Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 7

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Please stop using conditional grammar incorrectly! 2 Totally disputed 3 Reputable sources 4 In defense of the new introduction 5 We need a new article, like "Creation-evolution controversy" 6 totallydisputed tag 7 Reply to James S's note on my talk page 8 Specific NPOV problems 9 systematic bias 10 please keep POV tag until the tagger is satisfied 11 on the subject of NPOV 12 Restructure to avoid repetitions 13 Intro progressing, but some comments 14 NPOV, finally ? 15 2005 Sci Am article 16 On the funny side 17 to summarize the recent conversation 18 Scientific Acceptance? 19 Is there a controversy around cold fusion ? 20 Please stop adding imaginary nonsense to this article. 21 Totally disputed and OR tags replaced with POV alone 22 Intro again 23 Please use units of power and energy correctly

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)

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" [1].

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 [2], ... 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 [3]. 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)

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)

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)

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. [4])

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)

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)

I am qualified to dispute the neutrality of your comments. Your personal standards are irrelevant, since this is not your website. -- SCZenz 20:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone is qualified to dispute anything. It is a free country. The thing is, you have no factual or logical basis to dispute me. Anyone who understands the technical issues will see that you do not. You are making a fool out of yourself and you are making me look good in contrast, but as I said it is a free country so go ahead. --JedRothwell 01:43, 23 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. [5][6] (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)

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)

Jefffire wrote:

From the previous condition of the page one would think that Cold Fusion is an accepeted part of mainstream science.

Cold fusion is an accepted part of mainstream science, if you define "mainstream science" as that which is published in peer-reviewed professional electrochemistry journals, the JJAP and so on. It is not part of mainstream science if you count only Nature and Scientific American, and ignore 100 or 200 professional journals. Take your pick: is J. Electroanal. Chem. "mainstream" or is Nature the only arbitor of truth?

I think it would be most accurate to say that "mainstream science" is divided on this issue, as it is on many others. Disputes are common in academia, after all.

"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."

This is a contradiction. It is impossible for you to "know" any such thing. Since, as you say, you don't know much, that means you have no basis for judging whether the editors at Nature are right, or whether the editors at JJAP and J. Electroanal. Chem. are right. This is a technical discussion. What makes you think you know more than the editors at JJAP? How can you tell they are wrong? Because you have not read the literature, you cannot tell what is POV opinion and what is objective fact established by replicated experiment. You cannot write anything in support of cold fusion, or in opposition to it. An ignorant person can have no valid opinion about a scientific subject. You are not qualified. Since this is Wikipedia, you are free to write whatever you want, but anyone familliar with the literature can see that you are only adding chaos, confusion, and unsupported, bigoted POV statements that parrot widely-held misconceptions about cold fusion. --JedRothwell 16:25, 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, published in 1990 [no citation needed -- anyone familiar with the field will know this] 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: [7]

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.

By the way, please stop asking for citations for facts that are common knowledge. If this were an article about the American Revolution, you would not be demanding proof that George Washington commanded the U.S. Army. Anyone the least bit familliar with cold fusion is well aware of Nature's stance and their editorials. If you do not know about these things, please read Nature, or Mallove. --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)

Not all of wikipedia's readers are intimately familure with Nature. Please provide a citation for the claim. Jefffire 18:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I stuffed that into the article already. Here is the full ref from EndNote: Lindley, D., The Embarrassment of Cold Fusion. Nature (London), 1990. 344: p. 375. He also said "what was reprehensible a year ago has become absurd." What a charming guy! --JedRothwell 20:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed, this was in 1990: what evidence do we have that Nature has not changed his mind since 1990 ? DoE 2004 said that experiments similar to the F & P are unlikely to advance the understanding of the phenomenon --> are you sure that the papers submitted to Nature are sufficiently different from F & P experiments ? If a paper was sufficiently different from F & P, could we conceive that it could be accepted by Nature ? In that case, the statement "all cold fusion paper submitted to Nature are rejected without review" would not be valid, and should be removed. Pcarbonn 20:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn writes:

Jed, this was in 1990: what evidence do we have that Nature has not changed his mind since 1990 ?

We have their latest attack in 2005. (There may be more recent ones I overlooked.) Plus they do not acknowledge or respond to letters about cold fusion from any scientist, included two Nobel laureates. All letters & submissions are met with dead silence. That is a clear signal!

". . . experiments similar to the F & P are unlikely to advance the understanding of the phenomenon -->"

This DoE comment was authored by Steve Jones who wants very much to crush Fleischmann and Pons by pretending that cold fusion cells produce only neutrons, not heat. It has nothing to do with "understanding" and everything to do with politics. The DoE and Nature have both rejected all forms of cold fusion, including ion beam loading, gas loaded transmutation, tritium and hydrogen from gas loaded Ti, neutrons from metal lattices and so on. At least on the face of it, these have little to do with the original claims. In my opinion they have everything to do with the original claims, but the neutrons especially are what Steve Jones has in mind and what he fondly hopes the DoE will fund. (He is living in a dream world. Hell will freeze over before they fund any such thing.)

"If a paper was sufficiently different from F & P, could we conceive that it could be accepted by Nature?"

Nature will recognize any paper that mentions nuclear reactions in metal lattices, and they will instantly reject it. They hate Jones and his neutrons as much as they hate Fleischmann and Pons. --JedRothwell 23:32, 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 [8] 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 [9] 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 [10]), 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, [11], 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.

The suppression is not part of the article, and it should not be. If you want to learn this sordid history, you will have to contact the DoE, the Navy and the researchers they have fired. (I can give your names by e-mail.) If you want quotes from Zimmerman and Park taking credit for the witch hunt, you can attend the next APS session they host, or ask them. Believe me, they love to brag about it.

Nature and Sci. Am.'s gleeful attacks and their calls for suppression are easy to find, if you subscribe to their on line versions. Or read Mallove. --JedRothwell 16:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

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.

You are correct. Extensive and careful efforts were indeed made, and by September 1990, 92 groups of researchers from 10 different countries reported positive replications. [12] Subsequently hundreds more did. A few institutions failed to replicate in early 1989, but this has no significance. The three biggest "failed" replications of 1989, at MIT, Caltech and Harwell were all subsequently shown to be positive. See: [13] [14] [15] [16] --JedRothwell 16:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

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)

I strongly challenge "the scientific community as a whole concluded that there was not enough evidence". Please read the 2004 DoE report carefully before judging POV. Half the reviewers were somewhat convinced by evidence of the generation of excess heat, even if they don't attribute it to nuclear reaction. You can't ignore this, and the article must reflect the 2004 DoE report fairly, because it is the most recent review that has been published. Pcarbonn 16:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

On the funny side

Wired had an interesting article on Wikipedia: [17]

QUOTE:

But why should I contribute to an article [to Wikipedia]? I'm no expert.

That's fine. The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: 'Experts are scum.' For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment.

So, let's have some humility in what we are doing, please. Pcarbonn 17:19, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

to summarize the recent conversation

between Jeffire, April, Jed etc al, and respond to some points:

• Jeffire: "don't have to be an expert to judge POV" - this is somewhat true, but mostly not true. POV is primarily in the form of mis-representation. In the most obvious case when something is claimed but no evidence is given to support it, or evidence is claimed to support it which in fact does not support it, or if no evidence *could* be reasonably given - sure, you don't have to be an expert to notice that. The more subtle case of POV is a matter of either (a) omitting or deephasizing/hiding important facts or (b) subtly slanting things in a direction which is not representative, even though no outright falsehoods are stated. For these two cases, well, you do have to be pretty familiar with the subject matter. It is a judgement call, unfortunately.

• Jeffire&April: "need to show that they are rejecting papers without reviewing them" Jed: "everyone knows they are" - yes, people familiar with the field know that, but I think uploading a rejection letter that states the paper was rejected without peer review purely because of the general subject area and not because of its specific scientific merits would be nice. I'd very much love a photocopy of something like that, and we can perhaps include some quotes in the article. Jed, can we get something like that? Especially something was sent to a well-known researcher ;)

• April: "scientific community as a whole concluded that there was not enough evidence" - that is *exactly* the kind of unsubstantiable, POV claim that I for one would like to keep out of this article. The most prominent fact about cold fusion is, that there simply has not been any (that i know of, at least) peer-reviewed critical paper since approximately 1991-93 (and I would challenge you to prove me wrong about this). There are peer-reviewed papers (maybe a lot fewer than there should be considering the potential importance of the field, but whatever), published in impeccable journals, and they are all positive. There are also plenty of non-peer reviewed editorials, articles in the mass media, etc etc which are mostly negative - there just aren't any negative peer-reviewed papers. That's the facts. Now you may say that is because all "real" researchers are so disgusted with the subject they don't even bother to debunk it any more, but - the papers still get published, and they tend to be solid, actually I would say in some cases damn near bulletproof (just my opinion, but nonetheless). Finally, if you read the DoE review, insofar that has a consensus conclusion, that would be that (a) we believe the experimental evidence for CF describes a real phenomenon and not experimental error, at least there's no way to dismiss it as such, but (b) we refuse to believe it is fusion because that is "theoretically impossible", even though any other explanation must be even more impossible ... don't believe me? go read the detailed comments from the reviewers on that panel and you'll come to your own conclusion.

• April: "remove claims of persecution" - unfortunately, the persecution is quite real. That's a can't-win situation, obviously: if you point out the persecution, you're dismissed as a crank. If you don't, well, you get persecuted some more ;) Perhaps instead of removing such claims, we should just carefully document/source them?

I fully support the idea to document claims of persecution. My proposal would be to write articles on cold fusion at Nature magazine, cold fusion at the American Physical Society, cold fusion at the US Department of Energy, ...: they would list all articles, editorials, press release, letters, or other statement from officials (listing their position in their organisation), with a brief summary and relevant quotes, in a NPOV way. A lot of encyclopedic work, but well worth it. We could then link to it from cold fusion, Nature (magazine), American Physical Society, ... in order to give it more visibility. Pcarbonn 07:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I too support a section about claims of persecution. Jefffire 09:09, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Pcarbonn - creating individual articles for each of those is probably overkill. I just wanted to have a collection of such things available somewhere, and link to it in passing. Or maybe go into somewhat greater depth at "Cold fusion controversy"? ObsidianOrder 11:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Article is overkill, section is appropriat. A comment on all the various charges of alledged oppression and the journals involved and who alledges it. Anything else is OR and/or POV as this allegation is not given a whole lot of credence outside of the cold fusion community. Jefffire 11:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Jeffire - I agree that we shouldn't spend too much time or space on this. However: you say "this allegation is not given a whole lot of credence outside of the cold fusion community" - what makes you think that? (and how do you define "cold fusion comminuty" anyway? how large is it?) In fact the opposite seems quite easy to support with sources, such as [18], which specifically address the problem of "pathological skepticism" in science citing cold fusion as an example. ObsidianOrder 12:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Being regard as a pathological science doesn't prove that cold fusion papers are being discriminated against. A quick round of questioning my collegues reveals little to no belief in cold fusion. I haven't heard of any cold fusion research at the Physic departement of my university either. A lack of publishing in the more respected journals heavily suggests that this is not an accepted part of physic. Wikipedia is not the place to initiate a scientific revolution. Complete the revolution, then come back to report it on the article. Until that happens this is all POV. Jefffire 12:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Jefffire says "this is not an accepted part of physics". This calls for 2 comments: what if it was an accepted part of electrochemistry instead ? Couldn't we report it ? This is the old "chemist vs physicist" debate. Also, please review the DoE 2004 report. Why would half the reviewers say that they were somewhat convinced by evidence of excess heat ? Are you suggesting that DoE is not a respected institutions ?

From the DoE report article - ..two-thirds of the reviewers did not feel that the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reaction.

I don't understand how that translates into scientific acceptance. I also would not give a DoE panel the same level of respect I would give a respected science journal as I am not convinced that the DoE's criteria for being on this panel were sufficiently rigourus. Jefffire 13:16, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

"doesn't prove that cold fusion papers are being discriminated against" - the specific source I cited (there are more) is very prominent, outside the CF community (however you define that), and definitely thinks that cold fusion papers are being discriminated against. You said that nobody outside CF thinks there is discrimination; I gave you a counter-example. "little to no belief in cold fusion" - I thought this was a physics article? As such, belief is irrelevant - well, it may be reported briefly under some kind of "popular opinions" section if you can find a source to cite for it. "lack of publishing in the more respected journals" - true to some extent, one would perhaps expect a lot more papers. However, is absurd to suggest that a lot of the journals which have recently published such papers are not well-respected (JJAP? Naturwiss?). "not the place to initiate a scientific revolution" - indeed, we should report accurately what has been published elsewhere. In particular, we should avoid unsubstantiable, sweeping claims. I wrote earlier exactly what I think we can reasonably say, let me just write it again: "that some very influential journals such as SciAm and Nature, as well as many mass media outlets, have a negative view of CF as pseudoscientific; and that there is a relatively small number of recent peer-reviewed papers, mostly published in a relatively small number of highly reputable journals, the bulk of which papers strongly support CF claims" ObsidianOrder 22:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

(how about the refusal to publish Schwinger by the APS? That was a really shameful episode. I would point for background you to [19], in which Schwinger writes "My first attempt at publication, for the record, was a total disaster. "Cold Fusion: A Hypothesis" was written to suggest several critical experiments, which is the function of hypothesis. The masked reviewers, to a person, ignored that, and complained that I had not proved the underlying assumptions. Has the knowledge that physics is an experimental science been totally lost? ... The paper was submitted, in August 1989, to Physical Review Letters. I anticipated that PRL would have some difficulty with what had become a very controversial subject, but I felt an obligation to give them the first chance. What I had not expected--as I wrote in my subsequent letter of resignation from the American Physical Society--was contempt.")

(also: Storms wrote this [20] extremely fact-rich review of CF and submitted it to Physical Review, Review of Modern Physics, Chemical Review and Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. He describes the results: " The editor of the first journal said the Phys. Rev. does not publish reviews, although this is not true if the subject is to their liking. The editor of the second journal rejected the paper with the comment ‘Cold fusion is a classic example of pathological science. I will certainly not publish articles supporting its disproven claims.’ Three of four reviewers of the third journal rejected the paper because they did not think cold fusion is real and could not trust me to be unbiased in arguing this belief. The fourth journal rejected it because "the subject was not appropriate for the journal."" Note that the review is currently published on Brian Josephson's website...)

(finally: see the treatment of Bockris at A&M as described in [21] (pg2-3) and elsewhere. This is real, not "crying wolf" or as you say dismissively "waaah")

ObsidianOrder 23:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a good representative sample of summary rejection letters. Not sure why you need more, but I recall that Miles, Mizuno and Szpak used to have a bunch. They may have trashed them, but I'll ask. Nature once issued a famous, hilarious rejection letter. I have a copy of that one, and I still get a chuckle out of it. Miles wrote a 1-page critique of the Nature paper by N. Lewis (CalTech). This was one of the "big three" null experiments the supposedly debunked cold fusion in 1989. Miles showed that Lewis made an error and the experiment actually generated heat. (Here is a layman's summary by me: [22]). The paper came flying back with a letter saying "we submitted this to peer review and it failed." The peer review comments were attached, as normal. There was only one sheet, from one reviewer, and it was none other than . . . N. Lewis. As I recall, it was not signed (which is customary) but it said things like "Miles fails to understand my technique . . ." In other words, Nature graciously allowed Lewis to review and reject a critique of his own work. That's gotta be a first! - Jed

Jed - I think it would be extremely helpful to have at least a few of those letters scanned in and available somewhere, and possibly use a quote from them in the article. (Perhaps they can be anonymized if the authors would feel more comfortable with that?) Yes, the fact that such are extremely common is obviously well known to people in the field. However, to those outside the field, this can serve as a very important piece of evidence showing that the field is still not getting a fair hearing. For example, if an author sends a paper to Phys Rev and gets a rejection notice saying "we don't publish CF papers", and then proceeds to send the same paper to JJAP or Naturwiss and it gets published, well it would be pretty obvious to most people that the Phys Rev editors are out of line. And so forth. The key points are (1) the stated reason for the rejection is not any specific quality of the submitted work but merely its general topic and (2) the work gets rejected summarily, without peer review and (3) despite that, there is objective proof that the work has scientific merit (either because the author is really famous, or because the work later gets published elsewhere). ObsidianOrder 11:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll see if the researchers can dig up something, but frankly this discussion gives me the willies. I do not like authoritarian talk and morality dragged into science by either side. You wrote:

"For example, if an author sends a paper to Phys Rev and gets a rejection notice saying 'we don't publish CF papers', and then proceeds to send the same paper to JJAP or Naturwiss and it gets published, well it would be pretty obvious to most people that the Phys Rev editors are out of line."

They are not "out of line." Stupid, maybe. Closed minded. Third-class academic hacks? Sure! But it is their journal, and their job to edit it. We have no business telling them what standards they should apply. If they want to reject authors with names starting A through M in months with R in them, that's their decision and I do not give a fig about it. It is obvious that they have rejected cold fusion, and they have made their reasons for doing so abundantly clear. In my opinion, that makes them fools. Skeptics think that makes them wise. So skeptics will subscribe and I will not. End of story.

If these journals were being run with tax money, I would insist on fairness and rationality, but privately published journals such as Nature should be free to make fools of themselves however they please. They do not tell me how to run LENR-CANR and I do not tell them how to run Nature.

There is too much legalistic rule-bound litigation-crazy nonsense creeping into science these days. Take Taleyarkhan for example. Some of his academic rivals disagree with him, which is what rivals have done since science began. In the old days they would have done experiments to disprove him, or tried to poke holes in his papers. They would circulate nasty rumors about him during academic conferences. Nowadays, they concoct charges of academic malfeasance and convene a kangaroo court to get him fired instead. That is what happened to many CF researchers, and I am sick of hearing about it. People who disagree should do their own research and write their own papers, instead calling in lawyers and judges.

Finally, I think it is silly to try to judge the merit of a paper by asking which journals accept it and which reject it. This is not how science is done. History shows that many important ideas were rejected by all journals. On the other hand, lots of schlock sails through peer-review and is published every year. Peer-review and journals are useful, but not perfect. They are not magic touchstones that unfailingly reveal the truth. They are nothing more than groups of people doing their jobs, like bankers or architects. People are fallible, so banks go bankrupt, and buildings fall down, and journal editors make grievous mistakes. I think the editors of Nature are fools, while those are JJAP open minded, fair and learned. A skeptic says it is the other way around. Who is right? Ultimately, the only way you can judge is to read the paper, and think for yourself. If you do not understand the experiment well enough to judge, then you must admit that you have no reason to support either side, and you do not know who is right. In my opinion, you have no business discussing the matter, except to ask questions. --JedRothwell 02:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Jed - I wholeheartedly agree, philosophically speaking. Yes, you're right about kangaroo courts etc. Appeal to authority is never a very good argument. But it can be used just as well by both sides - after all, the stuff does get published, and in damn good journals too. I never intended to suggest that we should tell anyone how to run their own journal. However, surely there can be nothing wrong with accurately describing how they run it and what criteria they apply, in their own words? ObsidianOrder 06:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

ObsidianOrder writes:

"However, surely there can be nothing wrong with accurately describing how they run it and what criteria they apply, in their own words?"

I see your point. That's a darn good idea. If the researchers have tossed or lost their reject letters, which were from 10 or 15 years ago, why not use the samples you have here? Also I still have Nature's "peer-review" done by the author of the article being critiqued. That is extraordinary. I'll bet that's the only time in the history of Nature they have pulled that stunt! It is proof that they have made a mockery of the peer-review process, and it is also hilarious -- a win-win argument. --JedRothwell 18:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Scientific Acceptance?

I'm creating a heading for the discussion that cold fusion has scientific acceptance. Since this differs from the opinion of all the scientists I have discussed this with I would like to hear what the arguements that there is wide scientific acceptance of Cold-fusion despite the alledged suppression. Jefffire 13:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anybody here would say that there is wide scientific acceptance of cold fusion. In fact, it is very important to distinguish the excess heat effect from its nuclear origin. There are many indications that the excess heat effect becomes more and more accepted by scientists. The DoE 2004 review clearly goes in that direction, compared to the 1989 review. On the other hand, the nuclear origin is largely rejected. So, this is very much a debate of electrochemists against physicists. Maybe this should be a new science, just like the discovery of radium helped understand radioactivity. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get away from the "cold fusion" term, which does not seem appropriate. Pcarbonn 14:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I recall something about lower stage hydrogen but that seemed even more controversial. Do we have a more scientifically respected source for the acceptance of increased energy claims? Jefffire 14:10, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know anything about this "lower stage hydrogen" story. Please explain. Pcarbonn 14:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The advocate seemed to believe that the electrons in the hydrogen were moving to a base level which was below that which was thought possible. It seemed fairly unlikely. Jefffire 14:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe that refers to R. Mills. His views are not widely shared by cold fusion researchers. He does not speak for them, or vice versa. On the contrary, there appears to be a good deal of animosity between them, I gather because he claims their results are impossible and he does not believe them. I am not familiar with his work or his claims. That's what some CF researchers tell me. Whatever he is, I would not call him an "advocate" any more than I would call Steve Jones an advocate. --JedRothwell 01:07, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I still do not see how this has anything to do with DoE. Another point: the absence of article in Nature is no proof of rejection by scientists, but only of disinterest. I would expect a rejection by scientists to be firmly argumented in a peer-reviewed paper. Apparently, there are none. Pcarbonn 14:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm using it as an example of proposed explaination for excess heat that isn't cold fusion. There is an infinitum of hypothesis which don't have explicit printed counter-arguements. To be regarded as accepted there has to be a large volume of papers printed in respected journals like Science and Nature. I understand that bias is alledged on their parts, so you would have to prove to the scientific community that this is happening before wikipedia can report it as fact. Jefffire 14:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, otherwise its no different than the allegations of bias made by creationists. JoshuaZ 14:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

No, it is quite different. Creationsts obviously don't do experimental science ;) Also, the bias is quite obvious and well documented: for example, a paper submitted to one journal is rejected because of its subject area and nothing else, and then accepted by another journal, it is pretty obvious the first journal was biassed, no? ObsidianOrder 22:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Jeffire - I have never suggested that CF should be described here as "scientifically accepted" whatever precisely you mean by that - only that it is an active, ongoing controversy, and by no means decided one way or the other yet. I think most editors here would agree.

What exactly do you mean by acceptance? First I think it is extremely important to clearly distinguish between the question of whether CF is real from the question of whether the study of it is scientific. I'd guess that if you were to do a poll of physicists, you might get something like 10% real, 60% don't know/not sure, 30% not real in response to the first question. So, is it accepted in the sense of "everybody knows" kind of solidly established theory/science fact in popular opinion? Of course not, and nobody is trying to suggest that (but I would posit that neither is it solidly rejected).

The other question, of whether the study of it is scientific - well, clearly a lot of the people who are studying it have excellent credentials and scientific reputations from other fields, they are doing pretty straighforward (if not necessarily easy) experiments, and publishing the results under peer review - so it is pretty much scientific by definition. However some editorial boards seem to disagree with that, insisting (apparently) that CF is an inherently non-scientific field.

"you would have to prove to the scientific community that this is happening before wikipedia can report it as fact" - nope to both parts of that - we shouldn't (and don't want to) to report anything as "fact", and we don't have to (and can't) prove anything here - we merely report what reputable sources have said elsewhere. Can we prove that those sources said/published that, on both sides, and that they are reputable? Certainly, I don't think any of that's in question.

"an infinitum of hypothesis which don't have explicit printed counter-arguements" - this is not a hypothesis, it is a large body of experimental results. They may all be due to various forms of experimental error (unlikely, but possible). The thing is that nobody has bothered to explain in a peer-reviewed paper how such errors are possible, given the design of the experiments. Therefore, the experiments, while still not very widely replicated, and perhaps published in somewhat obscure journals, still stand as the only recent substantive thing about CF we can report. This is about experimental observations, not a theory (and yes, there are a few theories floating around). The fact that there is no good theory to explain an observation should never be used as a reason to reject the observation, that's not science. ObsidianOrder 22:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

ObsidianOrder wrote:

The fact that there is no good theory to explain an observation should never be used as a reason to reject the observation, that's not science.

I agree that is not science, but it should be noted that several prominient scientists disagree. I listed and quoted some of them in the Controversy article. They include Huizenga, Close, Feshbach and Lindey (ed. Nature). These people should be included in an article about cold fusion because they have major roles in the history of the field. They have written books that clearly state that an observation without a supporting theory is invalid, and that is why they reject cold fusion. Also, Huizenga said that excess heat beyond chemistry is a priori impossible and any experiment that demonstrates such heat must be a mistake. (He told me he was certain of this before he was placed in charge of the ERAB panel, and "that's why they picked me, to get rid of this [garbage] quickly.") These people are serious, so we should respect and report their views, even though they are unconventional.

This sort of thing belongs in the Controversy article, I think. --JedRothwell 01:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a controversy around cold fusion ?

It looks to me that some editors here believe that there is just no controversy around cold fusion: they would say "it is so obvious that cold fusion does not exist". So the question is not whether cold fusion is accepted by science, but whether there is a scientific controversy around it. (To me, it seems obvious that there is a controversy, and that the article should reflect it) What are the evidence that there is no controversy ? Pcarbonn 13:14, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

There certainly does not seem to be a serious scientific controversy around cold fusion. I have not read about promising cold fusion experiments in the paper, in the news, or in the journals. I have never heard any serious scientist discussing cold fusion except as a perjoritive. It is not recieving the funding, attention or credence that one would expect if there was a serious controversy. Jefffire 17:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The DOE Review and the ongoing research and positive evaluation from, say, the naval laboratories seems to imply that the issue is not as settled scientifically as many people believe. I agree that mainstream scientists, and those who claim to speak for them, do not seem to be reconsidering the issue at this time—so in that sense there is no serious controversy. -- SCZenz 17:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz writes:

"I agree that mainstream scientists . . . do not seem to be reconsidering the issue at this time . . ."

That is true about most parts of the U.S. In Italy, the National Senate voted funding for cold fusion. In China, Israel, Iran and many other countries there is great interest. Let's not limit our worldview to the U.S. alone. To say there is no conflict is absurd. In any case, this article is about the conflict, so what on earth is the point of eliminating all statements made by cold fusion researchers? That would be like writing about the Civil War and not mentioning the Confederacy. --JedRothwell 18:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm British. There's nothing going on here either. I also watch international news, as is the style in Britain. Nothing yet. Jefffire 18:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Jefffire writes:

"I'm British. There's nothing going on here either."

Izzat so? Well if you hear anything, let me know. You will not find anything on the international news or other mass media. --JedRothwell 18:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I follow a lot of Israeli news sources and I don't recall anything there either. JoshuaZ 20:51, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not controversial in Israel or Italy as far as I know. They are doing good research there and publishing papers and nobody complains. I guess you could say there is no controversy because it was settled in favor of CF. That does indicate a difference of opinion with the U.S. DoE and Nature. --JedRothwell 00:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I checked the definition of controversy, and indeed, I would agree that there is no controversy today, because there is very little arguing now (except here !). But there certainly was a controversy in the past, wouldn't you agree ? It would thus be OK to report it accurately, no ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pcarbonn (talk • contribs).

Certainly. There is absolutely no doubt that there was a controvesy in the late 80's to early 90's. Jefffire 20:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz said above: "the issue is not as settled scientifically as many people believe" So, are we saying that parties were arguing about it, that the discussions stopped, and that the subject is still not settled scientifically ? Pcarbonn 21:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm about to adapt the intro to reflect this last point. Has anybody an objection ? Pcarbonn 10:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

There isn't controversy in mainstream science.

SCZenz said I agree that mainstream scientists, and those who claim to speak for them, do not seem to be reconsidering the issue at this, so in that sense there is no serious controversy. Jefffire 11:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, it looks like we agree. I would thus propose to change "The subject has been controversial ever since" sentence of the intro by something like: "This announcement generated a strong controversy at the time, but the debate abated quickly. Recent events suggest however that the issue has not been fully settled scientifically". The last sentence is supported by the 2004 DOE report, the Naval report of 2002, as mentionned by SCZenz, and the fact that many peer-reviewed journals report articles on it. If it was settled scientifically, like N-ray or other pathological science examples, we would not have that many scientists still argueing about it. Pcarbonn 12:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree it isn't settled in the sense of N-ray but we must be careful not to overhype the amount of controvery as it is still not that great (it may increase shortly, I don't know). The DoE did return a majority verdict that there was no conclusive evidence for cold fusion. Jefffire 12:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

How would you suggest to put it ? Could you propose a change to the sentence I proposed ? Pcarbonn 13:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Please stop adding imaginary nonsense to this article.

Nrcprm2026 added the following to the article:

There have been no published experimental results suggesting that cold fusion can generate more than a small amount of power; usually no more than about a few watts above the same input power in tabletop-sized cells for a few weeks at most, using expensive precious metals and requiring lengthy set-up times.

This is complete, utter, 100% certified imaginary nonsense. Anyone familiar with the literature will know this is nonsense. Nrcprm2026 must have concocted this from scratch as he typed, or he read it in some Internet gossip group. I replaced this paragraph with some actual facts from the experimental literature, with a couple of links. That's FACTS -- confirmed, replicated, measured-in-a-laboratory-and-reported FACTS. Please restrict your statements in this article to FACTS that you can back up. Do not invent random stuff and try to pass it off as fact. This is an encyclopedia, not a creative writing course. If you have not read the literature and you have no clue what has been reported, don't try to fool the rest of us, or the public. The public reads actual cold fusion papers these days: 5,000 to 6,000 per week at LENR-CANR in the U.S., and many more in our Chinese mirror site at Tsinghua U. You are only making yourself look dumb when you add skeptical fairytales.

I do not mind when you people add stuff like "the vast majority of scientists think cold fusion does not exist" or "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Anyone can see that stuff is bather that cannot be defined or falsified. But stop pretending you know something about the actual science, and stop erasing verified matters of fact. You haven't read the literature, you know nothing, and you are not fooling anyone. Stick to politics and empty rhetoric. I encourage you to add as much of that as you like. It makes us look good. --JedRothwell 03:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Figure 10 from Roulette, et al. (1996) Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments Run at IMRA Europe as cited in recent edit to article's intro.

I'm entriely convinced that the effect is real, and I've been trying to keep up with the literature, at least the peer-reviewed portion of it. My understanding is that the best results are considerably less promising than the way you describe them. On that note, how does [23], from which the chart to the right is taken, support the statement, "In dozens of published experiments, power levels exceeding 100 watts at boiling temperatures have been sustained for up to 158 days, and power density was greater than a conventional fission reactor"? It looks pretty clearly to me that you have cited a report of about 0.2% excess power over a period of 40 days, which took more than 70 days to get started, and that seems very much closer to my description of which you complain than the text you replaced it with. I have always respected the extent to which you have stood up for the truth in the face of blistering criticism, but this recent edit of yours does not look at all honest to me. --James S. 06:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, perhaps I just don't understand that Figure 10. So, here are excerpts from the table of the last seven experiments reported on page 9:

Experiment	Time (days)	Excess power
1	94	0%
2	134	0%
3	158	130% (30d)
4	123	250% (70d)
5	123	0%
6	47	"Variable"
7	60	0%

So, discounting the vaguely-reported experiment 6, that amounts to 692 days, of which only 100 saw any excess power production, amounting to an overall mean of just 30% excess power, much less than the 100% gain my statement implies. In a 94 mL electrolyte cell, with 26.5 grams of platinum electrode ($960 at today's prices.) Are those kinds of numbers really promising to anyone? --James S. 06:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

James - I read the paper. I wish it provided a lot more detail about the raw data and the way the analysis was done, but if you look at the summary on pg.9 it very clearly shows excess power up to a hundred watts over a period of hours and tens of watts averaged over the entire lifetime of the experiment (that's experiment #3, 294MJ total excess energy, 158 days). That's a huge amount of energy, easily enough to very quickly boil off the entire contents of the cell without good active cooling. Regarding the "fission reactor" bit, 100W excess in a cell with 90ml volume gives you roughly 1.1MW/m^3 power density - it's in the right ballpark. I think Jed is quite correct in everything he claimed about that paper. Whether the paper is accurate is another question, of course, but I think that much excess power would be quite hard to put down to inaccuracy. ObsidianOrder 06:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

For starters, why is there no mention of such "dozens of published experiments" in the peer-reviewed literature? If this Icarus-9 report is the best of the bunch, then there just isn't much hope. Secondly, calculating a power density based on peak production from a series of experiments that didn't do anything most of the time is not my idea of honesty -- it is the kind of thing which gives cold fusion researchers a bad name.

P.S. that's palladium not platinum btw, and there's only 3.8 grams of it in experiments 1-5 unless my math is wrong - that's $43 at today's prices, thus $0.53/kWh or $0.43/W capacity from the best run. Not great compared to conventional power sources, obviously, but the electrode is not consumed, you should be able to just cold-roll or recast it, so the long-term cost would be much less as well. Of course this is all extremely premature since we really don't have a very good idea of what affects the reaction, or how to keep it going indefinitely, but it is quite promising. ObsidianOrder 07:06, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I got a decimal wrong when computing the cylinder volume and used the price of platinum instead of palladium, my mistake. But again, you are using the "best run." Using the whole series, the power density is closer to 0.2 MW/m^3, and the cost closer to $2/W. Aren't you at all bothered by the ethical implications of having to cherry-pick good runs out of a series in order to show any real promise? --James S. 17:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I think it is reasonable to expect that a future commercial installation would be at least as good as the best run of an early lab apparatus. Have a look at Chicago Pile-1 vs modern reactors, for example. For a practical application, you would really need some way to reduce the energy cost of deuterium loading - high-pressure gas is probably much more promising than electrolysis. If you can do that, and have it run reliably - the cost and energy density are already quite good for a lot of applications. ObsidianOrder 01:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

You and Jed may very well assume that a future commercial installation would be at least as good as the best run of an early lab apparatus, but without any verifiable reason to think so, that assumption is not more than wishful thinking without any basis in fact. And historical analogies with other technologies don't cut it. It's not scientific, or source-supported, and any statements in the article based on that assumption violate Wikipedia's WP:V and WP:NOR policies. As far as Wikipedia articles are concerned, the assumption is, as Jed put it, "is complete, utter, 100% certified imaginary nonsense." --James S. 02:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

James - I think you misunderstand me. I have not suggested that what I wrote above about "future commercial installation" etc should be in the article, of course. I think it is a reasonable supposition, but of course it does not belong in an encyclopedia. Neither does speculation to the contrary. If you look through talk you'll see I have always been opposed to any discussion of the practicality of commercial application, pro or con, because I think it is quite premature. If the effect can be made reliable, I think optimizing a design for cost of construction/operation should be a straightforward engineering problem. But we simply have no idea what the limitations that will have to work with are. As I have said, in the days of Curie, someone might have speculated that you could extract energy from radioactivity, but it may not be economic because of the cost of radium ;) I think a fair description of the Roulette paper is "3 out of 7 experiments achieved considerable excess power, up to 100W and up to 250% of input power, sustained for 30-70 days, out of a 90ml cell. the remaining 4 experiments generated no excess power." That's all ;) It is not a bad paper, actually it's some of the highest power levels I've seen reported. ObsidianOrder 04:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I see someone deleted my text because they think that the Toyota Motor Company is not a "reliable source" of information. You people do have high standards!

The notion that this is "cherry picking" is more imaginary nonsense, typical of someone who knows nothing about the research yet who feels his guess trumps documented facts. This experiment was repeated many times, and similar results were achieved in hundreds of other experiments elsewhere. That is to say: power density and output per mole of Pd was in the same range, and in excess of conventional fission reactor U. The temperature and absolute power has seldom been as high, because cathodes are usually much smaller and the temperature is deliberately held low. Anyone could run at boiling temperatures with cathodes big enough to produce ~100 W but the experiment is expensive, difficult and dangerous, so most people do not. The input to output ratio is unimportant, as it can easily be adjusted by changing the electrochemical conditions. Improving it with present experiments would interfere with other aspects of the experiment, such as measuring loading. --JedRothwell 21:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Would you please cite the most recent review which reports both positive and negative results in their entirety, instead of describing just positive results or positive portions of mixed results?

How can selectively describing only the best out of a series of runs (or, as above, only the best segment of all the successful runs) not, ethically, be considered cherry-picking?

If the cited "experiment was repeated many times, and similar results were achieved in hundreds of other experiments," does that mean that those hundreds of results also saw the cells generating no excess power for about 6/7ths of the time they were running?

Do you really believe that reporting results of the best 30-day segment from a mixed, 700+ day series of experiments qualifies as "confirmed, replicated, measured-in-a-laboratory-and-reported FACTS"? If so, then why wouldn't a general description of a different 30-day period where no excess power was generated be just as valid? --James S. 23:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Nrcprm2026 writes:

"Would you please cite the most recent review which reports both positive and negative results in their entirety, instead of describing just positive results or positive portions of mixed results?"

I do not know any recent review that covers the negative results. There have not been many since 1989, and the reasons these experiments failed were obvious from the start, so there is no need to discuss them in detail.

"How can selectively describing only the best out of a series of runs (or, as above, only the best segment of all the successful runs) not, ethically, be considered cherry-picking?"

You misinterpret the data. These runs were continuous positive after full loading and material preparation (which takes weeks with bulk Pd, but only hours with finely divided Pd).

"If the cited 'experiment was repeated many times, and similar results were achieved in hundreds of other experiments,' does that mean that those hundreds of results also saw the cells generating no excess power for about 6/7ths of the time they were running?"

Your numbers are imaginary. Most cells run hot for over half the run. Finely divided Pd or gas loaded cells run hot 99% of the run.

"If so, then why wouldn't a general description of a different 30-day period where no excess power was generated be just as valid?"

Only if the cathode magically swallowed up 100 MJ of energy during that time, in an endothermic reaction. Since the energy balance is zero during periods when there is no excess heat, these periods have no relevance. When you compute the energy balance from a Tokamak run, you do not include periods when the machine is turned on but the fuel is not yet loaded. If you did, you would have to show the average as the 6-second run plus the weeks and months leading up to it. This would make your Tokamak far less powerful than a cold fusion cell, but it would also be nonsensical and unfair. Tokamaks aready produce 50 times less energy than the best CF cells (6 MJ versus 300) and it just isn't fair to point out that over the entire run, on average, they also produce less power. --JedRothwell 00:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

How am I misinterpreting the data? When the last row of the table on page 9 says zero, that means zero, right? Is this Roulette et al. (1996) paper the best example of what cold fusion has to offer? --James S. 02:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

James - you seem to be upset that you can't convert your car to cold fusion power today - I know, we'd all like to get there ;) The fact is that about half the runs with bulk metal are complete duds, no surprise there, and that is a lot better than the situation a decade ago when 9 out of 10 were duds. Negative results don't prove the non-existence of something unless the percentage of positives asymptotically approaches zero as you do more and better experiments. What they do show is that there are some (yet) unknown factors which are key to the result (for example, if you were investigating "combustion in a fireplace", you might have a significant percentage of duds until you figure out that it is important to use dry wood ;) The Roulette result is indeed the best I have ever seen in terms of energy output and density both, actually I thought it was surprisingly good. ObsidianOrder 11:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not upset. I just want to see a fair, reliable, verifiable quantification of the state of the art, preferably from peer-reviewed sources, instead of pie-in-the-sky hypothetical promises of power replacing fossil fuel based only on the best segment from several runs, most of which didn't do anything. Analogies to other situations (early fission piles, wet wood) are just speculation, and will get the article in trouble if they slip in. --James S. 17:41, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Totally disputed and OR tags replaced with POV alone

After looking through this entire talk page twice, I could find only one claims of factual inaccuracy, and only one claim of original research, both of which have already been addressed. There are only three {{fact}} tags in the article, having to do only with the early behavior of P&F and Jones. So, I replaced {{totally disputed}} and {{original research}} with {{POV}}. --James S. 19:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the article is looking much much better now. I'm still a little concerned about OR, but if the others are convinced I say take it off. Jefffire 19:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I see you mentioned in an edit summary that you thought the claims of persecution were OR, but it looks like they are sourced to me. --James S. 19:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Could some one find the last 3 requested citations, so that we can remove the POV tag, finally ? Jed, you are probably in the best place to do it. As an aside, I'm very happy that we were able to come to an agreement on such a complex issue.Pcarbonn 16:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I have now found sources for the 3 requested citations. Unless some one raises other issues, I (or someone else) will remove the article's POV tag soon. I understand that there is still a POV tag in one section under dispute though, and I'll keep it there until the dispute is resolved. Pcarbonn 22:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Please explain why the POV tag is still needed, since all previous issues seem to have been addressed. Pcarbonn 18:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Intro again

Can we please keep a summary of the DOE review and the publications numbers in the intro? Otherwise the intro is very short for an article of this size. It seems, of all the stuff that you might want to summarize, because of the controversy, the review is perhaps the most important. --James S. 19:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The review does not appear to be as significant as it is being made out to be. I consider the moving beyond section to be a much more appropriate section as being in the intro gives it an undue weight. Jefffire 19:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Undue weight relative to what? Shouldn't a summary of the most recent review of fundamental concepts in the field have significant weight? Also, the intro is really short for an article of this length now. Is there anything more appopriate to go in the intro? --James S. 19:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Relative to the current prevailing scientific consensus. The DoE review just doesn't have the same level of respect as Nature which firmly rejects cold fusion. I agree that the intro could do with something more but inserting the review into the intro looks like cherry picking. It recieces a proper airing later though. Jefffire 21:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I maintain that the DoE review must appear in the intro. Nature say that they have not reviewed recent experiments, so their opinion is not up-to-date. If Nature had made a recent review of the state of research, obviously their opinion should be reported in the intro, but that is not the case. Saying that Nature is better than DOE is very much POV and OR, unless you can substantiate it with a reference. If the DoE review was not relevant, please explain why the DoE report generated so much articles in the general press. You also seem to believe that Nature cannot make mistake, which would be an extraordinary claim (but that's an aside). If you want to add that Nature disagrees with the DoE review in the intro, that's fine with me, as long as we report the DOE report. Pcarbonn 21:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

It is my position that it is extremely POV to present this report as being as important as you are making it out to be by putting it in the intro. There are many other opinions and to put one in ahead of the others when there is so much disagreement is intellectually dishonest I feel. I would not put Nature's position in the intro for example for the exact same reason. Now the DoE report does not support cold fusion, nor does it detract from it. It really doesn't give much information at all. Additionally the DoE cold fusion panel is not a world authority on scientific matters and does not command the same respect as an established major journal. All in all there isn't much reason to include it in the intro, whether one is convinced of, or skeptical of, cold fusion.Jefffire 22:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not me who's saying that the DOE report was important: it's all the articles in the press that talked about it when it was issued. Did the press talk about any other review recently ? Please let me know.

I reverted the intro to the version of April 23. This version was the result of a lot of work from many people from both side, trying to present fairly the current state of affair. Jeff, with all due respect, who do you think you are to come and erase this work, while admitting that you are a newcomer and know nothing about cold fusion ? Please read again the Wired article mentionned in "on the funny side" discussion [24]. Please refrain from dramatically changing the intro without prior discussion. Pcarbonn 23:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The DoE report is of some significance. That is why it is discussed later. But putting this into the intro gives a false impression that cold fusion has scientific acceptance, which is not true. To be NPOV there would need to be an adequate counter from the skeptics, which is unencyclopedic, or simply put these paragraphs in their place. As a side note, please limit yourself to commenting about the edits and refrain from ad hominem. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jefffire (talk • contribs).

I apologize for having made my point in a way that has offended you. For good measure, let me say that I recognize that you have made a significant contribution to the article by adding the section on "allegations of suppression of research", and I thank you for it. Pcarbonn 12:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Both DOE reviews are by far the most quoted sources regarding cold fusion. If you remember in 1989, the panel they set up was THE reference recognized by all to clarify the issue. Please explain how their status could have changed in 2004. Please explain why the opinion of such a reference should be deleted from the intro. If you want to state that cold fusion has not scientific acceptance, feel free to do it, with the source to justify it. If you don't have sources, I don't believe this claim can be made or implied on Wikipedia. Please remember that the only recognized way to avoid POV is to systematically cite sources. Pcarbonn 07:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

My proplem here is that they don't appear to be having any impact outside of the cold fusion community. I think that their importance is being overstated by inclusion in the intro. Jefffire 09:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I trimmed the intro to three paragraphs, as recommended for an article of this length, and took out the hypothetical alternative to fossil fuel, oil, saving from greenhouse effect, etc. My opinion is that the editorial views of Nature and Scientific American don't belong in the intro unless we also mention how many articles Fusion Science and Technology and J. Electroanalytical Chemistry, which specialize in the subject, have recently published. --James S. 00:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Trouble here is that these don't have the same level of respect or acceptance as Nature or S.A. As I said before, all this information is fine. But to include it all in the intro to make the article NPOV will create a terrific mess. My position is that this should all get dealt with - from Natures opinions to Fusion Science and Technology's papers - in the later section, moving beyond the initial controversy, where they fit perfectly. Jefffire 09:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Because cold fusion is controversial, it is important to say what is the current status of the controversy in the intro. That's the first thing that people will want to know when reading the article. The best option seems to me to report the DOE review, and say that cold fusion is not accepted by mainstream science (as it says now). Would anybody like to follow the suggestion of Jefffire to move these 2 points to the body of the article instead ? Pcarbonn 10:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Please use units of power and energy correctly

This article had some chaotic mistakes because energy and power were mixed up. Please be a little more careful. To review:

Energy; measured in joules.

Power; instantaneous measure of energy, measured in watts.

Power density; power per unit of volume. Cold fusion power density often exceeds uranium fission. (Not always, of course.)

Energy density; joules per unit of volume. The energy density of cold fusion, or any form of fusion, far exceeds that of fission. This is why, for example, a thermonuclear bomb produces a larger explosion that a fission bomb.

Scale. The physical size of the device. Cold fusion cathodes are usually less than a gram, and they produce a few watts. Cathodes of 100 grams have been made, that produced 100+ watts, but they were very dangerous because the reaction cannot be controlled, and cells sometimes explode.

The article said:

". . . the effect would have to be thoroughly controlled and scaled up to larger size before commercialization could be considered. Studies showing the largest power densities make use of palladium, and even those results are not even close to energy levels that are commercially substantial, in fact they are orders-of-magnitude too small to be commercially viable . . ."

The author mixed up power and power density. Power density was high enough in 1989. Actually, power is also high enough for many commercial applications such as powering cell phones with thermoelectric batteries, but the reaction cannot be controlled so this is impossible.

"Energy levels" is probably supposed to mean "power levels." The "energy level" (meaning energy density?) of a cell is astronomically high.

Also, the term "energy burst" is often used in the cold fusion literature, but it does not always mean a short or transient event. Some "bursts" last for weeks or months. This is confusing. As far as I know, no cell has operated continously longer than about 3 months, producing ~300 MJ I think. This is obviously not long enough for commercial applications. (Although it sure beats a Nicad!) --JedRothwell 13:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I just want to say- I agree with Jed. :D Jefffire 13:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

You mean, you agree with the physics textbooks that define energy and power. Good! --JedRothwell 14:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Also -- and sorry to nitpick this to death -- power output during a single "burst" often fluctuates, but it does not return to zero. If it did, we would say that burst ended and another began. During the entire run, however, cells are never endothermic. There is never a significant "energy storage" phase. An effect that is so uncontrolled it produces large fluctuations cannot be commercialized, needless to say. --JedRothwell 15:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)