Re: Cold fusion is back!

In article <e671fd7c-7fc5-4a19-a02d-5d95eed99069@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Citizen Jimserac <Jimserac@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: On Mar 30, 8:42?am, schu...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Richard Schultz) wrote:
:> In article <8a6ba021-109f-449c-bbab-e371ebffb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, CitizenJimserac<Jimse...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:> : I'm intrigued Schultz, because you ignore the fact that the peer
:> : review committee of an internationally respected scientific journal
:> : found their paper acceptable for publication and that OTHER scientists
:> : have found their conclusions regarding the possibility of LENR, based
:> : on their observations and data, to be quite acceptable.
:>
:> How many peer reviewed papers have you published? ?How many papers have you
:> reviewed for peer-reviewed journals? ?

: You think I'm a scientist?? Did I ever tell you I was a scientist?

No, I have pointed out that you are *proud* of your *total ignorance* of
science. Since one of us (hint: not you) has published papers in peer-
reviewed journals and has reviewed papers for peer review journals, I
would think that one of us has a much better idea of what is and is not
likely to make its way into print. Hint: it's not you. Your faith that
any paper published must be true, unless, of course, it's a paper that
presents evidence against homeopathy, is touching, but is not actually
supported by anything approaching reality.

:>How many peer-reviewed papers have
:> you *read*? ?Peer review is a mechanism for weeding out the worst of the
:> worst, but it is not an infallible one.

: Never said it was but my idea, that it is a way of finding the best of
: the best, is obviously at odds with your view.

Your view is also at odds both with the goal of peer review and with reality.

:>?There are many reasons that
:> substandard papers get into the literature, one of which is that not all
:> journals are "internationally respected." ?I'm curious why you think that
:> the journal in which Szpak et al.'s 1996 paper is "internationally
:> respected."

: I'm curious why you keep going back to that one when I was obviously
: referring to the recent one which appeared here:
:
: Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd?D Co-deposition: evidence
: of energetic neutrons
: Journal Naturwissenschaften
: Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
: DOI 10.1007/s00114-008-0449-x
: Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd?D Co-deposition: evidence
: of energetic neutrons

Because the prior paper is the one in which the authors demonstrated
their incompetence, and it is one that I have discussed in detail.
Naturally, you had no interest in reading either the paper or my
comments thereon *before* this latest one was published.

:> Can you cite its impact factor (admittedly also a highly imperfect tool for
:> estimating a journal's reputation, but at least a starting point) in
:> comparison to the impact factors of other journals in the field?

No answer -- no surprise.

:> The reason that you "lack additional evidence" is that you refuse in
:> principle to read my criticisms of their paper -- not that you would
:> understand them if you did read them.

: Then why the hell should I bother -

Because you might just possibly learn something. Not that you have
given us much evidence that "learning" is in your skill set.

: So you think that your criticism of their 1996 paper still stands

It most certainly does.

: therefore you make no comment on their current paper,

I have not read their current paper, nor am I particularly interested
in doing so. Why should I read papers by people who have *demonstrated*
their incompetence?

: shut down your thinking processes entirely and pay no attention to the
: comments of other quite respectable scientists that find the evidence
: adduced in the recent paper regarding the tracks as indicative of
: the possibility of LENR, for example Hagelstein of MIT.

Hagelstein is a lunatic, as has been well known for 20 years -- but he's
a lunatic with tenure. I remember his first "theory" of cold fusion
that was going to get energy out with no net reaction.

Just because I reach a different conclusion than you do does not mean
that I have "shut down my thinking processes." Quite the contrary -- it
shows that I am capable of judging the evidence before me and *using*
my thought processes to come to conclusions based on that judgment.

: There are scientists who have the guts to go out on a limb, take risk,
: make discovery and there are those who lack the balls.

And there are those scientists who understand that science is a process
by which our understanding of the world increases, and that results that
seem to violate fundamental laws of physics are almost certainly untrue.

For example, in a recent issue of _Science_ magazine there was an article
about how the prevailing winds on Titan travel in exactly the opposite
direction from that predicted by models that are based on the shapes of
the sand dunes. Guess what? The initial reaction of the people who had
made the models (after "Are you sure that the pictures aren't upside down?")
was *not* to declare that they had disproved the principle of conservation
of angular momentum.

-----
Richard Schultz schultr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"You don't even have a clue about which clue you're missing."
:
.

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