think we have that topic covered. If we say any more it will merit a separate Wikipedia article. --JedRothwell 22:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree! Peer-reviewed journals like Science and Nature would be good, however they have not published any papers on cold fusion, either pro or con, so they are out. Fortunately, several hundred other equally prestigious peer-reviewed journals have published papers. These include, for example, the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, which is the second most widely read and most cited journal in the world, and of course they include all of the major electrochemistry journals, and things like J. Fusion Energy. Even though this is edited by the plasma fusion lobbying organization -- which makes it somewhat biased -- it is still a peer-reviewed journal and it has experimental papers about cold fusion.

Those are your sources. Get to work. Do your homework and report back. Here is a list of 3,398 papers:

http://lenr-canr.org/DetailOnly.htm

Have fun!

(By the way, approximately how many of these papers have you read already? I am just curious. Since you are not the editor of the Scientific American, I presume you have not been posting messages and pontificating even though you have read nothing and you know nothing about the subject. Right?) --JedRothwell 21:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't patronize me, please. You know full well I'm no expert on the subject; I am trusting the journal editors who won't publish papers on the subject without proof. Why is that? Because of what I wrote above, about how Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advocacy. If there is a vast conspiracy against your research, to which most journals and funding agencies are a party, there is nothing that Wikipedia can do to help you. -- SCZenz 21:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I am patronizing the editor of the Scientific American, not you. For all I know you have read several papers. You have not said anything yet which reveals how much (or how little) you know about the subject. I sincerely trust that you will do your homework, because most people do. Approximately 680,000 people have visited LENR-CANR and they have downloaded just over 500,000 papers. [Correction: there have been 844,000 visits, 514,000 downloads] These are boring technical papers, and difficult to read, yet people worldwide continue to download 4,000 or so every week. Most of the readers who have contacted me have been from universities and laboratories so I know they are serious and unbiased and willing to do the hard work it takes to understand this subject.

My only complaint about your previous editing to the article are about your grammar, not your POV. Actually, I welcome your POV, and I sincerely -- not sarcastically -- wish that you would add more from Nature, Sci. Am. and these other sources. I consider them outrageous and I would like the world to see that. In the past I have added quotes from them but skeptics removed what I wrote.

You wrote: "I am trusting the journal editors who won't publish papers on the subject without proof. Why is that?" Why is what? I do not follow your question. If you are asking why these journal editors will not publish, I tell you it is because they are ignorant and biased. If you do not believe me, ask them yourself, or read their letters to me. If you are asking why you trust them, I suppose it is because you do not realize that these people are appallingly ignorant. You have not read their letters and articles carefully, and compared them to the experimental literature.

You wrote: "If there is a vast conspiracy against your research . . ." There is no such thing. That is absurd. First, it is not vast. There are no more than a hundred noisy pipsqueaks and fools. The vast majority of scientists have no opinion -- because they have not read the literature, obviously. Most scientists know better than to try and judge the technical merits of a subject they have not studied carefully. Unfortunately, some of the noisy fools are in high places such as the APS, the DoE and the Sci. Am., so their opinions are amplified. Plus they control funding.

Second, there is no conspiracy or organization or plan. Opposition began spontaneously in 1989. The same people who opposed it then oppose it now, especially Robert Park of the APS. It is obvious why he has not changed his mind. Ask him yourself. He will tell you; he is not shy. He wrote in the Washington Post and elsewhere that cold fusion is nothing but lunacy and fraud, and he has told me and many others in person that he remains dead certain of that, he has never read a single paper, and he never will. So obviously he has no reason to change his mind. (The editors you so admire say the same thing but they have not put it in writing, alas.)

(By the way, when Park tells me he has not read a paper, I believe him. When I offered him a paper by McKubre, he literally would not touch it. McKubre reported the same thing. I cannot imagine that Park and the Sci. Am. editors have secretly read papers but they brag in public that they have not!)

Third, if you study history you will find that nearly all astounding breakthroughs faced fierce opposition, sometimes for decades, even when there was copious experimental proof that the breakthrough was real. There are a few exceptions such as the x-ray, but most discoveries were attacked just the way cold fusion has been. It seems to be human nature.

The sources of support and opposition to cold fusion are clear. Support comes from researchers who have performed experiments, observed the effect, and published papers in peer-reviewed journals. Opposition comes from people like Robert Park who bitterly oppose the research, and who have staked their reputations on its demise. For more information on the opposition tactics, see the Wikipedia article on Julian Schwinger. --JedRothwell 21:59, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed, I wish you would replace your excerpts from Sci. Am. and Nature editors -- they may help SCZenz see just what he is arguing in favor of. At least please link here in talk to the diffs where you added those comments, if you can find them easily. Thanks. --James S. 22:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, you can see their letters to me, and I could quote them again, but the skeptics say the same things here. Especially about the "majority." I frankly do not know why the skeptics erased the comments, but they did. The technical merits of the latest Sci. Am. attack are discussed here: http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#SciAmSlam. Actually, their claims are about the same as the ones the skeptics keep inserting into this article. Claims such as "all cold fusion experiments have measured only milliwatt levels of power." I deleted that again today for maybe the 10th time, but I am sure some skeptic will put it back. You might say their views are already well represented here.

If we want to add mainstream attacks against cold fusion, Robert Park's article from the Washington Post would be the best choice. It is widely known and quoted with approval by many skeptics. I think it would be a good idea to add this material, and to quote from Park at length. I can e-mail you a copy if you like. Add as much as you please. Park would appreciate it and so would I. You are also welcome to quote the letters from Sci. Am to me (both sides -- as much as you want). A quick search with Google will reveal hundreds of intemperate attacks from mainstream journals and newspapers. The skeptics are right about one majority: they do represent the majority of editors and journalists. But the vast majority of newspaper editors opposed FDR in 1936, so you never can tell about these things. You should not confuse the Washington Post and Sci. Am. with the majority or for that matter with God almighty, although they themselves often do. --JedRothwell 22:27, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

When I said "Why is that?" I meant "Why am I trusting the journal editors who don't publish cold fusion articles?" and I immediately answered myself: Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advocacy. That's what you're doing here; you're advocating we use your website as our major source, rather than reputable mainstream sources, because (in your view) the reputable mainstream sources disagree with you for the wrong reasons or no reason at all. And I am insisting that Wikipedia presents mainstream viewpoints first, and minority viewpoints with lesser emphasis, and that as a secondary source we do not judge the quality of the specific views. In this particular case, obviously we will quote both sides of the debate; but my big issue is the introduction, which reflects the minority view first and the mainstream view second. -- SCZenz 01:07, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Again, I think you are making a serious error in judgement when you claim that the unsupported editorial comments of a few popular, general science journals represent the "mainstream" more than the peer-reviewed publications of cold fusion articles which regularly appear in scientific journals specializing in fusion and electrochemistry -- and those peer-reviewed articles are exactly the articles linked to on lenr-canr.org. Whether you are a doubter or convinced, there is no denying that a huge disconnect between the general editorializing in the popular science press and the peer-reviewed publications of the specialized journals exists. Plus, none of the critics (including yourself, apparently) care to address the data, methodology, and conclusions drawn by the scientists working in the field. So what claim do you have to the scientific mainstream? Until you can at least offer an explanation of why you think these authors publishing in peer-reviewed journals are frauds, then you are certainly not performing anything remotely similar to source-supported research, and your dispute is based only on your personal opinion of some kind of a popularity contest, and is certainly not encyclopedic. --James S. 01:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes: "That's what you're doing here; you're advocating we use your website as our major source, rather than reputable mainstream sources . . ." LENR-CANR is a repository, not a source. All of the papers in it are reprinted from reputable mainstream sources. To say we should not cite the papers there is like saying we should not cite any paper in the Georgia Tech Library, or any book or conference proceedings at Amazon.com.

Most of the papers are not easily available, so it is convenient to get them from LENR-CANR, but you can always find them elsewhere, such as from the Italian Physical Society or the Georgia Tech library. You can buy the ICCF-10 and ICCF-11 proceedings from Amazon.com. Our bibliography includes full source information, so you can always get the papers directly yourself, at a good library.

I recommend the Georgia Tech library, by the way. It is open to the public. You have to show your driver's license and fill in a form.

(Actually, a few of the papers at LENR-CANR are unique, such as the review guides to the material there, but as a general rule we accept papers from the authors after they have been published elsewhere.) --JedRothwell 13:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Let me add that LENR-CANR includes nearly all of the peer-reviewed journal papers that oppose cold fusion, and attempt to show that it is an experimental error. As far as I know there are only four or five such papers, and we have three of them, by Jones, Morrison and Shanahan. (Of course there may be others I have not read or heard about. I would welcome copies from the authors.) So if you would like to "quote both sides of the debate" please feel free to read the anti-cold fusion papers and quote them. At least in the formal peer-reviewed literature, the skeptics are not a majority. They are outnumbered 3,400 to 5. The majority you speak of is in the newspapers, Time magazine, Sci. Am. and places like that, not in scientific journals. Nature opposes cold fusion but they have not published any papers showing errors or reasons to disbelieve it. They have only published editorials accusing the researchers of fraud, and advocating "unrestrained mockery" and "vituperation" (their words, not mine). Vituperation does not constitute a scientific argument in the traditional sense. --JedRothwell 15:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

JedRothwell's description of the papers in that archive has been shown to be inconsistent with the actual text of these papers. For example, on this edit last December, he claimed that "A short time after the announcement, researchers at many labs such as NASA [4], ... selected a similar palladium alloy and lithium salt and conducted successful experiments, measuring excess heat, tritium and neutrons. " Taking a look at that first article he cited, here's a complete quote of the conclusions section of that first reference:

"This experiment to look for evidence of the second deuterium fusion reaction

²D + ²D → ³He + n

in Pd showed a negative result even at the rather low level of significance of 3 standard deviations. Differences of 1 or 2 standard deviations were observed in the background count as well as when deuterium or hydrogen was present in the hydrogen purifier. One can only speculate about the source of the heating which occurs when D₂ and not H₂ is removed from the Pd. The lack of neutrons during the heating (indeed during any of the experiments) would seem to rule out the second reaction as an explanation."

He didn't reply when I pointed this out at the time. The first paper on his list says exactly the opposite of what he claimed- it's very clearly a negative result. JedRothwell's claim that other papers he has read support a cold fusion result should be considered in light of the fact that he has demonstrated that he will interpret a very clear negative result as one of several "successful experiments, measuring excess heat, tritium and neutrons." --Noren 05:58, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

It it a positive result. It generated anomalous heat beyond the limits of chemistry without any chemical changes. Obviously it did not generate a hot fusion DD reaction. Cold fusion never does. If you define that as the only acceptable form of "success" then you will classify all cold fusion papers as failures. --JedRothwell 13:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Would a shorter quote be more clear? "This experiment ... showed a negative result". To further clarify, what they measured was not distinguishable from the statistical error of their method at a "rather low" significance level of 3 standard deviations- in other words it was not large enough for them to even rule out that the true value was zero and the tiny positive measurement was merely a result of the random distribution of the known noise. They recorded this very small (within experimental error) deviation when deuterium or hydrogen was present. --Noren 16:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

"One can only speculate about the source of the heating" unless one reads Cold fusion#Current understanding of nuclear processes and learns that deuteron angular momentum is thought to influence the branching ratios interior to a solid metal, so

²D + ²D → ⁴He + γ (to Bremsstrahlung)

would be more likely. In any case, the heating was observed, which must have been what Jed was referring to as "success." --James S. 11:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Heating was not observed. A positive deviation within experimental error was observed, "when deuterium or hydrogen was present". What is your explanation for this measurement generating the same (within experimental error) result when hydrogen (clearly referring to ¹H in context) was used? JedRothwell's claim was that this paper was one that was "measuring excess heat, tritium and neutrons." Where are the tritium and neutrons generated in your proposed mechanism? --Noren 16:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The deviation within experimental error you refer to is the neutron count, not the heat. The experimental error for heat is not described, but the excess heat is obviously far above it. That's my reading, anyway. Let the readers here decide. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/FralickGCresultsofa.pdf. Quotes:

". . . and the temperature rise [with deuterium] was much more rapid than was possible using the electric heater. Neither neutron detector registered any counts during the time heating occurred.

After proceeding with the background count, the purifier was refilled with D2 at 374°C (705°F) and 1,380 kPa (200 psia).

Another neutron count was taken for 10 days, and the purifier was again evacuated, but this time the heater control temperature was reduced to 24°C (75°F). This was done to preclude any possibility that a temperature rise might be due to unintended operation of the electrical heating element. . .

This time the temperature dropped from 374°C (705°F) to 370°C (698°F) and then slowly increased back up to 375°C (707°F), again indicating heating as the deuterium was removed from the palladium. As before, no neutrons were registered by either detector during the time the heating occurred.

The above cycle of background count, neutron monitoring with the purifier at 374°C (705°F) and 1,380 kPa (200 psia), and evacuation was then repeated using ordinary H2 as a control. In the case of hydrogen, there was no evidence of self heating as the hydrogen was withdrawn from the purifier; the temperature dropped quickly as the valve was opened, and continued to drop when the valve was fully opened. . . ."

There is a pronounced, irrefutable difference between D and H which has been observed in hundreds of other similar experiments. There is no chemical fuel. D and H are chemically nearly the same (except for minor differences which cannot explain heat production). Since other cold fusion experiments produce transmutations and helium commensurate with fusion, I am sure this is a nuclear reaction and it probably is deuterium fusion. This experiment probably produced helium but they were not able to measure it and they did not try.

If you are saying there were no significant neutrons, everyone agrees. Cold fusion is not plasma fusion. It produces no neutrons or neutrons at a rate about 11 orders of magnitude lower than plasma fusion. No one has ever claimed otherwise, and the NASA experiments certainly bears this out. If you are saying that self-heating "more rapid than was possible using the electric heater" is not significant, or it was "not observed" despite what the sentence says, you are wrong.

Noren also wrote: "JedRothwell's claim was that this paper was one that was 'measuring excess heat, tritium and neutrons.'" I do not recall saying this paper covers tritium, but if I did I was mistaken or confused. There is no mention of tritium here. The neutron results in this paper are in line with the rest of the literature, and what you would expect. There were two other studies with this kind of hydrogen purifier, in France and India, and they both produced the same results: large excess heat with deuterium, no heat with hydrogen. --JedRothwell 16:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I wrote: "There were two other studies with this kind of hydrogen purifier, in France and India, and they both produced the same results: large excess heat with deuterium, no heat with hydrogen." Actually, the Indian study produced significant neutrons, but of course not at the levels you would see with plasma fusion. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KrishnanMScoldfusion.pdf

These experiments also produced a 20,000 times increase in tritium (over the initial concentration). --JedRothwell 14:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZens: let me just quote what I said about sources earlier: "Sources to trust (or at least include, if not "trust"): I would say published work by anyone who is a scientist with some work outside the field of cold fusion. "Published" here does not mean necessarily in a peer-reviewed journal, it could be a tech report or something presented at a conference - most of the really interesting stuff only exists in that form anyway - but not stuff that wikipedia usually regards as self-publishing. The rationale is that if there is a bias in editorial boards against CF, then requiring journal articles would be unfair. On the other hand, if a scientist with a reputation to worry about is willing to go on the record (in print) saying that X, then, regardless of any concerns about technique, experimental errors, data analysis etc (which are all the reasons why per review exists), it is a fair bet they believe that X, which is in this context noteworthy." A prime example of the kind of thing I am talking about is [5]. Please review also Wikipedia:No_original_research#What_counts_as_a_reputable_publication? and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Science_and_medicine, both of which I believe support the specific criteria for inclusion that I proposed. ObsidianOrder 10:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Blaming F&P for the Press Conference

It seems as though many people would like to put the entirety, or even a majority of the blame on F&P for holding the press conference. This seems to be more of a biased viewpoint than a factual one.

Look carefully at Gary Taubes' book, pages 96 and 97:

"Initially it was [UofU President Chase]Peterson who suggested the public announcement, but the three lawyers apparently embraced its wisdom [sic]. ... 'The three lawyers were arguing that there is no second place in this kind of business."

[Attorney Peter]Dehlinger's reccolection of the meeting also had Fleischmann "almost in tears" as the consensus finally emerged that they would call a press conference."

STemplar 16:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I cannot imagine Martin Fleischmann crying about something like this! He is a tough and cynical guy. He survived horrible experiences in WWII. However, he has told me many times that he tried to prevent the press conference, and he wanted to keep the research secret for a few more years. Frankly, I am glad it was forced out into the open. (I have told him this, and I assure you he does not appreciate my sentiments!)

Fleischmann knew full well what the press conference would bring. He has studied history. He knew that he and Pons would be booted out of the establishment. Perhaps he did not anticipate the death threats and so on, or that Pons would be driven into exile, but he knew his career would end abruptly, and even being a Fellow of the Royal Society would be no protection. See the letter from him quoted in Beaudette's book, page 147:

After the press conference, [Arrhenius's granddaughter] Dr. Caldwell came up to us and said, "Well, when my grandfather proposed electrolytic disassociation he was dismissed from the University. At least that won't happen to you." I said to her, "But you are entirely mistaken. We shall be dismissed as well."

I cannot imagine why anyone thinks Fleischmann would welcome a press conference, and deliberately bring down a ton of bricks on his head!

Given what happened to most cold fusion researchers, it is astounding that anyone has the guts to publish positive results. It goes to show that some people do have academic integrity, and they are willing to sacrifice their careers and their personal lives in pursuit of the truth. I would say it renews one's faith in humanity, except for those hordes of opposition scientists who have destroyed people's careers and suppressed the truth to satisfy their own venal ambitions. --JedRothwell 19:03, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

In defense of the new introduction

I removed the POV statement that SCZenz added, for the following reasons:

• according to past conversation, SCZenz wanted the POV tag because the intro understated the extent that reputable scientists rejected the nuclear origin of the effect. This is now clearly stated in the intro.
• SCZenz did not reject the possibility of the effect, and he should not because the DoE panels on cold fusion, a reputable source that did a thorough study, did not. Again, the intro clearly states that. Please read the report again if you have any doubt, avoiding any of the spin that many people have put on it.

Concerning the flow of the intro, I do propose to stick to the following structure:

• start with the definition. It is important that everybody agrees on a common definition, otherwise we'll get nowhere. This definition covers both muon-catalyzed fusion and F&P research. The first one is proven, so the definition can use present tense. The point that there are 2 lines of research is clearly made. In the rest of the into, I'm careful to say which type of cold fusion I'm talking about.
• the following paragraph on the benefit of cold fusion explains why cold fusion could be important, however you achieve it.
• the 3d paragraph neutrally states what the DoE said about the F&P effect. This is the most reputable study you can get today.

Pcarbonn 06:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It must be absolutely clear from the very beginning that the second is controversial; if this isn't said, the current structure implies that both lines of research are equally valid until one reaches paragraph 3. For a subject with this much controversy, that aspect of things should be clearer than that; I've moved one of your sentences to the intro, and so things seem (marginally) adequate to me for now.

However, I also continue to be dismayed that the major source for this entry is [lenr-canr.org] rather than reputable mainstream sources. A key point about WP:NPOV is the ability to write for the opposing view, so I challange all the cold fusion proponents editing this article to summarize the key points of the opposition in neutral language and cite sources that do so. -- SCZenz 07:19, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me, and thanks for your collaboration. If we can make the intro NPOV and accepted by all, hopefully we'll be able to progressively improve the rest of the article...

A question: aren't you puzzled by what the DoE panel said: some acceptance of the possibility of excess heat, but rejection of nuclear fusion claims ? What is your reading on it ? Where could the excess heat come from, if confirmed ? Understanding your point of view will help everybody bring consensus on how to write the article NPOV. Pcarbonn 10:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

My reading on the discrepancy between half the reviewers being somewhat convinced that there's excess energy, and a sound majority rejecting the hypothesis that fusion has occured is as follows—hopefully I've understood your question correctly. In order to claim that a new form of an old process has occured, it must have some similarities with the old process. Nuclear fusion (as traditionally known) produces other products 10 million times more than Helium-4, when helium-4 is the only possible product that's been detected (and not abundantly or reliably, as I understand it). Nuclear fusion (as traditionally known) is a particle interaction, and therefore produces high-energy photons which could be detected—and aren't. Yes, one can argue low-energy nuclear fusion is different, but that doesn't mean much without a theoretical model explaining such changes, and the existing theoretical models say that the fusion product ratios should still be vastly against He-4 at low energies. If there's an excess of energy, but nobody knows the source, and efforts to connect it to nuclear fusion have failed in many ways, why not call it a new/unknown process rather than assuming it's the same thing? -- SCZenz 16:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

You seem to accept the possibility of an excess of energy. Presumably, you would then respect scientists studying it (if in turn they are respectful to you, which I agree is unfortunately not always the case :-) ). Things would be much simpler if we could call that source of energy differently, eg. X-energy. Unfortunately, the LENR literature seems to use the word "nuclear reaction", even if it is abusively. It is not uncommon for a word to have different meanings in different lines of scientific research. You said that Wikipedia should not judge what respectable scientists are saying, only report it. So should it be different for the use of the "nuclear reaction" words ? Should we have a disambiguation page, saying that cold fusion refers to nuclear fusion in some disciplines, and "an unknown process" in other disciplines, and write 2 separate articles ? Or start a separate article on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, explaining that "nuclear reaction" is only a tentative explanation at this stage ? I'm trying to find a solution here, so any idea is welcome. Pcarbonn 17:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes: "However, I also continue to be dismayed that the major source for this entry is [lenr-canr.org] rather than reputable mainstream sources." Yo: SCZenz! Do you speak language? Do you know the difference between a library and a journal? LENR-CANR is not the "source" of anything. ALL -- I repeat -- ALL of the papers in this article come from mainstream sources. Nearly all of the papers in LENR-CANR are reprinted from mainstream sources. For you to claim otherwise is, as I already pointed out, like claiming that the Georgia Tech library published all of the books in its stacks.

It is incredible that you are still making this claim. Who are you trying to kid, anyway? Do you really think people do not notice that every paper referenced in this article comes from a mainstream journal? Did you not notice the titles? Or do you think that LENR-CANR runs the China Lake Naval Weapons Laboratory, and we publish Japanese Journal of Applied Physics? I suggest you look up the The Japan Society of Applied Physics.

Is this really the best argument you can come with? How pathetic! --JedRothwell 14:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn wrote, "[the 2004 DoE report] is the most reputable study you can get today." Emphatically not!!! The DoE panel was a joke & and an outrage. First of all, it was not a "study" it was a one-day flying-hot review of the field. The review was designed by Steve Jones and others to ensure a biased outcome, and then summarized in an abstract by some of the worst enemies of cold fusion. Despite this bias, a few actual facts survived the process.

The most reputable studies you can get today are published by Mitsubishi, the U.S. Navy, Los Alamos, BARC, and a few hundred other world class laboratories in the open, peer-reviewed literature in mainstream journals, not by secret DoE cabals. Equating the two is ridiculous. The DoE study pretends that this body of research does not exist. --JedRothwell 14:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the DoE is not a good study (I'm puzzled by its inconsistency), but it's generally recognized as the best one to represent what the community of scientists think. That's why it generated so much press articles. Instead of "reputable study", I should have said: "a report that is generally recognized to represent the community of scientists", or "to represent mainstream scientists" (which usually do no know as much as you do about excess energy). Jed, you actually listed it in second place in the above discussion titled "Please stop using conditional grammar incorrectly!". Pcarbonn 15:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn wrote: "Jed, you actually listed it in second place in the above discussion titled 'Please stop using conditional grammar incorrectly!'" Sure, I agree the DoE study is a reasonable substitute for a public opinion poll -- or a Rorschach test. My gut feeling is that it accurately reflects the opinions of mainstream scientists. When you take a group of mainstream scientists, and you expose them for one day to a set of biased, unfair presentations arranged by the worst enemies of cold fusion, despite the biased nature of the presentations, roughly a third of your audience will conclude that cold fusion is real, a third will stick to their guns and insist it is not, and a third will remain muddled. That has been my experience dealing with scientists over the years. That is interesting from the sociological point of view, but it tells you nothing about cold fusion. A one-day review of cold fusion is like a parlor game. A genuine scientific review would take weeks or months. It would be conducted in the open with published, signed papers. It would involve visits to laboratories and intense discussions with researchers. It would be critiqued by both sides, and published in detail. The DoE reviewers comments were supposed to be kept secret! What kind of review is that? --JedRothwell 16:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes: ". . . so I challange all the cold fusion proponents editing this article to summarize the key points of the opposition in neutral language and cite sources that do so." That's easy. All we have to do is quote the opposition verbatim. Cold fusion is, according to the leading member of the opposition:

". . . error delusion and fraud caused by easy corruption, gullible politicians, greedy administrators . . . foolishness and mendacity.

What began as wishful interpretations of sloppy and incomplete experiments ended with altered data, suppression of contradictory evidence and deliberate obfuscations." - Robert Park, in the Washington Post

What is so challenging about that?

I can also summarize the scientifically valid, rational arguments presented by the opposition: there are none. Not one. You might as well ask what "key points" and "valid arguments" have been presented by the Flat Earth Society or Creationists. If you do not believe me, read the pathetic "reasons" presented by Morrison (http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf). This is best the opposition has ever come up with. --JedRothwell 15:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

That is precisely the problem with both your treatment of the opposition in this article, and your treatment of the opposition at lenr-canr.org—you attempt to deride the opposition by selective quotations that make them look like thoughtless assholes. For example, in the introduction there are several links to a page on lenr-canr.org selectively quoting what various journals have said; why not instead cite the journals as sources, and maybe cite their serious comments also? Yes, people have said some harsh things, but they have also made some very sensible review comments. You can do whatever you like for propoganda purposes on your website (which is an advocacy site in addition to a repository of articles), but on Wikipedia we put the best face forward for both sides of an argument. -- SCZenz 15:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes: ". . . make them look like thoughtless assholes." I think Robert Park would enjoy that description! Ask him, and he will tell you that I am not "deriding" him or quoting him out of context unfairly. He stands by those comments. He has repeated them many times at conferences, in the newspapers, and to me in person.

"For example, in the introduction there are several links to a page on lenr-canr.org selectively quoting what various journals have said; why not instead cite the journals as sources, and maybe cite their serious comments also?"

The introduction to this article? Not sure what you are referring to. This article says that Sci. Am., Nature and the Washington Post have attacked cold fusion. Do you want me to add footnotes with the article titles and dates? I can do that -- no problem. I would not say these are "serious comments." The Sci. Am. statements are factually incorrect, and the others are ad hominem. But you can judge for yourself. Click on footnote 3 to see the article titles, links to original sources, detailed quotes, etc.

Yes, people have said some harsh things, but they have also made some very sensible review comments.

Have they? Who has made these comments? Where were they published? I have read 500+ papers and 6 books about cold fusion, in English and Japanese. I am not aware of any sensible review comments in opposition to cold fusion. As far as I know there have only been 5 papers published that attempted to find experimental errors. Morrison is the best of them, and I think it has no merit. Read it yourself, and judge for yourself. It is, as I said, at LENR-CANR (http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf) If you know of any other papers, please tell me the titles and I will ask the authors for copies and permission to upload.

You can do whatever you like for propoganda purposes on your website (which is an advocacy site in addition to a repository of articles), but on Wikipedia we put the best face forward for both sides of an argument.

There is only one side to this argument. It is like the debate between Creationists and biologists. The arguments of the Creationists do not have a shred of scientific merit.

Not every debate has two valid sides. People who claim the earth is flat are wrong. People who claim that evolution did not occur are wrong. People who claim that cold fusion may be an experimental error are wrong.

If you seriously believe there is a "best face" to the opposition, tell me where I can find it in the peer-reviewed or proceedings literature. If you do not know of any such paper, I invite you to write one yourself. I will upload it to LENR-CANR if you like, even though our usual policy is to reprint papers published elsewhere. I will make an exception for you, or any other skeptic. After 17 years, you skeptics have written only 5 papers, all of them worthless, and we already have 3 of them at LENR-CANR.org. We have bent over backwards to include your views, and we will continue to do so. --JedRothwell 17:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz says "I challange all the cold fusion proponents editing this article to summarize the key points of the opposition in neutral language and cite sources that do so." - I wouldn't say I am a "proponent" of anything, but you and I would probably disagree about this article. Anyway, I have done what you ask already: see User:ObsidianOrder/Cold fusion redux, particularly the "Theoretical objections" and "Practical difficulties" sections. I haven't gone digging for sources yet since that was just an outline, I've just noted what would need to be sourced. However, Jed is correct in saying that quality sources for the anti-fusion side are quite hard to find (considering, for example, that the three most famous failed reproductions - Caltech, MIT and Harwell - all turned out to be fatally flawed on subsequent analysis). Would you like to try the same challenge in reverse? ObsidianOrder 20:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

ObsidianOrder wrote: "considering, for example, that the three most famous failed reproductions - Caltech, MIT and Harwell - all turned out to be fatally flawed on subsequent analysis." Actually, they are all three positive. Caltech is particularly clear. In 1989 these three were the best proof that cold fusion is real. Even skeptics who opposed the research got excess heat. --JedRothwell 21:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, precisely, that is what I meant by "flawed" ;) They're still not very good experiments, and the way the data was analyzed by the original teams was particularly atrocious, but insofar as the raw data supports anything it is a positive reproduction (not so sure about Harwell, but MIT and Caltech definitely). ObsidianOrder 22:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Harwell especially. Actually, the researchers at Harwell were fully open and happy to share their data, unlike the people at Caltech and MIT. Their data showed clear evidence of excess heat, as clear as Caltech's. See:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/HansenWNpddcalorim.pdf

http://www.lenr-canr.org//acrobat/MelichMEbacktothef.pdf

--JedRothwell 00:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe add Jones and Rafelski to muon article

The introduction to this article is linked to muon-catalyzed fusion. This article began by saying that Jones and Rafelski "initiated" muon-catalyzed fusion, but as you see from the link, they did not. Sakharov, Frank and Alvarez initiated it. (See the article here and Mallove, p. 108). So I removed Jones and Rafelski from the first paragraph. They did contribute to muon research, however. Perhaps someone should patch up the muon-catalyzed fusion article to include them. I am not familiar with their work, so I cannot do this. --JedRothwell 15:34, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

We need a new article, like "Creation-evolution controversy"

I just noticed something about Wikipedia. The article about evolution does not include Creationist garbage, except for a few paragraphs at the end. The rest has been been moved to Creation-evolution controversy. The article on evolution is about science only, based on legitimate, mainstream scientific documents and principles.

I suggest we do the same thing for cold fusion. We should create a separate article called "Cold fusion controversy." All of the pseudo-science should go there: the violations of thermodynamics and elementary chemistry; the notion that theory overrules facts; the mythical majorities and science-by-vote; the fake history, the accusations of fraud -- all of the unfounded skeptical POV nonsense. We include one short paragraph at the end of this article noting that some people think there is a controversy, and we direct the reader to the new article.

An article on cold fusion controversy ? Funnily enough, I have started one back on Feb 5 ! I announced it in the "Adopt a summary style ?" discussion above, but it did not seem to catch up then. I'm glad someone sees an interest in it ! And I'm willing to move some of the discussion there ! It should still be based on NPOV, though. Pcarbonn 21:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This article should be swept clean and devoted to actual experimentally proven facts, reported in journals. Some people would say this is against Wikipedia policy because it is a "fork" but that is only defensible if you equate skeptical faith-based handwaving to science. You might as well equate Creationism to evolution, or witch doctoring to medical science.

A clean separation of fact and fiction is called for. --JedRothwell 19:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

And by "fact" you mean what you believe, and not what the DoE Reviewers said or what the editors or various prestigious journals that don't publish cold fusion results think. Controversy is an inescapable aspect of the subject, as thoughtful and intelligent people (a significant number) have looked at the evidence and found it wanting; obviously other intelligent people have found it compelling. This rhetoric of "the other side is just plain wrong" is as pointless coming from you as you must find it to be coming from the other side. -- SCZenz 21:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

No, by "fact" I mean what has proved true by replicated, high-sigma experiments. That is the standard of truth in science. Not opinions, not the majority, not "intelligent people." Experiments, and experiments alone are the gold standard of truth. Sometimes they are difficult to interpret, but not in this case. Megajoules of heat per mole at sigma 90, tritium at 20,000 times background, helium commensurate with a DD reaction -- it all adds up to one inescapable conclusion: This is a nuclear fusion reaction.

You want to overthrow the scientific method and substitute a popularity contest or so-called "intelligent opinions." Why kind of intelligence rejects a result that has been replicated hundreds of times, in dozens of laboratories, anyway? Once you throw away the experimental method, you throw away all standards. You invite chaos. There is no basis for reaching a conclusion or establishing a fact. No question will be settled, no theory ever tested or rejected, and no progress will occur. In science, experiment and observation are THE ONLY STANDARD OF TRUTH. The instruments dictate reality, and you must accept what they tell you, or you are not a scientist. --JedRothwell 21:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed, I respect your high intellectual standard and knowledge on LENR, and I sincerely hope that your opinion on cold fusion will eventually prevail. However, you have high expectations on what Wikipedia can achieve: I'm afraid Wikipedia cannot meet them. Because of the forces that acts on Wikipedia, the mainstream argument most frequently wins, eventually. I would suggest that you try to convince the scientific community of your views that the source of excess energy is nuclear (if that is important for you): eventually, Wikipedia will reflect it. In the mean time, Wikipedia should only say that the source of excess power is unknown. Pcarbonn 22:36, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn writes: "However, you have high expectations on what Wikipedia can achieve . . ." Not really. I was kidding. I know perfectly well that the skeptics will never allow this article to be objective or scientific. They will insist that it reflect their fantasies, rather than experimentally proven facts.

"Wikipedia should only say that the source of excess power is unknown." Because you say so, naturally. No reason given, no proof or evidence presented, and several thousand experiments pushed aside. Whatever you say is true because you say it. And you are, of course, in the majority, again because you say so, even though 97% of Japanese scientists disagree with you. I'll say one thing: Your logic is wonderfully circular and unfalsifiable. It is tough to argue with: "Whatever I say is true by definition." Perhaps you should found a religion. "I am what I am."

I notice also that you are not content with disputing thousands of replications, and overthrowing the laws of thermodynamics. You now want to prove that cold fusion devices are not actually small, despite appearances. They are smaller and hotter than the Pu used in fission-powered pacemakers, but you insist they are not. Not only can you change the laws of physics by fiat, you can miraculously make a 0.5 g device into a 10 kg device, or even a tokamak. As I said, this has all the makings of a religon. --JedRothwell 00:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, I'm not a scientist. I'm an editor who writes based on reputable sources, not an independant evaluator of scientific research. Thus if prominent scientists say the wrong things in reputable sources there's nothing I can do about it. It's not for me to decide whether they're right or not. Your complaints may apply to the journals who are rejecting LENR papers; they don't apply to Wikipedia. -- SCZenz 23:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes: "On Wikipedia, I'm not a scientist." Indeed. Anyone who would dispute an experiment that has been replicated hundreds of times at high sigma is not a scientist anywhere. You are a true believer, and no scientist, at least with regard to cold fusion.

"Thus if prominent scientists say the wrong things in reputable sources . . ." Prominent scientists do not say wrong things. This is not a technical argument at any level. The editors of Sci. Am. and Nature, who tell me they are not scientists, say that cold fusion researchers are liars, frauds and lunatics. They do not address the technical issues, so their opinions and ad hominem attacks should not be discussed in an article on a technical subject. (Sci. Am. offered some "reasons" last year but they are imaginary; they have no connection to actual experiments or claims.) There are only 5 papers by skeptics that attempt to grapple with the technical issues, and attempt to disprove cold fusion. You can read them and evaluate them yourself. You will see that they fail miserably. I can list them in this article. All other skeptical attacks are ad hominem or just plain crackput crazy. None are part of science any more than Creationism is. --JedRothwell 00:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned that the editors of Sci. Am. and Nature have both denied they are scientists. Here is what they said:

"The second misconception concerns Scientific American's function. We're journalists here at the magazine, even those of us with scientific credentials. We don't claim to be authorities on physics or any other discipline . . ." Sci. Am. editor, in letter to me. (http://lenr-canr.org/AppealandSciAm.pdf)

"Nature does not employ an editorial board of senior scientists, nor is it affiliated to a scientific society or institution, thus its decisions are independent, unbiased by scientific or national prejudices of particular individuals." (http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/get_published/index.html)

--JedRothwell 13:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

totallydisputed tag

I added this tag, because this article is awful. It is not an article for JedRothwell to air his personal views. His weird interpretation of the DOE panel's results, his ad hominem attacks on the scientists who dispute cold fusion, his officious treatment of the other editors. He is trying to act as the final arbiter of what is science and what is not which, as SCZenz points out, is not the role of Wikipedia. I see no possibility of this article ever conforming to anything remotely similar to neutral POV as long as JedRothwell continues to control it. Do not remove the totallydisputed tag. –Joke 14:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I, likewise, am tired of explaining what the role of Wikipedia is. At first I was under the impression that JedRothwell thought we weren't reporting the available information about peoples' views directly, but it is now increasingly clear that he wants us to critically evaluate them. We cannot do this—but it is precisely what this article presently does. Jed's responses to me on this subject now seem to have crossed the line from POV essays into personal attacks against me, and I do not feel terribly inclined to participate further. As Joke says, do not remove the {{totallydisputed}} tag. -- SCZenz 14:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. We've been over this many times before. - Taxman ^Talk 15:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Joke writes: "I added this tag, because this article is awful. It is not an article for JedRothwell to air his personal views." Please do not give me credit for the 'personal views' of Julan Schwinger, Martin Fleischmann, and hundreds of other scientists. I am merely reporting what they say, and what they have discovered. I do not have a Nobel prize and I am not a Fellow of the Royal Society. If you want to say that their views are discredited, go ahead, but don't confuse me with them.

I agree 100% that this article is Totally Disputed. I dispute it! The "skeptical" statements in it are unfounded, without a scrap of supporting evidence, and pure POV. There is not a single footnote to justify these absurd assertions. They violate physics and common sense. But what do you expect from "skeptics"?

By the way, Mr. Joke, my offer to SCZenz is open to you as well, and to any skeptic. If you have the guts to write a paper, I promise to upload it untouched. Only ~5 skeptical papers have been published. We need more, to show the public how ignorant you people really are. The Taubes book was a masterpiece in that department (see my brief review here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusion.pdf) But we could always use more. --JedRothwell 17:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz wrote:

"Jed's responses to me on this subject now seem to have crossed the line from POV essays into personal attacks against me . . ."

You mean when I invited you to contribute a paper to LENR-CANR.org, and I promised that I would not censor it or change it in any way? Yes, that was too cruel. It isn't fair to ask a skeptic to do his homework and write a paper. You should not be held to the same standards you demand of us.

". . . and I do not feel terribly inclined to participate further."

参ったか？ざまあみろ！ --JedRothwell 18:03, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

It was the part where you ranted about how I'm a true believer and not a scientist. Right when I was explaining how Wikipedia editors do not critically evaluate the scientific merit of sources. -- SCZenz 18:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz sez: Wikipedia editors do not critically evaluate the scientific merit of sources. Is that so!?! Why then, is this article crammed full of critical evaluations of the scientific merit of papers by Fleischmann, Storms, Schwinger and others? Every second sentence in this article evaluates these papers, and describes some bogus reason to doubt them. These bogus reasons do not come from the literature. I am sure of that; I have read the literature extensively. The people editing this article added these skeptical evaluations themselves. They invented them. For example, they claimed that all excess heat is in the milliwatt range, and they asserted that a "majority of scientists" do not believe that cold fusion is real. This is a fabrication; the only poll in existence (from Japan, 1993) shows that 85% of scientists think cold fusion probably is real and 95% support research.

I have no objection to these "critical evaluations" even though they are bunk. But as far as I know, they are all on your side, so I do not understand why they upset you. All the claims from our side come straight out of the experimental literature, without evaluation. --JedRothwell 21:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to ask again: Given that there are dozens of papers on cold fusion published in established, peer-reviewed journals specialising in fusion and electrochemistry each year these days, are there any reputable sources claiming that research is mistaken, other than unreviewed editorial commentary in a few general science journals, and a few outspoken critics like Park?

It seems to me that the critics need to review the bibliographies and not just go with their gut instinct -- that is not source-supported research, and it has no place in Wikipedia. There are already plenty of caveats and attempts at balance here in this article. Until other editors can provide sources of the same or greater reputability than the peer-reviewed journals which frequently publish cold fusion work these days, I will be removing the dispute tag(s) without further duscussion. --James S. 18:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The DoE review is the big one; the way I read it, a majority of the reviewers did not believe the research supported that a form of fusion was occuring. Of course, that interpretation is disputed. In fact, many things here are disputed; that's why the article is tagged as disputed. I am tagging it and giving up because I am effectively shut out of editing by others' constant revisions. So here's what I suggest: admit the article is disputed and do what you please with it. But we are disputing it, and edit warring over the tag is lame. Please don't do it. -- SCZenz 18:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Before "giving up," would you mind explaining why you think that the article's description of the DoE review is biased or factually incorrect? As far as I can tell, it is presented in an unbiased fashion; there simply hasn't been much controversy over what the reviewers said. There is nothing in your arguments which justifies either a POV or disputed tag, let alone totallydisputed. --James S. 19:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The article uses minority sources to too great an extent. It uses weasel words to discredit the views of skeptics. And edits made to fix these things are invariably corrected and re-corrected until whatever was intended was gone. We've been through this before, and this instant-tag-removal because you don't agree with my arguments is kind of rude. If you think my explanation is wrong, discuss it and maybe we can clarify. I don't have to write an essay immediately to justify a dispute tag, since I have other work to do too. -- SCZenz 19:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity, are you saying that the intro is POV ? or just the remainder of the article ? If it is the intro, could you expand on "uses minority sources", and "weasel words". If it is the remainder, I propose we address it once we agree on the intro (and keep the POV tag in the article in the mean time). Thanks. Pcarbonn 20:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The last big paragraph of the intro portrays "skeptics" as making attacks rather than raising reasonable objections, and selectively quotes statements various magazines have made, and then cites a page on lenr-canr.org which likewise selectively quotes those magazines. We should be citing the magazines' statements directly, along with the articles/editorials written by scientists who disagree with cold fusion research, along with the explanations given by the DOE review for why the experimental results are generally believed to be inconsistent with fusion.

There are also problems with the emhpasis in the article, but I agree that getting the intro into agreed-upon good shape would be a good start. I agree 100% with your plan of leaving the tag up while this is worked on, which isn't a bad thing in any way. I admit that I fear that not all the editors working on this page are committed to WP:NPOV, which is why it's so easy to give up and just place the tag indefinitely—but if we can work together, I won't do that. -- SCZenz 20:09, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes: "The last big paragraph of the intro portrays 'skeptics' as making attacks rather than raising reasonable objections . . ." I added the stuff in the last paragraph about the Washington Post etc. It is unimportant. If it bothers you, please chop it.

I do not know of any reasonable objections to cold fusion. But you should please add any objections you find, reasonable or unreasonable. The more the merrier. I encourage you to add objections to this article, and I also encourage you to write a paper enumerating these objections. In my opinion, the five papers and the three books written by skeptics devastate the skeptical position. They make mincemeat of the skeptics more adroitly than I ever could. So I encourage skeptics to write more.

. . . .and selectively quotes statements various magazines have made . . .

Do you know of any other statements from national U.S. magazines? I subscribe to the Google alerts feature. Any on-line news article that mentions cold fusion is delivered to me automatically. As far as I know, all of the articles published in U.S. national newspapers and magazines in 2006 have been virulent attacks against cold fusion. I toned these attacks down; I quoted the kindest things they said. If you can find some kind, balanced words, I would be pleased to hear them. --JedRothwell 20:49, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I have no intention of getting into a tedious discussion of the nitty gritty of the DOE review and why this article needs a POV tag. Even if I did have the time and inclination, I would invariably be browbeaten by the usual editors above. Suffice it to say that cold fusion is scientific specialty practised by a small number of people against the general skepticism of the field as a whole. I don't know what the current state of cold fusion research is, and I don't intend to take a year learning about electrochemistry and nuclear physics. Perhaps cold fusion researchers' results have been refuted; perhaps they haven't because serious scientists don't think it is worth their time; perhaps cold fusion research is being suppressed; perhaps it's just bad science; perhaps it is right. I am not interested in arguing about it. What is clear is that the editors on this page are not by any stretch neutral nor do they make any effort to be, with comments such as: "we need more [skeptical papers], to show the public how ignorant you people really are." The operator of the major cold fusion webpage and, apparently, editor of Infinite Energy magazine is not a neutral author, and I have seen no evidence that there is any way to effectively counterbalance his imperious behavior. Do not remove the totallydisputed tag. If you go the RFC route, fine. Otherwise I will continue to reinstate the tag until it seems possible to create a more balanced page. I won't have access to a computer over the weekend, but I do hope you won't remove the tag over my objections. –Joke 20:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that every editors of this article need to accept the NPOV rule. Without such an agreement, the tag has to stay. At the same time, you say "I am not interested in arguing about (DoE review, ...)": if this is the case, I would say that you do not qualify as an editor for this article. Pcarbonn 20:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

You're right, of course. If the article improves to the point where the active editors agree it is NPOV, then Joke doesn't get to object—and I doubt he will. At the same time, I understand where Joke is coming from; working with editors who aren't committed to the NPOV principle in the first place is very tough (and, in this case, intimidating). It's hard to imagine, with the perspectives and approaches present, that there will be agreement on NPOV wording for the article. But of course, if there is, the tag comes off. -- SCZenz 20:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm working hard on changing the editing behavior of Jed. Hopefully, we'll get there soon. Pcarbonn 20:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

無用だ -- as a samurai would say.　I am in a Japanese mood, since I just uploaded our first document in Japanese -- a 107 pape e-book! (http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTjyouonkaku.pdf) --JedRothwell 21:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort, and likewise your support of leaving the tag up for the time being. I do not think the problems in the article are insurmountable if we work together for neutral wording rather than warring over which point of view is right. -- SCZenz 20:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

It would help a great deal if we could first establish where exactly the people adding the dispute tag claim that the problems with the article are. Since SCZenz left me a message about this on my talk page, I've replied in detail expressing this concern on User talk:SCZenz#Totallydisputed tag in Cold fusion --James S. 22:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Joke writes: "What is clear is that the editors on this page are not by any stretch 'neutral' nor do they make any effort to be . . .

What? Are you pretending that you are neutral? Don't be absurd. The comments you make here and the changes you make the article reveal you to be a rabid partisan. You feel as strongly as I do. Don't pretend otherwise -- you are not fooling anyone.

There are no neutral views of cold fusion. It is polarized, like the Creationism versus evolution debate. The two sides are light years apart and always will be.

"... with comments such as: 'we need more [skeptical papers], to show the public how ignorant you people really are.'"

We do. That's 100% sincere. Not a bit flippant. Please write a paper, and I hope you make it as misinformed and mistaken as the book by Taubes or the paper by Morrison.

You "skeptics" should not complain that LENR-CANR is one-sided or biased. YOU are the ones who have not written and published papers. We have uploaded every skeptical paper I can get my hands on, and we would be happy to upload more. It is your fault that your views are not on file at LENR-CANR. I never censor papers. You can say exactly what you want, in as much detail as you like. Go ahead and write a 200-page book showing why cold fusion is not real. I promise I will upload it. (I will also write a separate critique of it, and tear it to shreds.)

"The operator of the major cold fusion webpage and, apparently, editor of Infinite Energy magazine is not a neutral author . . .

I am not the editor. I have had no connection to Infinite Energy since before Gene Mallove died, although I remained on friendly terms with him. Check the index: I have not published there for years. --JedRothwell 22:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Even while holding strong views it is possible to write an NPOV article or at least not stand completely in the way of it like you are doing. Your inability to tone down your POV discredits you, which is unfortunate because you seem pretty knowledgeable. The fact is that cold fusion is not widely accepted to occur, and even though that could be due to outright bias, that is not for us to determine. The DOE review, Nature's policy, Sciam's, etc are enough to state that CF is not widely accepted. The lack of high impact factor journal articles is another. The paucity of papers against CF is meaningless both because disproving an effect is much more difficult and because no one bothers to disprove an effect that isn't widely believed to occur and has such a bias against it. The fact is the scientific establishment is skeptical and they should be until unassailable proof of the effect is provided. When prominent skeptics start admitting CF is reality, then we have something. Until then we don't present CF as fact. - Taxman ^Talk 15:57, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Taxman writes:

Even while holding strong views it is possible to write an NPOV article or at least not stand completely in the way of it like you are doing.

Please review the changes that I have made to the article. I think you will find that I have not stood in anyone's way. I have not deleted any skeptical commments. My additions to the article have all been strictly based on facts in the peer-reviewed literature. I will grant, my comments here have been, shall we say, more partisan.

"Your inability to tone down your POV discredits you . . ."

My "POV," as you call it, is that science -- and any statement about it -- must be based strictly on replicated, high sigma experimental data. That is all I say, and all I stand for. If that discredits me, then I am proud to be discredited. That is what Schwinger and Fleischmann believed, and what they devoted their lives to. If I am the last of the old fashioned people who stand with them, I stand with pride and I will never budge. It is the iron law of science that experiments alone are the standard by which reality is measured. When theory and experiments clash, theory must give way. Mere opinion counts for nothing.

Frankly, I am astounded that anyone disagrees with that. But I learned years ago that some people (especially young people) think science should be based on political power, or a show of hands, or whoever shouts the loudest. Your statement is typical:

"The DOE review, Nature's policy, Sciam's, etc are enough to state that CF is not widely accepted . . ."

This means nothing to me. Less than nothing. What is "widely accepted" by people who have not read the literature and know nothing about the research cannot possibly have any significance. You might as well base this Wikipedia article on the views of randomly selected traffic cops and hairdressers as base it on the views of scientists who have not read the literature! (And I promise you, the people at Sciam have read nothing. They told me so.) Nature and Sciam can only bring about what Schwinger called "the death of science." They cannot alter truth or make experiments go away. If, when I die, I am the last person alive who had read the literature and knows the facts about cold fusion, I will still be 100% correct, and Nature, Sciam and all the rest tied together will still be utterly wrong. They are wrong, they are contemptible, and they have betrayed science. That matters! Science has brought humanity more material benefit, more wisdom, peace and true happiness than any other institution in history. These people mean to destroy it rather than admit they were wrong.

Facts are facts, and science is based on facts and experiment alone. Nothing else counts. Nothing else means anything. 10 million opinions cannot overrule one calorimeter, or one tritium detector. I do not give a damn how many ignorant fools disagree, or what bogus nonsense they print, or how often the repeat it, or how many lives they ruin by suppressing the truth.

If this is a radical POV then so be it. If belief in objectively measured facts makes me a radical outsider, and condemns Fleischmann, then I shall remain an outsider. But you should know, there was a time not long ago when every scientist agreed with me. The textbooks still pay lip service to my POV, although many scientists have betrayed their profession and no longer live and work by these rules. Your views and your POV represent the corruption of science and the decline of our civilization. --JedRothwell 22:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Lovely complete straw man you've set up there. How about make an attempt to listen to what I actually said, and the spirit in which it was said to help end up with a useful article that everyone can see as factual. - Taxman ^Talk 11:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not a "straw man." The problem is that you and I have different world views, or different ways of looking at reality. Our views cannot be reconciled. You wrote:

"When prominent skeptics start admitting CF is reality, then we have something. Until then we don't present CF as fact."

I say that when the researchers at BARC discovered tritium at 20,000 times the initial concentration, that made CF a fact. What prominent skeptics admit or do not admit has nothing remotely to do with it. Most encyclopedia articles about scientific subjects (here and elsewhere) are based on facts -- experiments and physical laws. I think that every sentence in this article should be based on confirmed, replicated peer-reviewed facts. You want to base this article on what "prominent skeptics" will "admit." --JedRothwell 17:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Reply to James S's note on my talk page

The following note was left by James S on my talk page. I reply below. -- SCZenz 22:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I think your addidtion of the totallydisputed tag to Cold fusion is wrong for a number of reasons:

• You claim that there are POV issues, but have not articulated what you think they are;
• You claim that there is a factual dispute, and point to the DoE review, but that review proves there is no scientific consensus on the issue, on a 2-to-1 split;

2-to-1. It was actually "even split" on the question of excess heat, a remarkable statement. Pcarbonn 06:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• Both sides of the controversy are represented in the article -- you have not claimed that they are not; and
• You have refused to say why you think that the unreviewed editorial comments of a few general science journals are more "mainstream" than the peer-reviewed publications in specialized fusion and electrochemistry journals which have been frequently publishing cold fusion articles for the past several years.

I don't see how you can expect to be treated in good faith when you do not respond to these points. It is frustrating and confusing to see someone add a tag, let alone the totallydisputed tag, to an article which has been balanced by continual back-and-forth editing by supporters and detractors alike. If someone had come in and deleted all the comments on one side of the issue immediately prior to your adding the tag, then it would make sense, but it seems to me that you are only showing that you have not actually read the article. If you have read the article, and you believe the tag that you are adding, then why aren't you able to respond to the above points? I will, as a courtesy, leave that tag up on the article until at least this evening, but if you haven't justifed it by then, I will remove it again. Please reply to this on Talk:Cold fusion, and not here or on my userpage. --James S. 20:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Someone who I know from a completely unrelated controversy asked me what this was all about, and here is how I explained it to him. I hope this helps you understand my perspective:

The problem with the Cold fusion article is that there is a controversy, and people on both sides of it have been editing it fairly carefully, and I think it's balanced, and then someone comes along and objects to the idea, because it was controversial back in the early '90s, then faded away, then made a quiet comeback in the science journals. It's hard to deal with the situation because the editors of Nature and Scientific American frequently trash-talk the subject, while about 10-30 papers get published in peer-reviewed electrochemistry and fusion journals each year. It seems like Wikipedia is in a great position to solve the problem, but when someone slaps a {{totallydisputed}} on top of the article, it really can't help. --James S. 21:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with you on a number of points. First of all, I just compared this article to the August 24, 2004 featured version: it is very different, and is much more based on the views of the Cold Fusion advocates. I would say that those advocates have been the majority of editors for a long time. The article was removed from the featured articles list, by consensus, for this very reason. I do not get the impression that most interested authors have found this page to be NPOV, or carefully edited, at any point. I, for example, have believed there were problems here for a while, and only stepped in to try to do something about them recently. The response to any editor who is not a cold fusion advocate, or even one who is an NPOV advocate, is invariably a torrent of words so vehement as to be intimidating—so most interested authors arrive one at a time, and leave in frustration. This does not mean that you are right and they are wrong.

I disagree that I have not explained why I see POV issues with the page; the fact that you disagree with my assesment is why the tag says that the NPOV status is disputed. I dispute it, I am an active editor, and it is no courtesy to wait a few hours before declaring that my opinions don't count because you don't agree with them. Leave the tag up for long enough that I have some free time to make some detailed points or edit the page. That means days, because I have a job and things to do. Your insistence on rapid tag removal is part of the intimidating environment on the page; please stop!

No fewer than three editors in the past week or so have put POV tags on this page; please respect us even if you don't agree. I want to work on this article, but it will take time and discussion to work out a consensus version, and as PCarbon said above the tag should stay in the meantime. Also I will need to hear a response from somebody other than "you don't know what you're talking about, so shut up." -- SCZenz 22:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz and the others who dispute this article are making good-faith assertions. I am sure they honestly believe the article is unbalanced and unfair to their point of view. For that reason I think the tag should stay.

I think the article is somewhat unbalanced against cold fusion, but for my part, I could not care less whether it is tagged or not. If it upsets SCZenz to see the tag removed, it should stay, and I say that with all sincerity.

Also, by the way, I hope that no cold fusion advocate erases skeptical arguments from the article. That isn’t fair, and besides, their arguments probably win more people over to our side than our own arguments do. Every time the Sci. Am. or the Washington Post blasts cold fusion, we see a spike at LENR-CANR. Thousands of new readers come to download papers and find out what all the fuss is about.

One thing I have learned in this debate is that the skeptics believe what they say as firmly as I believe what I say. Robert Park truly, honestly does think that I am a lunatic, and he is convinced that Fleischmann and all the scientists in this field are frauds. He told me so in person and by e-mail, and he has told that to many of the researchers. He and Zimmerman stood in front a cheering crowd at the APS and vowed they would find and fire "every single cold fusion researcher and supporter" in the government. "We will not stop until this nonsense is eradicated!" they promised. The crowed cheered and Zimmerman and the others at the DoE followed through. They are not posturing.

(I do not think he is crazy or anything like that. He is closed-minded and unscientific, at least when it comes to cold fusion. Perhaps in other subjects he is more objective and fair.) --JedRothwell 01:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz - just my two cents to this. I agree almost entirely with James S. above "there is a controversy, and people on both sides of it have been editing it fairly carefully..." etc. I am not particularly happy with the current state of the article - I think it represents neither side of the controversy well. The main problem that makes it unsatisfactory for the anti-fusion side is lack of clarity: the basis for their objections both practical and theoretical is not clearly explained (although the article devotes quite a lot of room to it). The main problem for the pro-fusion side is omission: many, many critical facts supporting their position have been omitted. That said, I think that the article has existed in a state of dynamic balance which is reasonable if imperfect. I would like to attempt a complete rewrite which is as close to impartial as possible, but in the meantime it was ok even before your arrival on the scene ;) ObsidianOrder 12:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. While I did take you up on your challenge to "write for the opposition" (well, actually I had already done that a long time ago), I notice you haven't taken me up on the counter-offer, or responded at all. Why not? ObsidianOrder 12:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Specific NPOV problems

I'll put specific NPOV problems here, one at a time, as I have time. Just because you feel you've argued them all away at any given moment doesn't mean it's time to remove the dispute tag. Let's discuss. -- SCZenz 22:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Citing lenr-canr.org as a source for what Scientific American says. Perhaps we can find quotes that are a bit less selective, and maybe explain their position, yes? As it is, the treatment in the introduction is a straw man argument designed to discredit the magazine's view. -- SCZenz 22:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I added a direct link to the sciam.com article. --James S. 00:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

So you've addressed part of my concerns. -- SCZenz 04:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• "In the history of science, there has never before been a claim that was replicated hundreds of times at high signal to noise ratios, published in mainstream peer-reviewed journals, yet still rejected by large numbers of scientists. Despite this, skeptics still claim these results may be experimental error." Totally uncited, and completely leaves out the critical fact that reproduction is still unreliable. This is therefore a highly misleading, POV statement. -- SCZenz 22:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I deleted that paragraph. Even if the authors Mallove and Baudette had been cited as the source for it, I agree it sounds hyperbolic, even if it isn't. The article is better without it. The surrounding paragraphs say everything that needs to be said on the subject, and they say it better and in a more convincing fashion. --James S. 00:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• I claim that Scientific American and other popular science journals are reliable sources for what the scientific mainstream believes. Several editors of this article do not; we need to sort this out. -- SCZenz 22:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

That's not a bias problem or a factual dispute, is it? Even if it were true, does Wikipedia have a greater responsibility to reflect the contents of the mainstream popular science press, or the peer-reviewed literature, when the two disagree? --James S. 00:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, we have no option but to assume that the mainstream popular science press has some idea of the pulse of the scientific mainstream, and that is what we should be stating as the majority view. I understand that you maintain this isn't so, but I've not been convinced by your arguments. -- SCZenz 04:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz - every single part of your statement is problematic, since they all rely on incorrect assumptions. One, SciAm and other pop science journals do not represent absolutely anything other than their own editorial boards. If anything might claim to represent the scientific majority view, it would be a carefully-conducted poll among scientists in that field. Do you have such a poll? Two, even then, majority view is not the same as mainstream, for that you would need a pretty overwhelming majority and the absence of any prominent opposition. Three, Wikipedia is not supposed to represent solely the "scientific mainstream", it is supposed to fairly represent all significant points of view. Yes, it is supposed to describe what the scientific mainstream view is if that can be established (which I really doubt in this case), but it is also supposed to represent the other views. Four, and this is where we get into a serious philosophy-of-science dispute, science is not a show of hands. If the majority of scientists is not following the scientific method and faily and impartially looking at the evidence, well, they are wrong, and that's all there is to it (and it has certainly happened before - tectonic plates theory anyone?). However - given that we here at Wikipedia cannot ourselves critically evaluate experimental data since that would be original research - the existence of a substantial dissenting group of scientists (including some extremely prominent scientists with impeccable credentials) is presumptive evidence that we are observing a disagreement within science, an unresolved question, and that is precisely the way it should be reported - not as the "mainstream" vs the "weirdos" (to pick one of the kinder terms). To put it plainly, there is no "mainstream scientific opinion" on this issue, because that would imply there is a scientific consensus (a single mainstream), which most definitely doesn't exist here. Majority view (which this may or may not be, you have hardly shown evidence for that either) is not the same as mainstream. If you can prove it is the majority view, you can say so in the article (and cite sources, please). However, to claim that anything which is suppored by a couple of Nobel prize winners in that field is not at least part of the "scientific mainstream" is quite absurd. ObsidianOrder 13:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• The confrontational situation on this talk page, the language of "our side" and "your side" is unacceptable and counterproductive, and must end. -- SCZenz 22:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but again, that's not a bias or accuracy problem. --James S. 00:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You first ;) ObsidianOrder 13:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• "However, most scientists in the panel also believed that the excess generation of power did not have a nuclear origin, and were thus unable to explain it." Makes them sound like naysayers who are just being stubborn—actually there are very clear and concrete reasons why the observed excess heat is not consistent with nuclear fusion, which are cited in the DoE report. The language in the intro needs to be clear that such reasons exist, and perhaps cite them briefly. The article itself must cover them much more clearly. -- SCZenz 22:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I took out the word "thus" because I think it makes a connection which should not be made. --James S. 00:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and add the direct quotes from Sci. Am! Good idea. What's stopping you? (Perhaps they do not have their article on line, so you may have trouble adding a hyperlink.) The title and everything else you need is right here: http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm#SciAmSlam

SCZenz writes:

"However, most scientists in the panel also believed that the excess generation of power did not have a nuclear origin, and were thus unable to explain it." Makes them sound like naysayers

Well? Did they explain it? Yes or no? You think it makes them sound like naysayers. I think it makes them sound confused and bewildered.

The language in the intro needs to be clear that such reasons exist, and perhaps cite them briefly.

There are no such reasons, but you are free to invent a bunch of them and cite them in as much length as you please. Or you can quote the bogus reasons the Sci. Am. editors came up with. Do not accuse me of erasing this stuff, either. I welcome your imaginary reasons. I encourage you to add them. I have never erased a single skeptical assertion here.

"In the history of science, there has never before been a claim that was replicated hundreds of times at high signal to noise ratios. . .

Actually, there is a source for that: Mallove and Beaudette. But the ball is in your court. Can you think of an example in the history of science in which this has happened? If you cannot, what is misleading about it? It is not POV, it is a statement of fact. If you know of a counter-example, please list it in the article. Change it to, "in the history of science . . . this happened with X Y and Z." --JedRothwell 23:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

If two authors said it, we could say that "According to [description of authors] Mallove and Beaudette, ...". Just stating their view as fact is probably not ok, because I doubt very much everyone agrees it's true. As for your proposal that I do my own historical analysis, that violates Wikipedia:No original research.

As for the claim that "no such reasons exist" there are clear reasons—the characteristics of the excess heat in many ways do not resemble known fusion processes, and the presence of any fusion products at all is disputed. More to the point, if a reliable source believe such reasons exist, Wikipedia's NPOV policy requires us to cite that whether any of us personally agree with it or not.

Your approach to this article, Mr. Rothwell, is not consistent with Wikipedia's core policies. That's why things like NPOV tags end up on the article. -- SCZenz 23:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

That "the characteristics of the excess heat in many ways do not resemble known fusion processes" isn't a reason why the observed excess heat is not consistent with nuclear fusion; it is only a reason why the observed excess heat is not consistent with known fusion processes.

The statement that "the presence of any fusion products at all is disputed" may be true, but there are perhaps five examples of such published in the peer-reviewed literature, which has hundreds of replicated examples confirming helium, for example.

The controversy is an example of a disconnect between what is published in the reputable peer-reviewed literature, and what is published in the popular press. Which does Wikipedia have a responsibility to reflect? --James S. 00:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia can't do its own impartial analysis of the peer-reviewed literature. -- SCZenz 04:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

James S. writes: ". . . which has hundreds of replicated examples confirming helium." Tritum. Bockris tallied hundreds of examples of that. For helium . . . I recall ~15 or so, at the Navy, SRI, several Japanese labs, and three Italian National Labs. (Hundreds of individual runs I guess, but ~15 studies.) Helium is WAY more difficult to confirm, because it is not radioactive. Tritium announces itself. There was so much at Los Alamos and BARC, they had trouble getting rid of it, and the safety officers became concerned. One of the SRI experiments produced so much, the detector was swamped, and it had to be overhauled at considerable expense. --JedRothwell 01:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes:

"If two authors said it, we could say that 'According to [description of authors] Mallove and Beaudette, ...'. Just stating their view as fact is probably not ok, because I doubt very much everyone agrees it's true."

You doubt it, so we should not include it? I suggest you read any book or textbook about the scientific method. You will find the author asserts that when an experiment is widely replicated at a high signal to noise ratio, that proves it is true and debate is supposed to end. For all of modern history, that has happened in every case -- except for cold fusion. There are no other examples. This is a very important aspect of cold fusion.

I did not add any disputed history or "original opinions," but you did. You skeptics claim that cold fusion is an example of pathological science. Look at Langmuir's definition of "pathological science" and you will see that cold fusion does not fit a any of the criteria he listed. You invented that claim, you insist on saying it despite all evidence to the contrary. And now you complain when I add a matter of fact that anyone can confirm in a half hour. Read any history of science. If you can find one example of a widely replicated experiment that was rejected, list it here and I will concede the point. If you cannot, you should admit you are wrong. --JedRothwell 00:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest to move the discussion on pathological science to the cold fusion controversy article: editing this article will help us bring consensus on this issue faster than this Talk page can. Pcarbonn 13:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes:

. . . the characteristics of the excess heat in many ways do not resemble known fusion processes

Incorrect. They resemble cold fusion, which was discovered 17 years ago. The pattern is consistent, and proved by experiment, which is the only way anything is ever proved.

. . . and the presence of any fusion products at all is disputed. More to the point, if a reliable source believe such reasons exist, Wikipedia's NPOV policy requires us to cite that whether any of us personally agree with it or not.

GOOD! Do it. Go for it. Tell us what reliable source believes such reasons exist. Who disputes these things? Where did they publish? Give us an example. I have read hundred of papers and I have seen only 5 by minor authors, but if you find one, tell us about it.

Don't tell us that Sci. Am. or Nature has found a reason. They have never addressed the technical issues. They have never mentioned fusion products. They say only that no papers have been published, and that all researchers are liars, frauds and lunatics. That is exactly what they say, and if you doubt me, go read them yourself. If you want to quote them saying that in this article, please do. I wish you would. --JedRothwell 00:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

DOE Review

To those of you who are defending your position to reject or dismiss cold fusion behind the shield of the DOE review; be forewarned, the ground beneath you is unstable and receding.

In 1989, the DOE review was predetermined to a negative outcome. This evidence comes directly from the man who came up with the idea of the review and advised the president of the United States how to settle the matter according to this scientists' personal belief that cold fusion was impossible. Do your homework, you'll find it. It also comes from John Huizenga who stated that he thought a review was a waste of time.

This is not science, people, this is politics.

In 2003, some cold fusion researchers thought they were all hot to trot with new strong evidence and they thought they could finally get DOE to reverse their opinion on the matter. What a joke! So what they did was to use political leverage to go to the top of DOE, Spencer Abraham and lobby him to do another review.

Abraham said, yes, and then he went to James Decker of the Office of Science and said, "Hey, you gotta look at cold fusion again." Decker and company said, "Aw, for cryin' out loud, we really don't want to do this. Cold fusion is a freakin' political nightmare. We'd rather shove hot coals up our behinds."

You'll notice that DOE made no effort to publicize either the initiation of the review or the completion of the review.

Bennnett Daviss of New Scientist and Tony Feder of Physics Today got the scoop on it from inside sources, there was never a press release.

Get it done and over with as quickly and as quietly as possible and shut these guys up. Will Happer nailed it, “I think a review is a waste of time, but if you put together a credible committee, you can try to put the issue to bed for some time."

So Decker says to Abraham, "Fine, you can shove this thing down our throat but you can't tell us how to do it." So wouldn't you know it, they set up the review so that reviewers spend one whole day talking to half a dozen cold fusion scientists about 17 years worth of research. Then the reviewers visit a whopping zero cold fusion laboratories and lo and behold, a majority are not convinced! Imagine that!

Despite all the things against it that you describe so well, the DoE panel stated that 1/2 the reviewers were somewhat convinced by the evidence of excess heat. Because the DoE is used by the opponents of cold fusion, this statement from the DoE is the best ammunition that the pro cold fusion can use ! They can't challenge it ! Please recognize that. Pcarbonn 06:51, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

This is politics people, not science. And if you think you are thinking independently and scientifically by standing behind the DOE report, I have a bridge to sell you in New York.

Ask yourself this: What if some of the negative things you've been told about cold fusion have not been true? Is it possible? What if some prominent scientists have lied to you? Is that possible? Or is that too disturbing a question?

STemplar 04:06, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It is a profoundly disturbing possibility, for prominent scientists to lie to the public about scientific results. If such a thing were to occur, it would be vitally important to set the matter straight, to make sure the truth won out.

You suggest a conspiracy of prominent scientists in non-cold fusion related jobs, all deciding for indirect, obscure political reasons to lie about a phenomenon that, if real, would have a profound positive impact on humanity. To answer your question: No, I don't find it at all plausible that there's a cabal of villainous fake scientists conspiring against cold fusion research.

It would be concievable for the leadership of DoE to be mistaken about a real phenomenon and dismiss it incorrectly, but your suggestion that they're deliberately lying about it is implausable. If they actually believed the phenomenon occured they'd be among those most likely to be excited and supportive of it. A verified, working cold fusion finding would greatly help the DoE, not hurt it.

Since you bring the topic up, there exists a group of scientists who do have a much more direct motivation to lie about cold fusion results, whose personal pay is directly dependent on the perception of the validity of these results. What if some formerly prominent scientists have lied to you? Is that possible? Or is that too disturbing a question? --Noren 16:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Noren writes: "I don't find it at all plausible that there's a cabal of villainous fake scientists conspiring against cold fusion research." I don't either. That's silly. The people campaigning against cold fusion are all real scientists, except Taubes, who is a journalist. Everyone knows who these people are, because they often boast about what they have done. They state clearly, on the record, what they did and why they did it. Huizenga and Close wrote books. Park and Zimmerman stood up in front of an enthusiastic crowd of supporters at the APS and announced that they and their allies at the DoE would "root out" and fire any scientist in the Federal government who supports cold fusion or talks about conducting experiments. They followed through and did that, and they are proud they did. The people who have done the most to crush the field are the plasma fusion scientists at MIT and elsewhere. Their feared their funding might be cut, so they pulled out all the stops to sabotage cold fusion. They went on the warpath within hours of the announcement. They called up Boston news reporters and told them that Fleischmann and Pons were criminals and frauds who must be stopped. They & their allies still say that, as often as possible, in as many newspapers and magazines as they can reach. They also ensured that the DoE review would be a farce, and that no mention of actual cold fusion research or results will be published in any major U.S. newspaper or magazine. The opponents themselves tell me they do that. They say they keeping science free of fraud -- they will not allow criminals to subvert the process or sully the reputation of mainstream science. They do not see themselves as evil, but rather as defenders of good science and ethics. News reporters and editors tell me that DoE officials and others assure them that if they publish anything about cold fusion, strings will be pulled and they will soon be out of a job.

A small number of people are doing this, but they have power and support from many others. They are all well known to me and to everyone else in the field, and their activities are well documented in books and papers. This history is not disputed by anyone, least of all by these people. On the contrary, they brag about their accomplishments. I am sure they sincerely believe they are protecting science from fraud. Nobody would go around conducting witch-hunts and destroying people's lives, careers and reputations if they did not believe in their cause. --JedRothwell 21:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

STemplar's description of the DoE review is hilarious and accurate. He wrote:

"In 2003, some cold fusion researchers thought they were all hot to trot with new strong evidence and they thought they could finally get DOE to reverse their opinion on the matter."

At the time, I & others told them 'be careful what you wish for.' We saw this coming.

STemplar did not mention one other player, whose fingerprints are all over the final report: Steve Jones. As soon as I read the report I thought he must have influenced it, and insiders later confirmed my impression. Let's give credit where it is due.

Pcarbonn suggests we make lemonade from this lemon, which is a good idea:

"Despite all the things against it that you describe so well, the DoE panel stated that 1/2 the reviewers were somewhat convinced by the evidence of excess heat."

Did it say that? I recall it said only one person is convinced CF is real. Anyway, the skeptics think the DoE report supports their point of view, and the newspapers all reported it that way, so it hardly matters what the report really said, or what was done. It is true that from the DoE's point of view, the review backfired when some of the panelists took their job seriously and looked at the data. (From their comments, I can tell that some of them read papers on LENR-CANR, which pleased me to no end.) That was ironic and funny, but anyway the DoE was able to paper over the damage by issuing the summary that distorted what the panel wrote. They tried to keep the actual panel comments secret, too. The DoE was soon back to its old tricks: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf --JedRothwell 21:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it absolutely said that. If you doubt it, please have a look at page 3 paragraph 4 of the Doe Report. Because this statement is made by a source recognized by the skeptics, they cannot deny it. And this statement is enough to make the LENR field respectable, and to counter the negative spin that DoE and many others have put on the report.

Jed says "It hardly matters what the report really said". I would say instead that it is of the utmost importance for Wikipedia. As editors, we are supposed to look at the primary source of the information, not on the secondary ones, especially if they have modified the message. We now have a chance to make things straight, and we must do it. Pcarbonn 12:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn wrote: "If you doubt it, please have a look at page 3 paragraph 4 . . ." I do not doubt it, I just forgot. It says:

"The excess power observed in some experiments is reported to be beyond that attributable to ordinary chemical or solid state sources; this excess power is attributed by proponents to nuclear fusion reactions. Evaluations by the reviewers ranged from: 1) evidence for excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no convincing evidence that excess power is produced when integrated over the life of an experiment. The reviewers were split approximately evenly on this topic."

I agree, that's pretty good. I'll bet it upset the bigwigs at the DoE. Fortunately for them, none of the skeptics read that, and Sciam and the others ignored it.

"As editors, we are supposed to look at the primary source of the information, not on the secondary ones, especially if they have modified the message."

So you are saying we should ignore the DoE summary report? Right? Because it is tertiary. (Or whatever comes after that.) It is a distorted report describing impressions that people had after one day of listening to people describe first and second hand information about cold fusion. It did not merely "modify" the message, it made corn beef hash out of it. One or two actual facts about cold fusion leaked through the process inadvertently, but overall it was a farce.

If that is what you have in mind, I agree. It would be fine with me if we cut out all references to the DoE report. However, the skeptics (who think the report supports their POV) probably want to leave it in. That's okay too. It is unimportant. People who turn to the DoE report, Sci Am. or the Washington Post instead of reading actual original source scientific papers are hopeless. It makes no difference what this article says or does not say. These people will believe whatever the "authorities" at the Sci Am. or the DoE tell them to believe. They never question authority, and they never read original sources, and they never think for themselves. --JedRothwell 15:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You are right to say that the primary source for experiment results are original articles in peer-reviewed journal. I'm right to say that DoE is a primary source when we are talking about polls of scientist, because no other poll exists. While nothing beats reading the orginal articles themselves, as you are right to say, many people will rely on authorities like DoE to make their opinion. Correctly representing what the DoE report says is the responsibility of Wikipedia. Saying what people say about the DoE report would be second source, and would be wrong. Pcarbonn 15:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed, why don't you start an article on low energy nuclear reaction: you would have plenty of place to describe what is generally known on these reactions. Please cite your sources, so that the article remain POV. I'm more and more convinced that the cold fusion article is not the right place to put all this, and it would be very valuable to better understand the current state of research. Pcarbonn 15:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you are both mistaken about the relative roles of primary and secondary sources in Wikipedia. When authoritative secondary sources exist, it is usually correct to cite them over primary sources in Wikipedia. Constructing our own interpretation borders on original research. I can find a scientific paper to support just about any claim, but that doesn't mean each paper should be given equal weight in Wikipedia. To avoid the problem of deciding how to weight things, using secondary sources (like reviews) as a guide is very useful. –Joke 15:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. DoE is a review, and that's why it should be used here. Using what people said about the DoE review would be wrong though. (that's why I said it is a "primary" source as a review). Pcarbonn 18:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Mainstream Western peer-reviewed papers through the years

I think these should be added to the references, for no other reason than to show that the subject has been accepted in the Western scientific mainstream through the years:

• McKubre, M.C.H. et al. (1994) "Isothermal Flow Calorimetric Investigations of the D/Pd and H/Pd Systems." J. Electroanal. Chem., 368, 55.
• Szpak, S. et al. (1995) "Cyclic voltammetry of Pd + D codeposition." J. Electroanal. Chem., 380, 1.
• Celani, F. et al. (1996) "Reproducible D/Pd ratio > 1 and excess heat correlation by 1-microsec-pulse, high-current electrolysis." Fusion Technol., 29, 398.
• Storms, E. (1996) "How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect." Fusion Technol., 29, 261.
• Yuki, H. et al. (1997) "D + D reaction in metal at bombarding energies below 5 keV." J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys., 23, 1459
• Aoki, T. et al. (1998) "Search for nuclear products of the D + D nuclear fusion." Int. J. Soc. Mat. Eng. Resources, 6, 22.
• Szpak, S. et al., (1998) "On the behavior of the Pd/D system: Evidence for tritium production." Fusion Technol., 33, 38.
• Gozzi, D. et al., (1998) "X-ray, heat excess and 4He in the D/Pd system." J. Electroanal. Chem., 452, 251.
• Zhang, W.-S. et al., (1999) "Numerical simulation of hydrogen (deuterium) absorption into ß-phase hydride (deuteride) palladium electrodes under galvanostatic conditions." J. Electroanal. Chem., 474.
• Zhang, W.-S. et al. (2000) "Effects of self-induced stress on the steady concentration distribution of hydrogen in fcc metallic membranes during hydrogen diffusion." Phys. Rev. B: Mater. Phys., 62, 8884.
• Cisbani, E. et al., (2001) "Neutron Detector for CF Experiments." Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 459, 247.
• Zhang, W.-S. et al. (2002) "Some problems on the resistance method in the in situ measurement of hydrogen content in palladium electrode." J. Electroanal. Chem., 528, 1.
• Li, X.Z. et al. (2003) "Correlation between abnormal deuterium flux and heat flow in a D/Pd system." J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys., 36, 3095.
• Zhang, W.-S. et al., (2004) "Effects of reaction heat and self-stress on the transport of hydrogen through metallic tubes under conditions far from equilibrium." Acta Mater., 52, 5805.
• Szpak, S. et al. (2004) "Thermal behavior of polarized Pd/D electrodes prepared by co-deposition. Thermochim. Acta, 410, 101.
• Szpak, S. et al. (2005) "The effect of an external electric field on surface morphology of co-deposited Pd/D films." J. Electroanal. Chem., 580, 284.
• Szpak, S. et al. (2005) "Evidence of nuclear reactions in the Pd lattice." Naturwiss., 92, 394.
• Storms, E. (2006) "Comment on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explain anomalous heat generated by cold fusion." Thermochim. Acta, 441, 207.

Does that selection show convincing pertinent work in mainstream reputable peer-reviewed journals through the years? I avoided the more voluminous Japanese literature because understanding of the subject is apparently clearer in Japan for some reason. (Why is it?) --James S. 05:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Fusion Technology is not a mainstream, peer-reviewed journal, it is a journal specifically created to publish credulous articles about cold fusion. It is not even one of the 6496 scientific journals listed in the Science Sitation Index. --Noren 16:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, Fusion Technology changed its name a few years ago to Fusion Science and Technology, which is listed in the SCI. You can tell from the volume numbers that it was established about 1967, 22 years before the controversy. --James S. 17:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

systematic bias

I think this is the only time I have been involved in such an editing dispute over a tag. The general rule for an NPOV tag is not to remove them until consensus is formed between the editors to remove it. There is no such consensus.

I allege that this article has been written in such a way as to put cold fusion in the best possible light, rather than attempt to provide a dispassionate account of the subject. That clearly falls under the rubric of NPOV problems, and merits the tag. It is a problem with just about every sentence of the article. Let's just discuss the introduction

• "Since then, electrolytic cells, gas loading, and ion implantation have been used to generate unexplained power." This is disputed.
• "Because nuclear ashes of low energy nuclear reactions are often not commensurate with the energy produced." This makes little sense (what on earth are nuclear ashes?). It is not agreed upon that energy is produced.
• Nature is not a popular science journal. It is a science journal that is popular.
• "Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in mainstream, peer-reviewed journals." Who cares? A lot of papers have been published about bad ideas. Perhaps, for balance, you should mention that very few, if any, of these papers appear in prominent journals?
• The DOE study is misrepresented. You say: "About half of the reviewing scientists indicated they were somewhat convinced that power is actually generated in these experiments, and that this power cannot be attributed to ordinary chemical or solid state sources. Two thirds of the scientists in the panel were somewhat convinced that the excess generation of power did not have a nuclear origin, but were unable to explain it. They favored continued research, although not in a large federally funded program." I don't see where this "half" comes from. Looking at the DOE report, I simply don't see where this is mentioned. The report says that two thirds of the reviewers "did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions", and only one "believed the occurence was demonstrated." The reviewers also cited that poor experimental design makes the case difficult to review. Stating your subjective interpretation of the unpublished DOE reviewer's comments is incorrect.

The article should say at the outset that cold fusion experiments are not reproducible, have often been accused of poor experimental design, have not proved to be scalable so that they generate a significant amount of excess power, and have not proved to be repeatable by groups outside the cold fusion cognoscenti. But dealing with these POV concerns are just the tip of the iceberg. I know Jed likes to paint his critics as people who are trying to pervert science and truth, but Wikipedia doesn't care about that – what matters is that it accurately states the current opinion of the community of scientists on the subject, and the majority seem to think that cold fusion is pathological. –Joke 15:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with some of your critics. But when you say "the majority seem to think that cold fusion is pathological", I would like to see your source. The "best" and most recent review is the DoE, and it clearly states that the reviewers were evenly split on the issue "Are evidence of excess heat convincing ?". The DoE report never says that the science is pathological. Then, how can you say that the majority seem to think that cold fusion is pathological ? Pcarbonn 16:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You say "cold fusion experiments have often been accused of poor experimental design, have not proved to be scalable so that they generate a significant amount of excess power, and have not proved to be repeatable by groups outside the cold fusion cognoscenti": this only tells that the LENR science is difficult, not that it is pathological or should be rejected. Many other subjects of science face the same issues at their beginnings, and yet, have not been rejected. Please review the criteria for pathological science. Pcarbonn 17:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your former statement. The only evidence that I have to substantiate my claim that most scientists think cold fusion is pathological is that major media outlets generally seem to use it as an example of bad, or failed science (aside from the recent stories about pyroelectric fusion and sonoluminesence). I don't think anybody has really asked scientists. –Joke 18:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Joke, please clarify: you agree with what "former statement" ? Could you confirm that you recognize that the evidence you just presented is very much subject to interpretation, and is not reliable enough to support the inclusion of the statement "cold fusion is viewed as pathological science by a majority of scientists" in the cold fusion article ? Do you accept that the tone of the article does not have to represent this view ? Can we sink this iceberg, as you called it ? Pcarbonn 19:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Joke wrote:

"The article should say at the outset that cold fusion experiments are not reproducible, have often been accused of poor experimental design, have not proved to be scalable so that they generate a significant amount of excess power . . ."

These statements are not in evidence. (In other words, Joke made them up.) But go ahead and add them to the article if you want. Since you cannot cite any sources for these absurd notions, and since anyone who reads the literature will see that you are wrong, I suggest you say: "Skeptics assert that . . . bla, bla, bla" That gets you off the hook. That cannot be falsified. You might as well add that the "vast majority of scientists" believes this. That could be falsified in principle, but in practice it will not be.

Jed, please be more open to criticism. While his other statements are indeed exaggerated, Joke is at least correct on one point: poor experimental design. The second DoE review said that "poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented". Pcarbonn 19:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Of course there have been some poor experiments in cold fusion. After editing and rewriting 100+ papers I know that as well as anyone! However, the cold fusion experiments conducted at Los Alamos, BARC, Mitsubishi, the National Synchrotron laboratory, the Italian national laboratories, in Edmund Storms private laboratory, and in about a hundred other world-class labs are superbly designed. These experiments address all the points raised by all the skeptics from 1989 to 1992, which is the last time any skeptic wrote a technical critique as far as I know. Even the DoE reviewers were forced to admit that the Mitsubishi experiment is superb and "exhaustive," although naturally they dismiss it on theoretical grounds. (See http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm#StormsRothwellCritique) The DoE's comments about "documentation, background controls" and "interpretation" is hot air. In the major experiments, the documentation and background controls are impeccable, and the interpretation is inescapable. There is not the slightest doubt that tritium at 20,000 times or a million times background is caused by a nuclear reaction. You would have to be crazy to dispute this. The skeptics never do dispute it. They evade the issue and talk about "the majority of scientists" instead. --JedRothwell 20:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It is particularly hilarious to assert that experiments are "not reproducible" in light of the work at Mitsubishi and the National Synchrotron laboratory. They have done the experiment several times a year for the past 10 years, maybe 60 or 100 times in a row, and it has worked every single time. If you want to do this experiment yourself, no problemo. Just assemble $20 million in equipment, a team of world class expert, and a $2 billion facility (like this http://lenr-canr.org/Experiments.htm#PhotosYIwamura). It is 100% reproducible, like a pentium production line or a Tokamak. --JedRothwell 23:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Hah! I almost spilled my drink when I read that last. Brilliant irony, considering the actual reproducibility percentage of the things you mention. ObsidianOrder 08:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope it is clear I intended that to be funny. But comparing the Mitsubishi-synchrotron experiment to a Pentium factory or a Tokamak is also thought provoking. What do we mean by "reproducible"? The term is more slippery than it might seem. Any advanced nation with a few billion dollars to spare could build a SPring-8 Synchrotron facility. Any industrial corporation willing to hire a few thousand experts and spend $3 billion could build a Pentium factory. In that sense these things are completely reproducible, but as a practical matter they are not. There is a class of physics experiments that have never been reproduced because they are so expensive. The best example is the top quark at Fermilab. It has never been independently replicated, because Fermilab is unique, and it has not even been performed a second time at Fermilab, because the cost would be prohibitive. Therefore, the usual requirement that an experiment be independently replicated has been waived. Yet no one questions the top quark finding on that basis. Perhaps they should.

Several tokamaks have been built so you might say they have been replicated, but they are all different in size, capacity, instrumentation and so on. Cold fusion has been replicated far more often, more exactly, and more carefully than most major experiments in plasma fusion, advanced high-energy particle physics, neutrino detection and similar big-ticket science. It is ironic that the proponents of such research accuse cold fusion researchers of not replicating. --JedRothwell 15:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

". . . and have not proved to be repeatable by groups outside the cold fusion cognoscenti."

Please note that "cold fusion cognoscenti" is defined by the skeptics as anyone who replicates cold fusion. The group expands indefinitely as needed. For example, lately it came to include the Japanese National Synchratron Laboratory. Last year the skeptics would never have doubted that particular lab is legitimate, but this year they will suddenly realize it must be manned by fanatics, lunatics and fringe researchers.

"Since then, electrolytic cells, gas loading, and ion implantation have been used to generate unexplained power." This is disputed."

Every statement about cold fusion is disputed by the skeptics. Why do you single out this particular one? (I am just curious.)

"'Over 3,000 cold fusion papers have been published including about 1,000 in mainstream, peer-reviewed journals.' Who cares? A lot of papers have been published about bad ideas."

How many? Which bad ideas? Can you cite an example of a bad idea that continued for 17 years and generated 3,000 papers? Please be specific and cite your references. (Ha, ha -- that's my 'Joke'. You people never cite references. You just make up these assertions.)

"Perhaps, for balance, you should mention that very few, if any, of these papers appear in prominent journals?"

We said that about 1,000 are in prominent mainstream journals. We provide a complete list. If you dispute that, tally them up yourself. Add a statement such as: "A skeptic counted these citiations and found only 120 were in prominent journals."

"(what on earth are nuclear ashes?)"

Tritium, helium and heavy element transmutations.

"It is not agreed upon that energy is produced."

What else is new? This article makes it abundantly clear that nothing is agreed upon. No one reading this will escape the impression that skeptics do not believe a single statement about cold fusion. But if you want to emphasize that even more, please go right ahead. A thoughtful reader may ask himself why you people do not believe things like tritium at 20,000 times background, or excess heat reported at Los Alamos and a hundred other labs, and he may wonder why you are so anxious to assert the fact that you do not believe it. I suggest this is caused by cognitive dissonance. --JedRothwell 16:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

please keep POV tag until the tagger is satisfied

When answering someone's POV concerns, please wait for him to say that they have been correctly addressed. Editors cannot be expected to be always on their PC. If the POV tagger does not respond for a week, then, yes, you can remove the tag. What's the urgency to remove the tag anyway ? Do you expect this issue to be resolved in one hour ? Pcarbonn 18:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the general sentiment, having myself often been on the other side of a similar situation. However... someone who starts a dispute in good faith must point to the specific items which are disputed, and engage in a dialog about how they can be fixed. Merely tagging the article and leaving (SCZenz: "I do not have time to fix it", Joke: "I see no possibility of this article ever conforming to anything remotely similar to neutral POV"), or having a general complaint rather than a specific one (SCZenz: "dispute the tone of this article and many of its facts", Joke: "because this article is awful"), do not make up a legitimate dispute. To be fair to SCZenz, he did point out a number of fairly specific things he considers tobe POV problems - after he was asked to. The NPOV tag does not bother me at all, particularly since I think there is some bias in the opposite direction (mostly in the form of unsourced and unsorceable statements like "a majority rejects the possibility...", "was written off by mainstream scientists..." and so on). I will not remove a NPOV tag, and I will attempt to fix anything specific which is pointed out which genuinely appears to be a problem. ObsidianOrder 09:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I would also take it as a personal favor if SCZenz would respond to at least some of my replies to his comments above, under "Reputable sources", "In defense of the new introduction", "Reply to James S...", and "Specific NPOV problems"... I have tried to engage in a dialog about a lot of things but have not gotten any response back. ObsidianOrder 09:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking back, I have to say that you appear to have addressed my concerns partly, but not completely, and that we still have some points of disagreement. Hence there appears to me to be a dispute still. The reason I didn't reply earlier is that every time I say anything on this talk page, I am inundated with many wordy responses (some of them highly non-construcitve), and I just don't know how to deal with all of it. Is there a way that I can contribute to this article without spending 3 hours a day reading the ever-expanding talk page? -- SCZenz 05:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent job of selective quotation. –Joke 15:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent evasion! You should have been a tap dancer; you dance away from the questions and around the issues so gracefully, all the while making it look like our fault for asking. I assume you still have no comment on the tritium at BARC, the excess heat at Los Alamos, the transmutations at the synchrotron lab, or any of a thousand other definitive experimental results. For you, it is all about tit-for-tat personal arguments and nifty evasions, and never about science. --JedRothwell 18:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Joke - Thank you for the compliment. I would prefer a more substantive response, however. ObsidianOrder 01:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

on the subject of NPOV

Let's look at some of the sweeping statements that the article makes:

• "which cast the idea of cold fusion out of the mainstream of acceptable science"
• "was written off by mainstream scientists as self-deception, experimental error and even fraud"
• "written off as unworkable by the general public"

These are completely unsourced, and would be inherently quite difficult to support with sources. Contrast with factual and easily sourced statements such as:

• "many critics consider cold fusion as pathological science" (except for "many" - perhaps "some high-profile critics such as ..." instead)
• "journals such as Scientific American and Nature have often written negatively on the subject"
• "the panel found the evidence for cold fusion to be unconvincing" (some quibbling over the details of what the panel said, but whatever)

I think that the most neutral way to describe CF is as an ongoing controversy. Clearly there are both prominent critics and prominent supporters; there is insufficient evidence to describe one group as mainstream and the other as fringe, or in fact to even support the view that one group is in the majority. Neutrality also requires an accurate description of what is published: namely, that some very influential journals such as SciAm and Nature, as well as most mass media outlets, have an extremely negative and/or dismissive and/or vituperative view (with representative quotes); and that there is a relatively small number (perhaps simply cite the number - I think a few dozen per year is small for such a field but that may be just my opinion) of recent peer-reviewed papers, mostly published in a relatively small number (again my opinion) of highly reputable journals (list the prominent ones: JJAP, EurophysLett, JElecroanalChem, ...), the bulk of which papers strongly support CF claims (or "all"/"almost all" instead of "bulk" - anyone care to come up with counter-examples?). This is, in my view, all that can or should be said, and it is all entirely factual. I can see that people on both sides may be unhappy with it ;) However I think anything else would be either an inappropriate generalization or simply unsourceable. ObsidianOrder 10:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

OO, I agree with your proposal to present CF as a controversy, and I think that the intro now does a good job at doing it. The rest of the article now needs to be updated to expand on it. I would also argue that the first 3 statements, if unsourced, should be removed from the article.

However, I believe that the following statement totally misrepresents what the DOE report says: "The panel found the evidence for cold fusion to be unconvincing". Please read what it said (at page 3 paragraph 4), not what Nature and other said about it: half the reviewers clearly accepted that the evidence of excess heat was somewhat convincing, although they rejected its nuclear origin. I'll insist that this nuance must be clearly made in the article (as I'm sure you'll agree, as well as the skeptics). Pcarbonn 10:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn - I have of course read the report and the original reviewer comments too. Yes, your characterisation (or "nuance" ;) is obviously correct. How would you phrase it in a single sentence, suitable for an introduction, though? ObsidianOrder 01:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

OO, I've already put this characterisation in the intro (in the paragraph starting with "yet, researchers continue to report excess power"). My point was to highlight it as a key element that I believe must appear in any summary of the controversy. Pcarbonn 05:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a good summary to me.

One thing you might note is that from 1989 to around 1991 many papers were published that cannot be classified positive or negative. Many studies were conducted to look for neutrons. Usually the authors reported they found nothing. There were also studies looking for excess heat which found nothing. Skeptics may be inclined to tally these papers as negatives, whereas cold fusion researchers say the neutron studies prove that cold fusion does not produce many neutrons, and the null excess heat studies prove that cold fusion is difficult to replicate.

I suppose the debate between the skeptics and supporters has to be included in this article, but I think too much attention is paid to it, and too much space in the article is devoted to it. The situation is straightforward, and there is little to be said. You can summarize it in one sentence:

Cold fusion researchers make claims based on experiments, but skeptics say they do not believe any of these claims because they think that all published experimental results are mistakes, and some say the results are fraudulent.

I assume the skeptics here would agree this is a fair summary of their views. This is what they always say -- and this is all they say. Since 1992, I have not seen a skeptic write a critique listing specific technical reasons why an experiment might be wrong. In fact I do not recall seeing one discuss any technical issues (except Sci. Am. in 2005, which made 4 technical assertions, all incorrect. [6])

Skeptics sometimes say minor variations of the above, such as "the burden of proof is on the cold fusion researchers." This amounts to pretty much the same thing as "I do not believe a word you say; it must be a mistake." As a practical matter, the skeptics are demanding cold fusion researchers prove that thermocouples and autoradiographs still work the way they have worked for the past 120 years, and the laws of thermodynamics still apply. If you honestly do not believe autoradiographs work, and you think the experts at BARC cannot measure tritium at 20,000 times background, there is nothing any cold fusion researcher can say or do to convince you. (I am sure the skeptics who say these things are being honest.) --JedRothwell 14:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

"Cold fusion controversy" article expanded

Since this article has grown large and unwieldy, it has been agreed [1] that a new article should be established to address a subset of issues relating to cold fusion. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion_controversy

This is the only way to keep this article within 30 to 50 kB which is approved size. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_size

Since the skeptics do not seem inclinded to express their own views in writing, and since I know their arguments better than they themselves do, I went ahead and added several of their main arguments. I may have left out a few, so skeptics should check. --JedRothwell 20:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

1. This passive voice expression means that that the invisible yet vast majority of scientists agree, so don't argue.

Restructure to avoid repetitions

As I move down the article, I find stuffs that have already been said above. So I think it is best to move stuffs from "continuing research" up. So the article would be split in 2 major parts : history, and arguments. I'll proceed doing it, but feel free to undo if you disagree. The section on "Arguments in the controversy is getting bigger though, and probably some details should be moved to the new "cold fusion controversy" article. Pcarbonn 21:03, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Good job. Note that I deleted the second appearance of the stuff about the Washington Post. - JR

I think the idea of the cold fusion controversey article is inherently non-NPOV, at least in terms of what Jed was intending when he moved stuff there. The controversey is an important part of the subject and should be here. -- SCZenz 01:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, you were clever guy who found a way to hide all that work I did. You are overruled. I figured out how to chop your trick.

Let's get a few things straight here:

1. I was not the one who "intended to move" anything. Someone else established the article added all the stuff about pathological science. I just filled in the blanks they left. Then, as a favor to you skeptics, I added your other arguments about fraud and insane researhers. That's what you say, not me. I listed your books, and quoted your experts and big gun supporters from the APS and the DoE. What more do you want me to do? Do you know of any more authoritative skeptical analyses of CF? Robert Park is your leader -- bow down before him. Bow down before Slakey and Lindley and Morrison, the master of Aryan Science Numerology. Bow wow!

2. The article is too big already, but if you insist on combining the two, do it. Bring the entire article in and combine them. Don't use that as excuse to trash my work. Your work, I mean. These are skeptical arguments.

If, as you say, "the controversey is an important part of the subject" why the heck didn't you contribute to the "Controversy" article? You are the one who thinks it is controversial. Go ahead and add 10 or 20 controversial aspects. Show the world what is so controversial about CF, instead of hiding the article and the words of your leading lights with clever tricks. - Jed

Jed, have you figured it out yet? I don't know anything about cold fusion. I'm trying to get the articles on it to follow WP:NPOV and WP:RS. You're the one who knows everything about it, but you're only interested in pushing your point of view. So you telling me, "if you feel like it, add XYZ" doesn't really work, now does it? From what I can tell, the separate controversy article is a power play to put your detailed take on things somewhere less visible; your message on User_talk:Pcarbonn is what inclines me to believe that.

Oh, and please stop mocking and being rude to me. -- SCZenz 01:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If you do not know anything about cold fusion, how can you judge what is a point of view and what is an objective fact established by experiment? How do you know whether the Sci. Am. is telling the truth or making up their statements?

I am not pushing my point of view. I am reporting what the experimental evidence shows. In the article about the controversy (which you keep deleting) I reported what the leading skeptics say. By "leading" I mean the decision makers at the DoE, the APS, Nature and other major, mainstream institutions. I quoted them verbatim, and if you ask them now whether they still hold these beliefs, they will confirm that they do. How can you call this biased or "POV" when all I am doing is reporting exactly what they themselves assert?!?

"Oh, and please stop mocking and being rude to me."

Please stop deleting the article that I along with others wrote. the cold fusion article is too long and it must be divided. The article on the controversy does not duplicate the cold fusion article.

Also, I am not being rude to you. This is cognitive dissonance. I have merely pointed out out that you know nothing about cold fusion and you have offered no experimental evidence to support your assertions. You agree that you know nothing. But you think you should edit the article despite that, whereas I think that people who know nothing about a subject should refrain from commenting on it or trying to judge it. This is an honest difference of opinion. Another difference of opinion is that I would never try to stop you from editing, and I would never erase your comments, whereas you feel free to erase my work. Normally I do not care when you do this, but I put a lot of work into the "controversy" article, so I shall revive it whenever I notice you have clobbered it again.

I honestly wish you would add to the "controversy" article, rather than erasing it. You say you know nothing about the subject, but that is no impediment. The leading skeptics at Sci. Am., the DoE and APS also know nothing about the subject. They brag about that! That does not stop them from pontificating about cold fusion, so you should join them, and add several more "skeptical" reasons to doubt the existence of cold fusion. Please do. I promise I will not erase or modify your comments. I will only rebut them, if I can. --JedRothwell 14:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz, Jed is playing a game when being rude, so don't take it personnally. Also, he still believes that you are against cold fusion, while in fact you are only trying to get this article to meet the wikipedia standard. I guess that he is also frustrated that you do not provide any input to the article. It seems unfair that you criticize without contributing content.

Concerning the spin-off article and the size of the main article: I believe that we should adopt the Wikipedia:Summary style, and create spin-off articles on Cold fusion controversy, and possibly other topics (eg. history, or continuing research). I suggested that already in a discussion listed hereabove. The main article should however contain a good summary of the controversy in POV style. If the spin-off article fails to be POV, then it would need to be corrected, not deleted. Pcarbonn 15:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Excluding the references, the article is now 38 K large. This is acceptable by wikipedia standard, so I'll focus now on reviewing the controversy article. Pcarbonn 15:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not a game, and I am not being rude. At least, not by my standards. I was trained to believe that in a serious scientific discussion, you should never make an assertion unless you have studied the subject carefully and you can back up what you say with proof from the experimental literature. It never occurred to me that anyone would disagree with this, or that anyone would be offended or insulted when I demand this kind of proof.

This is cultural difference. SCZenz and I come from radically different backgrounds. He has now stated he knows nothing about CF, but he thinks it is perfectly okay to modify the article and erase my contributions. Since it is okay by his standards, I guess I cannot complain. I am used to dealing with people from other cultures, after all. By the same token, I am not insulting him, because he himself said he knows nothing, so how it can be an insult for me to repeat that?

Regarding the split-off new article, I have tried to limit the contents to the political debate, rather than duplicating technical content. I have tried to include every major skeptical argument I know of, from the most approved mainstream sources such as Nature, MIT the DoE and the APS. Perhaps I missed some major skeptical assertions. I would appreciate it if the skeptics, who hold these views, would add them. It is a little odd that I have to do this unassisted, and after I carefully reproduce and source their views, they complain I am biased! That's real chutzpah: I do your homework, and you complain I did a bad job of it.

I am sure I represented the skeptics' arguments correctly because I quoted them, but unfortunately it is hard to check my sources because many of these skeptical statements are in obscure or out-of-print books such as Taubes'. I could add more footnotes if the skeptics are not satisfied. I could add hundreds more quotes from them, but I think I made the point. --JedRothwell 16:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed, if you want to edit by your own standards, edit your own website. On Wikipedia, there are fundamental rules, which include WP:NPOV and WP:CIVIL just for starters. Mercilessly editing is not uncivil if one is polite about it, since material can always be recovered, but belittling people on talk pages is. If you're going to edit this website, you need to follow our basic rules—do you care to do so or not? -- SCZenz 17:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz wrote:

On Wikipedia, there are fundamental rules, which include WP:NPOV and WP:CIVIL just for starters.

I have followed these rules! Especially in the new section on the controversy I have been very careful to represent the skeptical views "fairly and without bias." I have quoted the skeptics themselves at length. I am sure that if you contact the skeptics I quoted, they will tell you they said these things, they meant them, and they stand by what they said. There is no conflict here, and no bias. And if you think there is, be specific: Where is the problem? What have I distorted? I cannot read your mind.

". . . belittling people on talk pages is [aginst the rules]"

I am not belittling you! Or if I am, you belittled yourself. You said you know nothing about cold fusion. I agree you don't. It is obvious you do not! I am only telling you that by my standards, that makes you unqualified to contribute comments or erase mine. You disagree. So we disagree, okay? Live with it. Don't take it personally. Lots of people disagree with you. --JedRothwell 17:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Intro progressing, but some comments

I think the intro is getting better; more concrete statements about who says what make it more NPOV, which is good. However, I think there are improvements that can still be made. First, we ought to have links to recent articles critical of cold fusion instead of using lenr-canr.org's rebuttal of those articles as the source. Second, I'd like to see the determination made by APS and the names of some of the specific high-profile critics listed; if critics are arguing by authority, then we should be clear on what authorities are saying what. -- SCZenz 00:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You are right, the intro is increasingly filled with skeptical blather and evasions. Actual facts based on experiments and other scientific content has been eliminated. Good job!

You can have direct links to articles critical of CF, but you must then either quote the researchers who wrote the critiques at LENR-CANR in full, or add pointers to those critiques. It takes up less space to have pointers. (Plus it is better for you skeptics, because lazy people will not bother to click on the link.) If you leave out the researcher's comments, two problems arise:

1. It is not fair or balanced.

2. The attacks are blatent lies, but people who read only the Sci. Am. attacks will not realize that, and they will wonder why we call them attacks or even "critical." If the Sci. Am. fantasy version of CF were true, their statements about CF would not be critical. On the contrary, they would look friendly, conciliatory and paternalistic. That's why they wrote 'em -- to give ignorant people the impression that they are being fair. You have to compare what they wrote to actual published experiments and hard facts to see that they are lying.

- Jed

WP:NPOV says we emphasize reputable, mainstream sources while also listing minority points of view. Not that we evaluate which viewpoint is better and quote from them. -- SCZenz 01:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz wrote:

WP:NPOV says we emphasize reputable, mainstream sources while also listing minority points of view.

Good. That's what I do. I emphasize the reputable, mainstream sources such as the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, China Lake and Los Alamos, and I also list minority points of view such as the Scientific American and Nature. They are outnumbered by 3000 to 5, but I still report them.

The only difference is, I have read the literature and I know what the majority view is, whereas you mistakenly believe that a handful of fanatics at Sci. Am. and the Washington Post are the majority. You have no proof of that, whereas I have tons of proof of what I say. --JedRothwell 14:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You emphasize your webpage and your own views, rather than popular sources that (whether you like it or not) are generally regarded as reliable in terms of the opinions of the scientific mainstream. -- SCZenz 17:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You have that backward: I do not emphasize my webpage; my webpage emphasizes the majority view. It embodies that view. Hundreds of researchers have contributed copies of their papers. The skeptics are free to write papers and contribute them too, but only three have done so. Our library includes the best skeptical papers I can find. I have gone out of my way to ask the skeptics to contribute. I am more than even-handed.

You are correct that I do not emphasize "popular" sources. I emphasize authoritative ones instead. Sci. Am. is popular; J. Electroanal. Chem. is obscure but authoritative. Sci. Am. authors brag that they know nothing about cold fusion; J. Electroanal. Chem. authors include the world's leading experts on electrochemistry. You think that popularity matters. I think that established, authoritative expertise and rigorous facts decide the issue. We will never agree on this, so let's agree to disagree. You keep shoveling in the unsupported opinions, the rumors and science-by-show-of-hands, and I will add only rigorously proven facts. Let the reader decide which is convincing. I do request however, that you stop deleting my comments, since I never delete yours. --JedRothwell 17:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I would propose that we spend some time looking at what Nature, Sci Am and other "generally mainstream" sources are saying, and make sure that the article reflects it properly. Let's realize though that it would be difficult for them to accept now that they were wrong in 1989, even if evidences have significantly improved since then, as the 2004 DOE report suggests. Pcarbonn 20:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not hard to look at Nature and Sci. Am., because they have made only a few comments over the years. I can probably send you the full text of just about everything they have said in the last 5 years. The earlier stuff you should look up in Mallove. As far as I know, the Sci. Am. made only one comment about cold fusion in 2005, plus they ran a cartoon ridiculing it. You can see their comment and contrast it to the actual literature in these two links. [7][8] (Some kind soul removed the latter from the article, but I put it back. As I said, I do not delete what the skeptics write, but they often delete I write.) --JedRothwell 20:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, a question: should wikipedia represent the majority of uninformed people, or the majority of informed people ? Do we all agree that it should be the latter (otherwise, what's the point of saying in wikipedia what people already don't know) ? Let's remember that many scientists still hold to the initial information they got in 1989, and have not been informed of the recent research. What sources have Nature and Sci Am used to write they report on cold fusion ? Is this how they usually get their reputation to represent the mainstream ? If not, can they use their reputation here ? Pcarbonn 20:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

We use reputable sources, not "sources that have been verified to be correct in this particular instance." Wikipedia can't do the latter effectively. -- SCZenz 04:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Disciplinary Alert

Whoever the admins are, I'd like to bring to your attention that this is the second attempted insertion of this inappropriate post.

[http://to2084.narod.ru a static ( 22:47, 17 April 2006 84.204.115.107 (→Other kinds of fusion) STemplar 04:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

He did it again on April 21st !

NPOV, finally ?

I've tried hard to bring NPOV in the article. Did I miss anything ? Can we remove the tag now ? Pcarbonn 20:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The intro is close, but the emphasis in the rest of the article gives very short shrift to the standard objections to cold fusion and very much attention to rebuttals to those objects. And yes, I know Jed is about to remind me that that's because the objections aren't substantive, but frankly from what I've learned so far that just doesn't seem to be true—and more importantly, a lot of scientists (like the DoE reviewers) didn't think so either. Thus I think the article as a whole still needs substantial work. -- SCZenz 05:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've made a few edits (mostly deletion) to the article which I hope will help make it more NPOV. So are quite bold so please review them. I think there is still a lot of work to be done before the NPOV tag can be removed. Jefffire 11:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

We are desperately in need of a serious anti-cold-fusion contributor, so maybe you are the one. Please state your case clearly, and if possible with sources. Pcarbonn 11:48, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

In my edit I was mostly removing the more blatent POV claims and rewording some passages. I would like to help make the article more NPOV but I don't have a great deal of knowledge on cold fusion myself so I will try to limit myself to removing POV and if possible reflecting the views of mainstream science rather than argueing the validity or otherwise of cold fusion. Jefffire 11:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

With regards to the newspaper articles, if we include every article in which cold fusion is refered to as bad science then we will have an article in itself so I recommmend we leave it out.

With regards to the comments about sciencce and nature a citation is vital. Just being rejected does not mean that you were rejected out of hand. For this comment to remain it needs to be verified. Does Science or Nature have an official policy on this? Jefffire 13:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Pcarbonn 14:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Jefffire writes:

"I would like to help make the article more NPOV but I don't have a great deal of knowledge on cold fusion myself so I will try to limit myself to removing POV and if possible reflecting the views of mainstream science . . ."

If, as you say, you do not have a great deal of knowledge on coldl fusion, how you possibly judge what is "NPOV"? This seems presumptuous to me, and downright weird. When the Sci. Am. asserts that "Not all chemical explanations for the excess heat were eliminated" how do you know whether that is a statement of fact, or a fabrication? I can give you about 100 papers showing that it is a fabrication, but if you have not read them yet, why should you believe me? And why should you believe them? They have not cited any literature. They have never mentioned a single paper or author in all their attacks.

Since you have not read the mainstream science papers in the electrochemical journals, how can you presume to know what they say?

The notion that people who know little or nothing about a subject can judge what is POV and what is mainstream is straight out of Alice-in-Wonderland. How do you determine who is right? With an Ouja board? By ESP? You have no rational basis for even discussing the subject, let alone judging it or editing this article. --JedRothwell 14:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at some of the comments which I have removed from the article. From the previous condition of the page one would think that Cold Fusion is an accepeted part of mainstream science. I admit that I don't know much about the subject, but I do know what POV is and the page is definately showing it. I am not here to debate the validity or otherwise of Cold Fusion, that needs to be done in the science community. If you believe that Science and Nature are deliberately suppressing Cold Fusion then you will need to prove it. Jefffire 14:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Nature's official policy, as described in their rejection letters to authors, is that cold fusion is pathological nonsense and fraud and they will not allow any paper, letter or rebuttal from any scientist. They have told this to dozens of scientists, including at least two Nobel laureates. Nature's editorial policy, pubilished in 1990 and repeated frequently after that, is the same, plus they add, the research should be suppressed with "mockery" and "vituperation." (They do not say that in the letters to authors.)

If you are looking for a citation, pick any statement published by Nature since mid 1989. There are dozens. You will find them listed in Mallove. I added one to the article which I think is enough, but I could add 20 more if you like. Their policy is no secret. --JedRothwell 14:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

You still need to show that they are rejecting papers without reviewing them, regardless of validity. It may be the case that every paper they have recieved has been faulty. Jefffire 14:42, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I need to show something that anyone can see by looking at the journals? I need to prove that the papers are absent? What kind of logic is that? Or are you suggesting that Nature actually published these papers but that fact has been kept secret?

Although the proof is manifest, you can see some of the rejection letters here, as I noted: http://blake.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/cf/88rejections.html. You can also ask any researcher. Or you can ask the people at Nature, or Sci. Am., or you can read the Sci. Am.'s editors letters to me: [9]

From the Sci. Am.'s editors letter it appears that they are rejecting these papers because they are based on a belief which is unproven, namely that cold fusion exists. Should they recieve a valid paper that proves cold fusion they would print it under this policy. This is a far cry from reject without review. Jefffire 15:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, this is confused. When I say papers are "rejected without review" I mean they are rejected summarily and not circulated for peer review. The Sci. Am. rejection letters state that cold fusion submissions are not peer reviewed. A paper submitted for peer-review may also be rejected, of course, but that would be "rejection after review."

You are correct that Sci. Am. rejects papers because they think these papers "are based on a belief which is unproven, namely that cold fusion exists." Also, as they told me and as they published many times, because they think cold fusion is pathological science, and it resembles Creationism. In other words, it has no scientific content; it makes no sense, and it is utterly impossible. That is what they say, so I am sure they believe it, and these are the reasons they reject papers.

Sci. Am. publishes many papers about unproven phonomena, so I think their rejection of cold fusion for this reason is unfair. --JedRothwell 16:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Or find a source for the official policy, that would reflect their current position following the 2004 DoE review. Pcarbonn 14:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Nature's official policy is what they publish in their editorials! What else would it be? They say that cold fusion is "notorious." They say it should be attacked. What more do you want them to say? Are you waiting for them to demand that cold fusion researchers be rounded up and sent to Gitmo? How much clearer can they make themselves? You are demanding proof that they mean what they have said in dozens of editorials. --JedRothwell 14:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

2005 Sci Am article

I've looked at the Sci Am links. The first one points to the article on the Sci Am web site . I looked at the article, and I would not qualify it as negative, but neutral. For example, it does recognize the possibility of excess heat, as the 2004 DoE does. Should we keep saying that the article is negative, in the intro ?

The second link [10] points to the LENR-CANR web site, which says that the printed copy of Sci Am had a side bar, and quotes some sentences from it. I wished that this sidebar was available on Sci Am site, but it isn't. It is indeed negative to cold fusion, and make some statements that are, as far as I know, not substantiated by the DOE report (eg. "Not all chemical explanations for the excess heat were eliminated"). Can anyone confirm that this side bar exists in the print copy ? Are there any sources cited by Sci Am for this statement ? If not, these statements seem unsubstantiated, and do not seem to deserve the same reputation as the quality articles signed from scientists that Sci Am publishes: how much can we trust them ? Shouldn't we represent the original DoE report that Sci Am is presumably reporting on, instead of Sci Am views on cold fusion ? Pcarbonn 21:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn writes:

"I looked at the article, and I would not qualify it as negative, but neutral."

I agree it is neutral. That is what our review at LENR-CANR says. (I did not write it, by the way. It was a group effort, with several researchers contributing.)

"The second link [11] points to the LENR-CANR web site, which says that the printed copy of Sci Am had a side bar, and quotes some sentences from it. I wished that this sidebar was available on Sci Am site, but it isn't."

Argh! What a shame they did not include it.

"Can anyone confirm that this side bar exists in the print copy ?"

I can, obviously. Do you think I made that up? You can confirm it at any library, or I can send you an image.

But why should you doubt it. Do you think I would get away with making this up? Some skeptic would have noticed by now. Heck, the people at Sci. Am. would have noticed. I probably irritate them more than they are willing to admit.

"Are there any sources cited by Sci Am for this statement ?"

Of course not! There never are. No skeptic ever cites sources, because there are none. Taubes wrote an entire book, 503 pages, without mentioning or citing a single scientific paper. It is probably a world record: an entire book supposedly about research without a single verifiable fact. It is painfully obvious from the text that he read no papers, and in an appendix he happily explains that the book is based on "telephone interviews" with a long list of people who despite cold fusion. (I know them all.) If you ever played the telephone game when you were a kid, where you whisper something to one person, and she wispers it to the next, and the next, you can begin to imagine how this book came out.

I was going to add Taubes to the "Controversy" article, but it seems cruel. He is such an embarrassment, even the skeptics do not deserve to be associated with him. He did, however, get endorsements from 4 Nobel laureates plus the head of the AAAS, so perhaps I should add him. I have only written a brief review of his book (part of this paper [12]), and I doubt anyone else ever reviewed him. Mercifully for the skeptics, his book is out of print. --JedRothwell 21:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

What about the Nature articles following the 2004 DoE review ? Were they also negative, or just neutral ? Do they reflect the DoE review correctly ? Unfortunately, I do not have access to them. Pcarbonn 10:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC) We say: "Nature and some other reputable science journals reject papers on the subject without reviewing them". What are our sources for this statement ? Do they still follow the same policy after the DoE review ? What are the other journals following that policy ? Pcarbonn 10:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn writes:

"What about the Nature articles following the 2004 DoE review?"

I am not a subscriber, but I doubt they published anything because someone would have sent me a copy. Their latest attack was in October 2005, when they described cold fusion as "notorious, and now largely discredited." The word "largely" is interesting.

Every statement they have made since mid-1989 has been an attack, and they have never allowed a rebuttal or letter by a cold fusion researcher. Nature's official policy is that cold fusion should be ridiculed and suppressed. In 1990, for example, they wrote: ". . . Would a measure of unrestrained mockery, even a little unqualified vituperation have speeded cold fusion's demise?"

"We say: 'Nature and some other reputable science journals reject papers on the subject without reviewing them.' What are our sources for this statement?"

Well, first there are the statements by Nature that cold fusion should be mocked and attacked. Add to that hundreds of statements by journals, magazines and newspapers that cold fusion was fraud and lunacy. They would never accept a paper they have publicly declared to be fraud. Also note that after 1990 researchers published hundreds of papers in proceedings, but few in journals. This was not because authors prefer proceeedings, but because they were shut out of the journals. (Skeptics would say they deserve to be shut out, but the point is, this is proof that they were.) If you want physical proof, every cold fusion researcher has a large stack of rejection letters. they have not published these rejection letters anywhere. Where would you expect them to publish such things? The only collection on line that I know of is here: http://blake.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/cf/88rejections.html. --JedRothwell 14:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you verify paper were scientifically and methodologically sound but were rejected because of a systematic bias on the part of the Journals? These two journals do have quite strict regulations. Jefffire 14:13, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Anyone can verify that. But it is, after all, partly a matter of opinion. Read the papers and decide for yourself. There are over 500 on line here: http://lenr-canr.org/index.html. You can see which ones appeared in conference proceedings only. If you think they have no merit, and they should not have appeared in journals, then you agree with the journal editors. If you think they are important and merit the attention of the wider scientific community, then you agree with the researchers.

I recommend you read Beaudette's book, as well.

Bear in mind that some of these papers are poorly edited, especially the ones by people who do not speak English as their first language. If they had been accepted by a journal, they would have been peer-reviewed and cleaned up. (Most rejection letters from journals say that no papers about cold fusion will be submitted to peer review. They are summarily rejected.) --JedRothwell 14:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not for me nor you to judge whether the papers were sound as this falls under 'original research'. Rather this is a question of whether the journals in question are rejecting papers out of hand even when they are sound. What is needed is a verifiable proof that of this. Jefffire 14:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Verifiable proof is that the papers are missing. Whether they are sound and deserve to be published or not is a matter of opinion. The editors at Nature say no, the researchers say yes. Also, the editors at JJAP and several other journals say yes. If you wish to determine which side is right, and whether the papers are sound or not, you will have to read them and think for yourself. There is no magic touchstone that can reveal merit in a scientific paper. --JedRothwell 15:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Good lord. I just dropped by because I often refer my students to Wikipedia articles, as they generally have good coverage of scientific subjects. This, alas, is not one of those articles. The article is very clearly slanted toward a particular point of view, and in essence accuses the vast majority of the scientific community of suppressing "real" research. I would particularly like to know why the quote about peer-reviewed journals rejecting legitimate research out of hand has been allowed to stand without any citation.

From the standpoint of a user, I have to say that this article doesn't meet encyclopedic standards. (Thus, I know, the "Non-neutral POV warning".) However, I thought it might be useful to point out to those voices defending the slant of the article that a scientist who *wanted* to discuss the controversy would certainly not use this article to do so, given the clear bias and unsupported claims of persecution. -- April 14:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

April writes:

". . .and in essence accuses the vast majority of the scientific community of suppressing 'real' research."

That is incorrect. Only a small number of people in the scientific community are suppressing cold fusion, mainly Park, Zimmerman and Huizenga. They brag about their activities at the APS, and perhaps they exaggerate their roles, but anyway they are the ones who take credit for harassing and firing researchers. There are a few others, of course. Officials at the DoE oppose it and have said they will never allow any research, [13], and officials at the Patent Office circulated a memo instructing patent examiners to filter out and reject all applications relating to cold fusion. (I can send you a copy, if you like.) The DoE and the Navy summarily fired some researchers, and reassigned others to menial jobs, ordering them not to talk on the telephone or attend conferences.

Second, as far as anyone can tell from public opinion polls and the like, the majority of the scientific community favors cold fusion research. Only a few noisy journals and magazines, especially Nature and Scientific American oppose it.

As to whether this is real research or not, this article presents evidence both in favor of that view and against it, allowing the reader to judge for himself.

The fact that cold fusion is suppressed as a matter of public record. The people who suppress it openly brag about their activities and they call for more suppression. They say it should be suppressed because it is pathological fraud. Whether they should be doing this or not is a matter of opinion. Again, the reader can decide. --JedRothwell 15:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I want to see evidence for the claim, "The DoE and the Navy summarily fired some researchers, and reassigned others to menial jobs, ordering them not to talk on the telephone or attend conferences." I'd also like to see quotes from any scientist who would "take credit for harassing and firing researchers." This is the sort of thing I mean by claims of persecution.

Most scientists do support research into any scientific subject. That's very, very different from the principle that scientists believe that valid evidence have show that a phenomenon has already been shown to exist. Again, the fact that you conflate the two very different matters is a loud warning bell that you're not interested in presenting a balanced argument.

Similarly with the patent office ban. The patent office is not a scientific institution for starters. They don't rule over whether a line of research is scientifically promising or valid. They're concerned with whether the designs sent them work or not. I believe they have banned all sorts of "free energy" and "perpetual motion" schemes, including claims of energy by cold fusion, because (a) they get so many, and (b) none that they've reviewed were ever shown to work. As a purely practical matter, they can't afford on their resources to keep reviewing these things. If the researchers were to produce a working model, I'm sure it would get their attention pronto. If you're claiming that science is being suppressed, this has no bearing whatsoever on that claim.

The bottom line is: the vast majority of the scientific community holds the simple premise that at this time, there has been no reliable evidence presented that energy can be generated through cold fusion.

It is the responsibility of researchers in the subject to present such evidence. That's how science works. Claiming that such evidence exists but is suppressed by a conspiracy of a few scientists plus the DOE is, frankly, not convincing - and certainly not when the evidence consists of the fact that the DOE won't fund it (they don't fund lots of things, including quite well-proven technologies) or that the patent office no longer reviews such patents.

Extensive and careful efforts were made to replicate the cold fusion results. Yet a large number of scientific institutions concluded that the results did not reliably support the concept of energy from cold fusion. That's the fact repeatedly glossed over by this article. Indeed, it seems to have large swathes of text dedicated to making excuses for the fact, and arguing that cold fusion should be treated differently from any other non-replicable result.

I don't state that the article should say that no intriguing results on cold fusion exist. But currently, it reads as an essay supporting the argument "cold fusion has been shown to exist", which is not the case. The results are ambiguous at the very best, and the article does not at all reflect that ambiguity. You can say all day that "it's for the reader to decide", but that's disingenuous when you present the reader with a highly slanted argument!

To be a properly encyclopedic article, I would recommend:

(1) Remove all phrases to the tune of "waaah, such-and-such doesn't publish cold fusion claims", or the other material I've characterized as "claims of persecution" above. Like I said, it only reenforces the idea of "persecution by The Man", which is one of the hallmarks of pseudoscience. If you want cold fusion research to be taken seriously, I very honestly advise you not to adopt the language of pseudoscience!

(2) Be straightforward about how controversial this claim is. Say straight out that most institutions found the Pons and Fleischmann result not to be replicable, and that the scientific community as a whole concluded that there was not enough evidence. BUT it would be legitimate to follow such statements with, "New results, however, have re-opened the issue with some intriguing possibilities...", stressing current results shown to be replicable. -- April 16:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)