Talk:Cold fusion/Archive4

About the Wikipedia article
David Gerard is a well-known, highly-established Wikipedia figure. I never interacted with him there, but he's obviously been interested in my Wikipedia history, and has misrepresented it here. From what I've seen from him here, he's aligned with the faction I confronted at Wikipedia. I was successful, but that faction had a long reach and retaliated, and I eventually gave up on due process on Wikipedia, and just started doing whatever I pleased. I now edit Wikipedia whenever and wherever I want, but mostly I don't want.

Gerard wrote this, in his edit summary:

''(it's in Wikipedia and has survived the damage wrought by Abd and Rothwell, that'll do for me)

Nothing wrong with that edit, it was confirming what I'd done. However, this shows that Gerard is familiar with what happened on Wikipedia, though with the very slanted memory that I'd expect from a cabal editor.


 * Jed Rothwell stopped editing Wikipedia in about 2006, having concluded that it was a pile of idiots. However, he would occasionally make acerbic suggestions on Talk. He was usually right, I found. He did not edit the article. He was "banned" by JzG for allegedly spamming, which was a lie, and his web site, lenr-canr.org, the most userful web site on the web on the topic, a deep resource for legit copies of published work, was blacklisted by the same administrator. This is how I came into contact with cold fusion, I saw the involved blacklisting, investigated and saw the involved blocks. This eventually went to the Arbitration Committee, which confirmed the impropriety. JzG was "admonished" to go and sin no more. This is part of the whole Wikipedia problem. JzG was very popular as he'd done a lot of heavy lifting (and really!). He ignored the admonishment and went on to do more, and he was right. ArbComm paid no attention. On the other hand, this case established me as a troublemaker, for the cabal, and they came after me.


 * I did little editing of the cold fusion article, at first, because about anything that I did, as I started to understand the topic and to correct errors and to add reliable sources, was reverted. However, progress was being made, with consensus. Then a cabal administrator, he should be familiar here, William M. Connolley, seeing his opportunity, banned me from the topic, and took the article, under protection, back to an earlier version, removing all the changes made with consensus, in spite of a standing poll showing unanimous support for the version just before protection.


 * The protection was of a ridiculous version, the editor who made that mess didn't even support it in the poll, he was trolling, with a set of reverts, but he was being opposed by a number of editors. Not just me. So he then went to the protection request page, requested protection, and immediately made his truly outrageous edit before there was a response. This was a skilled troll, manipulating the system, and nobody cared.


 * I eventually took all this again to the Arbitration Committee, which -- topic banned me for a year *and* desysopped the administrator. In any case, the idea that I did damage to the article is preposterous. How could I do that? There was a whole set of editors sitting on that article, had been for years. There were no claims in the case of any continued tendentious editing of the article.


 * I came back after the year, declared a conflict of interest, and conducted myself accordingly. I was topic banned again, with the primary excuse being given what I had written on the meta wiki, on the page where I requested removal of the global blacklisting of lenr-canr.org. The administrator closing the ban proposal discussion looked at that and thought I was too wordy, and was explicit about that. This was contrary to precedent on Wikipedia that activity on another wiki was irrelevant, but it also was just stupid, since that lengthy discussion was made necessary by a farrago of false claims that had been again raised. After the ban on Wikipedia was declared, the discussion on meta was closed with delisting. In other words, just as I'd been effectively banned from Wikipedia, the first time, for successfully challenging administrative abuse, I was banned the second time for again challenging the last result of the same abuse, also successfully. If there is anything the cabal hates, it's successful challenges.


 * In all this, and with what came out later in leaks from the Arbitration Committee, I learned that the presented front of fair and impartial process was a fraud. If it wouldn't have been completely obvious, they would have banned me from the first case, I made them uncomfortable. But they couldn't do it then, because I was not involved with cold fusion in that case, I hadn't been editing adversely. Later, by the time of the second case, I was obviously now, having done some months of research, having bought the major source books, etc., holding opinions that were considered "fringe." So now they had an excuse, and they used it, and contrary opinion from a couple of arbitrators was steamrollered.


 * Indeed, one of my restrictions was an MYOB ban -- based on no allegations of abuse --, but I was allowed to sidestep it with approval of a mentor. An arbitrator, who had been elected during my first site ban, offered to mentor me. He was a scientist, by the way, I think he may have been a physicist. He was told that arbitrators could not mentor, a rule that they made up on the spot. And then they removed the mentorship exception, because they realized that I could, indeed, find a mentor, I had quite a few friends at that point. Most of them, though, have left Wikipedia in disgust. It's a bit of a desert there.


 * The arbitrator resigned because he encountered face-to-face threats of violence to his family, and they showed that they knew where he lived. That's what he told me, and this guy was Mr. Straight-Arrow. Wikipedia is far uglier than people realize.


 * As long as the governing structure is as corrupt as it is, Wikipedia is hopeless when it comes to anything controversial. David Gerard is very much a part of the problem there. The problem isn't David, though, it's the structure, which sets him up.


 * Gerard's comments on all this show that he is pure cabal. Bad News. --Abd (talk) 01:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

To summarize, Rothwell has not edited the Wikipedia article on cold fusion since 2006. I edited it very little, I was banned for "excessive" discussion and for successfully confronting abusive administrators.

The faction, however, blames everything they don't like about the article on Rothwell, myself, and Pcarbonn, also banned by the same people before I was involved. Lovely. Pcarbonn also declared COI, having found employment in the field after he was topic banned. He was banned the second time for merely suggesting some sources on Talk, very civilly. The article is punk, but it can't be blamed on any individual. The problem is really control by editors who don't research the topic, or who don't have the background to understand the sources, I've seen some amazing bloopers, combined with disinterest on the part of most editors. Everyone seriously interested in the article, with knowledge, has been banned. (Including the pseudoskeptic, ScienceApologist, later known by his real name, who was a factor in my final ban on Wikipedia. At least ScienceApologist knew some physics, he was an astrophysics grad student. That's more than could be said about the principal remaining editor watching the article, who didn't know the difference between a molecule and a nucleon, but fiercely resented it if you exposed his ignorance. The parallel to ScienceApologist here is Tweenk, so far, except Tweenk is not quite as arrogant and might be more knowledgeable.)

David Gerard has obviously come here to make this article into what he couldn't get on Wikipedia, and he only cares about impressions, POV, and not fact or established scientific opinion. If that's what RationalWiki wants, that's what RationalWiki will get. Meanwhile, I'll have some fun, regardless. And maybe I'm wrong about David. After all, he did acknowledge that Fleischmann was a respected electrochemist, not some random wingnut.

Cold fusion is an unusual case, where a field was rejected, and was widely believed to be definitively rejected (including by me), but the affair has turned, as to what is being published in mainstream journals, in the last seven years. I've long been interested in rational skepticism, Martin Gardner was one of my favorite writers since I was a teenager or so, and one of my favorite accomplishments was being quoted, approvingly, by him. This is an opportunity to demonstrate an important distinction, between rational skepticism and pseudoskepticism. It's going to confront quite a few misconceptions, if it's allowed.

On the other hand, precisely because of the shift that has taken place, it will all become quite obvious within a few years. So I'm not terribly exercised to prove anything here. I'm just presenting what I know, and will provide sources for anything I write on request. If I can be arsed. It's a wiki, after all. --Abd (talk) 01:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * You have the self-obsession and persecution complex of the dedicated crank - David Gerard (talk) 09:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * And you have the smug habits of a Wikipedia oligarch, which you are trying to bring here. I'm not persecuted, rather I demonstrated, experimentally, what Wikipedia is, successfully, and moved on. You detest that, but you typify what's wrong with Wikipedia. It's an expert killer, among other niceties, well-known for that. The mission requires neutrality, which requires consensus process, but people like you made it impossible, and that continues, it's been getting worse. Eventually the Foundation will figure it out. Here, where you are less restrained, your true nature shows even more clearly. --Abd (talk) 17:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Now I see another Wikipedian has joined the fray. I'm reverting the blind reverts, but would negotiate text for any of those changes. This was new work, but this class of Wikipedian edits based on person, not verifiable content, and detests real discussion, because it exposes their ignorance. I'm clearly getting some traction here, (3 months?) the article has indeed improved, but not uniformly, David Gerard has radically misrepresented what's in sources, but at least the sources are getting into the article. Some people will read them. I edited the damn paper Gerard is citing, he's lying about the content. That's what I encountered on Wikipedia, "established editors" who would so misrepresent what's in sources, and who would insist, and retaliate for correction if they had admin buttons, or indirectly if they didn't, that "lie" becomes legitimate as a claim. --Abd (talk) 17:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My reverts are only "blind" in that I trust DG's opinion about this and not yours, and can't be bothered explaining the reason. In a nutshell, you are pseudoscientific crank, and calling conspiracy when people revert you is a sure sign of that. Go and join Jimjast and all the other physics flat-earthers elsewhere, RW isn't a base for one-man crusades to rewrite science. Sophie  because liberals  17:43, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, what I said. About the person, not the content. Conspiracy? What conspiracy? Birds of a feather flock together, twits, vultures, it doesn't matter. I'm not rewriting science, I'm reporting it. Sophie, "asshole" isn't gender related. Everything I put into the article can be sourced to mainstream journals, academic publications, and the like (but I'm writing off the top of my head, which is why I haven't sourced some text yet). Your style of editing was common on Wikipedia, except, there, it would never be admitted. Here, you feel freer, because it's RationalWiki, equivalent to the Wild West.


 * So I hit 3RR here, against David 1RR, and Sophie 3RR. Hence, I've now restored just one section and will add sources to what I wrote there. There are rational skeptics active on Rationalwiki, and it looks like rational skepticism was the ultimate intention here, and that's why I'm participating, otherwise it would just be another Someone Is Wrong On The Internet obsession. As long as that understanding is viable, I'll keep at it. Pseudoskeptics, though, have no scruples or reservations about lying for the "cause." They are believers, really, just with inverted beliefs. They can easily dominate wikis, as long as the real skeptics don't bother to get involved. The tendency for pseudoskeptics to infiltrate skeptical organizations has long been noticed. --Abd (talk) 18:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Stop calling me a liar. It is especially irksome when you do so when calling my reverts an attack on the peson, not the content. I am not part of a conspiracy, I am not here on wikipedia's behalf, I'm just trying to drive a crank off the site, because we keep getting them and I've had enough. Sophie  because liberals  18:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Then don't be recklessly incautious about what you say. I have not claimed what you have stated. What is interesting is that I encountered the very same inability to read carefully on Wikipedia. From arbitrators. You are doing exactly what you are stating here, you are telling the truth, you are trying to "drive a crank off the site." Thanks for admitting it. If the RationalWiki community doesn't want me here, it can easily let me know that. You are not the RationalWiki community, but you do imagine that you are in charge here. You are attacking a person, because you support a different person, who happens to be a highly placed, very well-known Wikipedian. Sophie, you are, more than anything else, really, really stupid. Ignorance is remediable, stupidity is not, as long as you are attached to it. Attachment, indeed, is the core of pseudoskepticism, it's what distinguishes pseudoskepticism from real scientific skepticism. If you are stupid, you will read this as an attack. Just notice this: you came after me, I didn't come after you. That's what lex talionis is about. --Abd (talk) 18:31, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict with above)Fascinating. Sophie seems confident that she's in charge here, aligned with the dominant group. But she doesn't trust that group to notice that I responded to her 3-month block of me with a 3-month block, so she unblocked herself. That's fine, but it does shows the real situation a bit better. What I saw on Wikipedia with the cabal pseudoskeptical faction was that they would complain again and again about tl;dr, but when I was succinct, they still complained about tl;dr. Hence this at 17:57, 4 March 2012, "(even your block reasons are tl;dr)." It's quite expected. This is not about rational or even snarky skeptical content, it's about personal belief and affiliation.


 * Rational skeptics take note! Sophie and David, with blind reverts, are attempting to suppress development of the article toward a true skeptical approach to the situation with cold fusion. I'd appreciate your help. --Abd (talk) 18:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have been carefully watching the discussion and the article, and it seems to me that they are (a) behaving perfectly correctly and (b) behaving with the patience of saints. And also, (c) you have yet to be succinct.-- 22:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Suit yourself, AD. To judge what's going on with the article, you might have to read some stuff. I have no obligation to boil it down for you, none. Is this succinct enough for you? --Abd (talk) 01:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Jim Jast
My word. This is almost as interesting as Jim Jast's stuff. Remember his opus?--BobSpring is sprung! 21:55, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ugh, don't remind me -_- Тy Talk 21:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * These are days I wish I really "knew" science. We generally don't have religionists coming along with wacked ideas to debunk, above and beyond the norm of "goddidit".  So all i'm left with is diet and feminist stuff.  Not nearly as fun as timecube, Electric Universe, whatever JJ was spouting off about (I think einstien was really not very smart but it was all his woman?  something?).  I really should go back and get a physics degree. oh, wait... math.  nevermind.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot    oi, putain, genial, merci 22:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The world is small... I have talked on the phone with somebody who had very similar ideas and I'm 90% sure that it was JimJast. He contacted me through my uncle, was working on something related to gravitation, and wanted me to get him in touch with someone on the Faculty of Physics that knew his way around general relativity. --Tweenk (talk) 00:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Mmmm.... Looked at the "magnum opus." Now, you've really hurt my feelings, boo hoo! Jast is incoherent, probably knows something but has no clue how to put it together or express it. What I've been writing here is chatty, often, but is, if cleaned up (and I make mistakes!), of journal quality, assuming there were a need to review what I'm writing about. I did write a paper on an aspect of cold fusion that was published, but not in any major journal, because it's not for that level, it was actually a presentation slapped together while sitting in a conference at MIT. (And I'm an effective public speaker, I can explain stuff in person that is almost impossible in writing.)
 * What I write here may be equally incomprehensible as Jast to many of you, but I'd urge reading what I put in the article, and checking it against sources. If what's in the article is not comprehensible and verifiable, I've failed. What I'm writing is conservative, not off the edge into speculation. Okay, except the snark, that is custom for RationalWiki. My discussion with Tweenk went way beyond that basic level of comprehension, and I raised issues with him because I believed he could understand them. --Abd (talk) 04:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Revert warring on the article
I've been adding sourced material to the article, being reverted without comment by some. It's become obvious that the reverts are based on my identity, not on the content, with explicit acknowledgement that the goal was to drive me away. However, I will discuss content here, as requested, and will provide sources for anything that is not already easily verifiable. I had made some extensive edits, which were repeatedly blind-reverted masse without discussion, so, to allow focused discussion, I narrowed this down to one section, and, again, there was revert warring there. Please discuss any controversial edits here, don't just continue to revert without seeking consensus. --Abd (talk) 22:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The section being worked on now is, my last revision of it, Pons and Fleischmann. The material there was modified each time it was reverted, sources were added, etc. The facts are solid. If the community doesn't like the snark, I don't need it. But it's fair, and matches or takes the piss out of snark in the other direction inserted by others.

Just checked, David Gerard again reverted. 'Nuff for the day for me, maybe I'll check tonight, or not. --Abd (talk) 22:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * David Gerard: blind revert without discussion of content.
 * Abd: blind revert without discussion of content.
 * Sophie: blind reverts without discussion of content.
 * Abd: blind reverts without discussion of content.
 * Abd reduced changes to single section to simplify discussion, assuming that discussion will ensue.
 * Scream!! blind revert of above without discussion of content.
 * Mr.Anon blind revert of above without discussion.
 * Abd: changes to add sources, accept some Gerard language, etc.
 * David Gerard: blind revert without discussion, restored my previous version as restored by Mr.Anon.
 * Abd: not a blind revert, but did restore what David Gerard removed.
 * Matty the Damned: blind revert without discussion of content, again removed my sourcing of my prior edit.
 * Abd: blind revert, objected to ad-hominem editing without consideration of content.
 * Matty the Damned: revert back to version before Mr. Anon.
 * Abd: blind revert without discussion.
 * Matty the Damned: blind revert without discussion of content.
 * Abd: again modified content, requested specific objections.
 * David Gerard: . blind revert without discussion of content.

Summary: David Gerard is restoring his own editing of the article, not allowing any balancing of it. David is pursuing a Wikipedia agenda, as shown above. Sophie is explicitly supporting Gerard and is not considering content, and has acknowledged that her intention is to drive me away. Scream and Mr. Anon, who reverted Scream, are unknowns to me, did not comment on content. Matty the Damned was clearly not paying attention to content, this is factional editing.

I would guess that Mr. Anon, though, read the content and explicitly accepted it. If he's someone I know, I've no clue. I have not mentioned my participation here to the cold fusion community. I wouldn't invite them into this environment.

Blind reversion is properly condemned on Wikipedia, for anything but vandalism. Blind reversion invites blind reversion in return, revert warring, and because the issues involved were already under extensive discussion on this Talk page, I did not initially discuss further. However, I did then reduce my changes to a single section, preparing to discuss that. The reversion continued with absolutely no consideration of content quality. A sane response would have been to keep at least what added clear sourcing to what was in the article, and that extended what was already there with more examples of equal or greater importance.

But keeping anything can be thought of as encouraging an editor. The declared goal is exclusion, hence total reversion, which has been going on for some days. Gerard and Sophie are Wikipedians, I don't know about the others. Gerard is quite accustomed to getting his way, I wasn't joking when I called him a bully. --Abd (talk) 23:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Playing the victim card isn't going to work here, Abd nor will any of the other tiresome wiki-tactics you employ to advance your fuckheaded crank agenda. -- MtD Pinko Scum   23:29, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * ^what he said il' Dictator   Mikal  23:34, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * oooo, I'm obviously getting somewhere here. Victim? Nah, if I'm suffering anything here, it's because I voluntarily started editing this wiki with mindless buggers like the two know-nothing unknowns above involved. I bet there are more. Self-inflicted.
 * For there to be a victim card, there has to be a complaint. I'm not complaining. I love that these idiots expose themselves, since my purpose here is to expose pseudoskepticism, while strengthening genuine skepticism. If I want to complain, I'll go to the chicken coop. We are nowhere near that point yet, as far as I'm concerned.
 * Look, I had a herd of about two dozen well-established editors on Wikipedia, screaming for me to be banned, and that included maybe a half-dozen administrators; the occasion was an RfC I'd filed, the substance of which was confirmed by ArbComm. It was also a waste of time, but at least I did end up taking out one of the most famous abusive administrators. Ah, those were the days!
 * Am I worried about anything here? Like, what? Toothless basement dwellers might gnaw on my foot? I would love to be promoted, it would relieve me of any sense of responsibility to the rational skeptical community whatsoever, but I'm not seeing any sign of serious promotion. Hope springs eternal, though.
 * Tiresome wiki tactics? Are there any other kind? Got a page on efficient wiki dispute resolution?
 * "Wiki" was supposed to mean "quick." What a joke!
 * My whole point in the history above is that MtD et al have no care about content, it's all about getting rid of "cranks." As defined by them. In order to negotiate solid content, especially when most editors are radically ignorant about the topic, it's necessary to discuss it. Basement dwellers detest discussion unless it can make them look good, then they might tolerate it. Get a life! --Abd (talk) 01:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Playing the victim card" does not require there to be a 'complaint,' merely the protrayal of oneself as the David to your opponent's Goliath. Peter Monomorium antarcticum 01:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * But they are not Goliath, definitely, nor am I David. That's your projection, Peter, and you are welcome to it, if it serves you. I think it doesn't, but that's merely my opinion. --Abd (talk) 01:53, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If there is any victim here, it's RationalWiki content, and I'm assuming that's transient. If not, so what? --Abd (talk) 01:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The content issues
There were a number of sections edited by me yesterday, reverted by David Gerard this morning. I reduced the edits to a single section, to simplify discussion, the other material can be addressed later.

This is the diff for Gerard's last revert:

The changes are:


 * 1) Second paragraph: changes strengthen skeptical position. The early replication failures were not just by Anyone from Anywhere, they were by reputable research groups at Cal Tech, MIT, and elsewhere. Gerard is removing this only because I made the change to improve the paragraph, and he wants me gone. People do build Farnsworth Fusors at home. Nifty project. Has nothing to do with cold fusion, though.
 * 2) My text: ''At the present time, with our current understanding of physics and electrochemistry, cold fusion, as was imagined by most encountering the Pons and Fleischmann work, is considered impossible by most physicists.
 * 3) *Gerard's text: ''At the present time, with our current understanding of physics and electrochemistry, cold fusion as Pons and Fleischmann described it is considered impossible by most physicists.
 * 4) **"Cold fusion" is not a defined reaction. However, the strong skeptical rejection was based on an assumption that it was a specific reaction, which is, for quite strong reasons, considered impossible, and it may well be. While Pons and Fleischmann did describe the classical fusion reactions in their paper, it was not as the primary reaction, it was an attempt to explain their mistaken neutron results. It's of historical interest, but we are talking about the "present time." We cite the paper, that's what's in it.
 * 5) **Better way to say this?
 * 6) Gerard's text: ''Cold fusion cranks tout the few physicists, such as Schwinger and Hagelstein, who even entertain the possibility Pons and Fleischmann were onto something. Nevertheless, everyone else thinks they were deluded at best.
 * 7) *My text: ''Cold fusion cranks tout the few physicists, such as Jones,[6] Schwinger,[7] Teller,[8] Ramsey,[9] Hagelstein,[6] Josephson,[10] Takahashi,[6] Kim,[6] Duncan,[11] and others, who even entertained the possibility Pons and Fleischmann were onto something, and Genuine Skeptics(TM) dismiss them all as deluded, because they know it's impossible. Deluded wimpy skeptical opinion is more reserved, because there are a few stupid peer-reviewed publications on unexplained anomalies,[12] and government-retained experts[13] were, as of 2004, divided on the issue.[14]
 * 8) *Gerard had previously removed extensions to his list of "the few physicists," which is highly misleading. I just picked out a few of the most notable. When Gerard removed them, I replaced them and added sources today, for most of them. Gerard is simply removing this because he doesn't like it. There are more physicists who also can be cited as skeptical, that's not the point. But only listing two physicists makes the "cranks" seem crazier than they are. My list includes three Nobel Prize winners, plus Edward Teller is kinda famous, eh?
 * 9) *Gerard is running a classic straw man argument. Someone makes a bogus argument (like "cold fusion is real because X and Y supported it.") This is then used to attack an entire field. Gerard ascribes this to cranks, but it's clear that he thinks anyone who still thinks cold fusion (or LENR) is real is a crank or a believer in pseudoscience. So he's really dismissing a major chunk of the scientific community, as I go on to show, particularly in the note on the 2004 DoE review.
 * Steven E. Jones Worked with the previous cold fusion (muon-catalyzed fusion), and "From 1990 to 1993, Jones studied fusion in condensed matter physics and deuterium under U.S. Department of Energy and Electric Power Research Institute sponsorship." Jones is important to cold fusion especially because it was his impending publication that led the University of Utah to rush to announce. Jones, however, had discovered something completely different -- if it was real. Hard to tell. It was a colossal SNAFU. Anyway, Jones is well known to the 911 conspiracy crowd. Have a field day, my friends.
 * Julian Schwinger, Nobelist. According to Wikipedia, he wrote eight theory papers on cold fusion, and resigned from the American Physical Society because they refused to publish his work.
 * Edward Teller Teller encouraging the cold fusion researchers. To explain CF, he invented a new particle, he called the Meshuganon. Surely some enterprising editor here will make something of that. I've seen pseudoskeptics use that name to claim he was joking, and he was, but not the way they think. He was pointing out that an "crazy" particle, i.e. something not previously known might explain the results. But, hey, I have sources and will assist with anything rational here. Or fun. Stupidity is not fun.
 * Norman Ramsey, Nobelist. Ramsey was co-chair of the 1989 ERAB panel that denied major federal funding to cold fusion. He was responsible for the mild language of the report, because he thought that cold fusion was possible. He threatened to resign if the language was not toned down, made more neutral.
 * Peter Hagelstein was listed by Gerard. I've met him twice at MIT. This is what he's like: Ask him the time of day, he will look carefully around, glance at his watch, think a bit, then say carefully and slowly, in a quiet voice, "It's about three, if my watch is correct." He's well-known as a theorist working, long-term, to develop cold fusion theory, he's got many publications in the field.
 * Brian Josephson Gerard's omission of Josephson is mind-boggling, it simply shows his ignorance. Josephson is perfect if you want to take the piss out of the idea of reliance on "Nobel authority." I'll let you guys do it, I consider Josephson a personal friend, I managed to convince him that there wasn't a conspiracy on Wikipedia, and if he hadn't listened and had kept on, he'd probably have been blocked. Then I wondered why I'd dissuaded him, since that would have made beautiful headlines, "Wikipedia blocks Nobel Prize Winner." They were gearing up to do it, I know the machinery. Josephson has, shall we say, some unusual ideas. But he knows physics, I've seen him debate cold fusion. He's naive about Rossi.
 * Yeong E. Kim (Purdue faculty page, not Wikipedia). I added Kim and Takahashi because they are nuclear physicists working and being published currently on cold fusion theory. Kims got a bit of a resume.
 * Akito Takahashi (New Energy Times interview with Takahashi).
 * Robert Duncan. Duncan is important because he was asked by CBS News to investigate cold fusion. He was skeptical, as would be expected of any physicist who isn't familiar with the experimental evidence. He changed his mind and is now working with Energetics Technologies at the University of Missouri, where he is Vice-Chancellor for Research. Again, if you want to dig for dirt, ET was founded by Irving Dardik. Of course, Dardik, a vascular surgeon with some "unusual ideas" about health, hired scientists to work for ET, and ET's work has been replicated by Michael McKubre (Wikipedia article) of SRI, and others. I haven't listed McKubre because he's not a physicist, he's an electrochemist.


 * 12. Like, a thousand. [i.e, peer-reviewed papers on cold fusion, taking it seriously]
 * 13. We all know what that means, wink, wink. ''[i.e., "government-retained experts," which some would think an oxymoron. Others are just plain morons.]
 * 14. In the 2004 U.S. DoE review, half of the 18 panelists considered the evidence for anomalous heat "compelling," (P. 3) and one third considered the evidence for nuclear origin at least "somewhat convincing." (P. 4) The panelists were "nearly unanimous" on the desirability of research to clear up the unexplained. (P. 5) Pseudoskeptics, seeing all this as a battle royale between Science and Pseudoscience, tout that review, especially the comment in the summary that "The conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review", as proof that cold fusion still Bogus As Hell, since, everyone knows, i.e., me and my friends, the 1989 review concluded that Pons and Fleischmann were ignorant and incompetent, and cold fusion was total woo (see the 1989 review), and if it were real, wouldn't everyone be worshipping the God of Cold Fusion and throwing money at Andrea Rossi? Where is our Cold Fusion Tea Samovar, two cups capacity? Doesn't exist? Q.E.D.!
 * This establishes the claim about experts being divided, and that was 2004. I could write much more about now, but one step at a time. Experts were divided, they either still are, or the extreme skeptical position has vanished.
 * I provide a link to the 1989 review, which also recommended research. Both reviews were similar as to their main charge, which was about advising re a major government program dedicated to cold fusion. That's premature, I think, and so do many in the field. Until the physics is understood, it's entirely possible that cold fusion will remain a laboratory curiosity. It might be too unreliable. Scale it up, it might be too dangerous. Bad Idea. Once the physicists get their heads out of their hind ends and actually try to figure out what's going on (this is going to take more than the few physicists actively working, I suspect, the problems are difficult), progress might be made
 * The reference to two cups of tea is based on a well-known comment of a dedicated cold fusion skeptic, recently deceased. Originally it was one cup. Moving target.
 * I don't care if my snark is removed, if the false or misleading claims are removed. Otherwise, snark/countersnark. I actually prefer the latter, it's more fun.


 * So I'm a crank for pointing this out? Sure. If I weren't a crank, I wouldn't be here, it takes some kind of crankery to get involved in this wiki. --Abd (talk) 01:26, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Im going to say most of us don't care what you have to say to back up your view, its still bullshit-- il' Dictator   Mikal  01:31, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup. My point. Primary characteristic of pseudoskepticism. "I don't accept X and never will regardless of the evidence" What I say doesn't matter, but the evidence I point to does. If you are correct about "most," Mikal, RationalWiki is dominated by pseudoskeptics. Wouldn't be a big surprise. --Abd (talk) 01:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "I don't accept X and never will regardless of the evidence" careful what you say il' Dictator   Mikal  01:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Right, or Mikal will ... will ... promote me? Yup.(1:59 and 2:12, 5 March 2012) A tad obsessed, eh?
 * What I'm seeing here is no consideration of the evidence. What I said. And so what? Idiots will be idiots, it's not surprising. If having an active population of idiots serves this wiki, that's fine, it's up to whomever pays the bills. On the other hand, the wiki represents itself to the world, formally, in certain ways, so the rest of the world may have something to say. --Abd (talk) 15:07, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't say I'm surprised to see this. What makes me sad is that your inability to communicate effectively obscures even the chance that you might be right - it's tragic to reflect that you might be the only one thinking clearly on the topic, but your clarion insight is trapped behind endless walls of obfuscatory text.  It might be a fitting fate for your imperiousness, but it's also unfortunate.-- 21:02, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, AD, I appreciate where you are coming from. However, what this is demonstrating, indeed, is a lack of interest here in what is right. This all has nothing to do with rationality and rational skepticism, it's about a group of people who decide what to allow in articles based on the authors, whether they like them or not. I came here and saw a community that was extremely abrasive, so ... I acted in accordance with community norms. Except I do write a lot. That's easy to handle, in a functional community. This hasn't been one. --Abd (talk) 23:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I understood what you said. I understand that you think everyone else is the problem, and that you're being unfairly discriminated against.  However:
 * RW needs a way to keep out the cranks. We have only a few people who can follow the technicals on subjects like this, so we trust them and their judgment after they've established themselves as level-headed, knowledgeable, and skeptical.  If we didn't trust them, there'd be no way to ensure that Vern Cragglebush couldn't sweep in to a highly technical article - like this one - and change it to say that we could just use the additive calcium bicarbonate in our fusion reactors to make them settle.  RW would be unusable.  So we trust the guys we know.  There's some risk of bias there, but it's unavoidable on a small site like this.
 * Cranks are inexhaustible. They'll argue all day, every day on a topic.  They're typically very focused and very narrowly educated, but that focus is so laserlike in intensity that they've mastered the relevant jargon and research, even as they refract it to confirm their own ideas.  The resulting prismatic web of light is so complicated and so hot-burning that it's exhausting to confront in a civil manner.  Cranks will do point-by-point refutations and argue every bit, all day, every day.  They'll weasel every fragment of meaning and extrapolate every possibility.  They'll cite obscurity and twist the conclusion, forcing you to check and re-check everything they reference.  Accordingly, it simply doesn't work to treat each point made by a crank with the same merit as a point made by someone more balanced.  You can do it for a time, but a crank's burning passion for what they consider the neglected truth is a lot more powerful than a normal editor's concern for fair play, balance, and civility.  The latter gives out long before the former, and cranks are justly labeled and their points viewed with skepticism.
 * I don't know if you're a crank - I lack the expertise. But those who do have the expertise think you are, and your behavior certainly mimics that of every crank I've ever seen.  It might just be a bad coincidence and unfair condemnation.  But your cataclysmic walls of text and notions of persecution are not in your favor.
 * It might indeed be for the best if you stopped editing here, as you have alluded. If you are right and most everyone is wrong, then you have the opportunity to revolutionize this field.  Go lecture somewhere and make a difference, and then come back here with your headlining article in Cold Fusion Monthly and rub it in our faces.-- 00:27, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen anyone here with the expertise, so far. Tweenk is quickly dismissing nuclear physicists, professors who have extensively published in mainstream publications, and a very recent nuclear physics textbook author as cranks, and Tweenk is, what? Apparently a grad student in chemistry, working on his Master's degree. However, I'll take your suggestion. Thanks. Great idea, it's personally beneficial to me. Watch out, however, for your "friends" who will falsely represent what is in sources. You have some. The issue that led to revert warring here was simple, and one did not need to be able to understand the science, just look at the sources and see what they actually said. I was working with Tweenk, and it was Tweenk who finally made the correction I was asking for, though he then added stuff that was misleading, just not as blatantly so.
 * As to "persecution," I've claimed, not persecution, but harassment, an open attempt to drive me away, rather than to engage (or confine "damage" to appropriate pages) or ignore, which is a more proper response to crankery. That's easily documentable, but for what purpose? I don't see one unless you do. It's obvious to anyone who looks at my block log. I'm not talking about the joke blocks.
 * I will acknowledge being disappointed about one thing. You don't have an adequate core of real skeptics. You have hangers-on and trolls and pseudoskeptics.
 * Your definition of crank covers just about anyone who becomes expert in a field because of awakened interest, rather than purely because of career. It covers a whole series of Nobelists. I'm a bit surprised that you want to "exclude" cranks, but you said it.
 * There is a way to handle cranks without relying on single authorities, but, never mind. I don't think you are really interested. Thanks for your kindness, it's appreciated. 'Nuff said. --Abd (talk) 02:44, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Naturwissenschaften
Cited once, in something called "Information Processing & Management"... so, a very high impact paper that one. postate 14:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Which proves? (And a review like this is much less likely to be cited, short term, than a primary source on which other papers build, except to refute it.)
 * The paper is being misrepresented in the article, which offers, in the lead, "The most recent comprehensive review of the field (in a proper journal), Status of cold fusion (2010)[2] details the lack of reproducibility, let alone success, in current cold fusion work."
 * The paper does no such thing, and I've inserted a sentence from the abstract to counter this. It would be better to just remove the false claim, but that was resisted without discussion. Hence proof is provided for the reader, they can check for themselves. --Abd (talk) 14:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The issue here is continued misrepresentation of what the paper actually says. And the removal of a crucial quotation from the abstract, that allows the reader to see the misrepresentation. I re-added that quotation. Contrary to Gerard's claim, I've not asserted that "getting into a journal equals being solid science." Even though an invited and featured review in Naturwissenschaften (Einstein published in that journal, it's a hundred years old) might mean that the science is not completely shaky, eh?
 * Gerard adds that the paper was by a "proponent." That's reasonable, I left it. The paper is by the scientist who is probably the world's foremost expert on cold fusion, he's been working on it since 1989, when he was a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Just whom would you expect to write a review like that, TheSkepticFromSkokomo? A nuclear physicist? The evidence is in the chemistry, these are chemistry experiments, and the standard techniques of nuclear physics (plasma environment, radiation) are useless with cold fusion, so far; the paper is about what electrochemists measure, within their expertise, i.e., chemical heat and the measurement of helium. The paper does not attempt to establish a theory, which would be the province of nuclear physicists -- and is, Naturwissenschaften has published some recent cold fusion theory papers by nuclear physicists --, beyond the obvious: an unknown nuclear reaction is converting deuterium to helium. (If it's not a nuclear reaction, what the hell is it?) I've left Gerard's lie about the content of the paper, and a lot of other crap in the article, because it is useful as a demonstration of pseudoskepticism, for the time being. --Abd (talk) 18:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * You should keep repeatedly calling us liars, it's absolutely the most convincing thing you can do and will definitely get the lurkers supporting you in email - David Gerard (talk) 20:05, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Not "us," Gerard, you. And you are revert warring to sustain the lie and to conceal the clear evidence that it's a lie. I edited that damn paper (I'm credited in it, p. 29 of the preprint). Your action might have been merely ignorant, originally. By now, though, you are responsible for it.
 * That paper is actually crucial, it's "cold fusion" coming out of the cold, and openly, and with the support of a mainstream publisher. So, of course, you are willing to lie about it. Did you actually read it? --Abd (talk) 20:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * How many others here are siding with you and not him? -- il' Dictator   Mikal  20:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup. The mob has spoken, Abadabbadoo. -- MtD Pinko Scum   20:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict with above and with Mikal's block) Does it matter how many swallow a lie? Read the source, in fact, or just read the abstract (but I linked to a preprint). If you think that RationalWiki is helped by hosting gross misrepresentation of sources, in such a way as to mislead the gullible (perhaps like you, Mikal), why, I don't own the wiki. Obviously. And if whoever owns the wiki doesn't care, well, they get what they deserve, it's a natural consequence. --Abd (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What you said are good points, great even, and valid. but then the fact you are arguing them in defense of a idea that isnt correct makes them moot.-- il' Dictator   Mikal  21:13, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * To be fair, Abd is partially right: the description misrepresents what the review says. It claims that the evidence supports the existence of cold fusion. Only once you examine the summary of experimental results, in particular Figure 4 on page 7 of the preprint, it is obvious that reproducibility is very poor. I updated the lead to reflect this, and added some incriminating details. --Tweenk (talk) 23:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * So if we dredge through all of Abd's novel-length whaargarbl, we'll eventually sift a few kernels of corn out of the shit? - David Gerard (talk) 00:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, David, you read the edit, which might be one sentence and check the source. If the edit is good, if it's verifiable, you leave it. If not, you revert it. To imagine that you have to read every word of my long discussion with Tweenk is totally nuts. --Abd (talk) 04:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile, the article now has this new error, about the Storms review: It was published in a peer-reviewed journal on life sciences and environmental sciences.


 * This is commonly brought up by certain critics when the review comes up, perhaps because they are only looking for evidence in one direction, and seek to imply that Naturwissenschaften would be clueless when it comes to a physical science paper. This is what the cited page actually says, my emphasis:
 * Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature - is Springer's flagship multidisciplinary science journal covering all aspect of the natural sciences. The journal is dedicated to the fast publication of high-quality research covering the whole range of the biological, chemical, geological, and physical sciences.' Particularly welcomed are contributions that bridge between traditionally isolated areas and attempt to increase the conceptual understanding of systems and processes that demand an interdisciplinary approach.


 * Gee, that doesn't sound like a "life sciences and environmental sciences journal." It sounds more like Nature or Scientific American, except with an increased emphasis on "bridge" papers. (Is cold fusion chemistry or physics?) So where does the "Life Sciences" thing come from? Easy. It's at the top of the page. Springer has many divisions, and the journal is managed through the Life Sciences division, they had to put it somewhere. After the description of the journal, there are also links to Environmental Sciences and Life Sciences. Naturwissenschaften isn't in those actual categories.
 * Tweenk was not careful. I actually brought this up with him, but apparently he overlooked it. It's understandable, there is a lot of material to absorb, to be able to write sensibly in this field.
 * Now, should I replace the incorrect identification with a correct one? --Abd (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking through, say, the contents of the March edition, I don't see all that much in they way of physics. Peter Monomorium antarcticum 06:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The journal is multidisciplinary, and especially is interested in what crosses disciplinary boundaries. Yes, a lot of the content is biology-related, but you'll often see elements of physics or other fields in those articles. However, the real issue is the quality of review, and Naturwissenschaften has access to deep review resources.
 * Pseudoskeptics commonly demand that there be publication in physics journals. There is (need citations?), but the experimental techniques of cold fusion are those of chemistry, not nuclear physics. There are implications for physics, and it's up to nuclear physicists to work those out. They will probably have to withdraw their heads from a dark place first, there isn't enough light there. (There are quite a few nuclear physicists working on cold fusion theory, and some are working with experimentalists to test theories, but this field is difficult and it may take much more of a community effort to reach the bottom of it.)
 * They are not a "biology" journal, and that's the point. NW is a hundred years old, and Einstein was published in NW, and those weren't biology papers. I haven't researched the "balance," because it doesn't matter. Here is another description of their mission. The paper in question was a Review. This page describes the article process, and I know that this paper was, as suggested there about reviews, solicited. Storms had written a briefer article on heat/helium, which I had also edited, and, in fact, I'd encouraged him to write that first paper, because it was, for me, as a newcomer to the field, the most glaring lack in the literature, while being the absolutely strongest evidence for fusion. Apparently the peer reviewers agreed, because they allowed that abstract. The basic fact has also been published in many other reviews, over the last six or seven years, but never so boldly and clearly, and it was always associated with a great deal of confusing complexity, mostly scientists defending their calorimetry.
 * It's fascinating to me how users here miss the forest for the trees. Not even the trees, the shrubs. That article calls the field "Cold fusion." Not "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions." That's an enormous step. I'm waiting and watching for the other shoe to drop. Is the pseudoskeptical community dead? (Literally, much of it is. Another story.) From evidence I've been seeing, it is unable to get anything of sufficient quality together to pass peer review, anywhere. It is not for lack of trying.
 * If there are any genuine skeptics reading this, I suggest backing up. What if there were no "established physics" on this? What does the preponderance of the evidence show? What criticisms need to be considered -- in both directions? This is the fact: there was no established physics in this field. This is cold fusion, not hot fusion, and it's a very different set of reactions, unexplored, until now, except for muon-catalyzed fusion, which is cold fusion, of a specific (and accepted) kind. If muon catalysis hadn't been suspected and tried, the very same arguments used to dismiss cold fusion as a possibility would have applied. But P-F cold fusion is not muon-catalyzed fusion, there is apparently some different kind of catalysis, and most theories involve electrons and multibody structures. Stuff that can't happen at high temperatures. --Abd (talk) 16:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If cold fusion really is now accepted by the scientific community as you seem to suggest, then why does the abstract to the Naturwissenschaften paper to which you often refer say:
 * Unfortunately, many studies are only available in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Cold Fusion, thanks to the difficulty in getting such studies published in many journals.
 * If cold fusion is now standard science why does "your" Naturwissenschaften paper state that many journals don't want to publish stuff on the subject? If it were acceptable conventional science they would be falling over themselves to publish.--BobSpring is sprung! 08:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Not my paper, though I did some editing of it. Storms is describing the history, what CF faced for almost twenty years, he is referring to the corpus of work, created under those conditions. Those days are actually over. Nevertheless, journal editors are human, and certain prominent journals (notably Nature) very publicly committed themselves, more than twenty years ago, to not publishing anything more on cold fusion. Or simply rejected papers without review, based on them being about "cold fusion." It became policy and that's not conspiracy theory, that's known history. See Undead Science:Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion, Bart Simon, Rutgers University Press, 2002.
 * What you are saying is speculation, Bob. Something you believe because it seems reasonable to you. Journals are now seeking articles on cold fusion. That doesn't automatically create quality research. It takes years. In any case, cold fusion research and reviews are now being published by journals operated by Springer-Verlag and Elsevier, the two largest scientific publishers in the world. The American Chemical Society, the largest scientific society in the world, sponsored a series of LENR Sourcebooks, published by Oxford University Press, and has been sponsoring regular symposia. A recent nuclear physics textbook contains a chapter on cold fusion, much to Tweenk's chagrin. Are these publishers idiots?
 * I haven't said that cold fusion is "standard science." I've said that it's accepted, and it is, it's vastly more accepted than it was, say, ten years ago. There are a lot of scientists, specialists in other fields, who haven't gotten the message, that's clear. So? Is "science" a vote? --Abd (talk) 16:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Multidisciplinary" does not mean "anything goes". "Life sciences" is actually a multidisciplinary field combining biology, chemistry, and elements of computer science and physics. The description above the categories is just advertising directed at authors; the content of the journal (e.g. "Selected Articles") makes it rather clear that the journal nowadays deals primarily with biology.
 * "Is the pseudoskeptical community dead? (Literally, much of it is. Another story.) From evidence I've been seeing, it is unable to get anything of sufficient quality together to pass peer review, anywhere. It is not for lack of trying." - let's see the evidence them, otherwise it's unsubstantiated speculation. I have some counter-evidence:.
 * "A recent nuclear physics textbook contains a chapter on cold fusion" - I already provided reasons why this textbook is bogus. Moreover, it does not discuss helium at all, it focuses on the claim that the isotopic composition of palladium changes. You say that most people agree on what is supposedly produced in the reaction, but I don't see it.
 * You claim at the beginning that "a review like this is much less likely to be cited, short term, than a primary source on which other papers build". Wrong, wrong, wrong. In practically all fields, reviews attract many more citations than original articles. This is why journals with very high impact factors, such as Angewandte Chemie, publish both reviews and original work. The highest impact chemistry journal is Chemical Reviews. --Tweenk (talk) 19:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict with below) You had me excited for a moment with your "counter-evidence". Unfortunately, that's a 1990 paper. Tweenk, what does this have to do with the present state of the field? That's an old paper looking at pure d-d fusion, based on theory, in the lattice environment, and simply makes the common point. Raw confinement pressure is not enough, even though it is very high. Unfortunately, again, I can't read the whole paper, I only have the abstract and that first page. My primary critique of what I can see is that gas phase deuterium is not known to exist in the lattice. But some have speculated that it might, perhaps the paper was responding to that speculation. (And, indeed, I'm aware of discussions in the field that do present reason why D2 might exist, but not in the lattice itself, rather in vacancies.)
 * The direct evidence I have of declined contributions is from Shanahan.. I also know that a few somewhat knowledgeable skeptics have been very active "debunking" all of this, and it's reasonable that a few of them would try to submit papers, they are putting plenty of time into blogs and discussions. What I wrote was "it's not for lack of trying," and I can show one try, readily, Shanahan, I'll find links if you want them. He wrote the last published truly overall-skeptical paper, AFAIK, in 2005. But then he responded to a recent review in Journal of Environmental Monitoring, published as a letter with simultaneous rebuttal by authors, and then complained that further response was not allowed. He's fully capable of writing a paper for publication, rather than just a letter, he's done it before. The original interchange is covered by an article on New Energy Times. Warning, I accept everything Krivit of NET writes, if I'm able to verify it completely independently. He's extremely biased in certain ways. But when he doesn't have a particular bug about someone, he's sort-of okay. Not a scientist, a writer, and doesn't really have the science background, but also doesn't get and follow advice from scientists.... Shanahan, in any case, is the best the highly skeptical position has come up with for years. CCS is a real possibility, but not to the extent that Shanahan claims, and the researchers correctly point out two major problems, the asymmetry and the level of heat, coupled with the fact that CF calorimetry uses many different calorimetric approaches, only some of which would be vulnerable to Shanahan's claimed effect. And the helium? Shanahan asks a ridiculous question about it, what is being plotted against helium? It's a supercilious question: what is being plotted is observed excess heat, assuming no error, the same with any other plot. Shanahan is claiming those values are wrong, but, in fact, the helium results (in some of this work) confirm the excess heat. Standard confirmation through correlation of variables that would be expected to be independent. --Abd (talk) 22:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As to citation of reviews, if there is a controversy, and a review comes out with one side, sure, it would be cited by contrary reviews, and, as well, by reviews favoring the position or further research based on something introduced or confirmed in the review. However, we haven't seen either yet. My sense is that either people simply agree with Storms or don't, but don't have the resources to write a rebuttal. It's a huge amount of work to match what Storms has done. I do know that helium is now being routinely measured and assumed to be connected with the heat. It's considered a validation that the calorimetry is reasonable. Publication in this field is fairly slow. One of the legitimate reasons for many journals to stay away from it is that they might not have qualified review resources: a physics journal, would it have the chemistry review resources? Chemistry journals have long published papers on cold fusion, but stayed away from theory. The Storms review doesn't attempt to establish any theory, but simply lists them and describes them a little, and notes the experimental evidence to be explained.


 * The field also got in the habit of just publishing conference papers. But that's changing; as I mentioned -- and I showed a link -- publication rates have been increasing greatly since 2005. --Abd (talk) 22:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * You are misunderstanding the 1990 paper. There is absolutely no difference between calculations for D2 in octahedral vacancies in Pd lattice and two unbound D atoms in octahedral vacancies in Pd lattice, as long as the charge and spin multiplicity are the same. There is no mention of gas phase deuterium being present, which is an impossibility anyway (gas in a metal? how?). As for the review - in chemistry it is customary to cite a recent review in the introduction of your paper, so that readers can easily learn some background information. If this was a legitimate, authoritative review, I would expect many cold fusion papers citing it. But it doesn't appear to be the case. Finally, I glanced briefly over Shanahan's argument and I think it is sensible - in any case it requires less magic than radiationless D-D -> 4He fusion. The main argument of the CF crowd against Shanahan is the mechanism can just as well generate negative excess heat, but this is not observed. I think this could easily be due to publication bias. --Tweenk (talk) 01:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Some users seemed to be upset about my long response to Tweenk, so I've archived it to history. Only those interested in learning about the Deep Secrets of Nature and Assorted Crankery should venture into the Fossil Record. Warning: contains clever and nefarious challenges, with evidence, to the firmly held beliefs of some, who should consult a medical advisor before reading. Could cause apoplexy or heart failure. For Serious Skeptics Only. --Abd (talk) 15:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)


 * So the journal "Nature" is deliberately suppressing this accepted science?
 * And the journal you quote says: "Unfortunately, many studies are only available in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Cold Fusion, thanks to the difficulty in getting such studies published in many journals."
 * I'm quoting you and I'm quoting them. Where is this speculation of which you speak?--BobSpring is sprung! 21:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You wrote, "If it were acceptable conventional science they would be falling over themselves to publish." That's speculation, not an observation or report. I'm not getting any sign that I'm being read carefully.
 * You quoted Storms on the difficulty of publishing. Storms was referring to the history, not to the present state, and if you read it in context and if you knew the history, you'd know that this is simple fact. And then Storms goes on to give a web site where the bulk of the papers are available.
 * From your comment on Nature, where you do not quote me, it seems you are living in a delusion about how the editors of scientific journals behave. They are human, as I wrote. Nature, and a number of other journals, such as the American Physical Society journals, began rejecting papers on cold fusion as such, without review. See Simon, Undead Science, p. 181-183. There is quite a story, here, about a world that, it seems, you don't think exists. Yet it's documented. There are some specific known cases where significant work was rejected. And then the claim is made that there is no significant work. It's circular.
 * In an editorial in Nature, in 1990, it was demanded that Fleischmann respond to questions about his research. And then, later, his responses were ignored and not published. Criticism of published work, more than once, was allowed to stand, while responses were not allowed.
 * Generally, there is no "conspiracy," but there have been situations where someone was found to be pulling strings behind the scenes. Park, of the APS, for example, in a case where his actions led to the firing of a patent office examiner, for being friendly to cold fusion. (The examiner was reinstated with full pay after an examination, and the arbitrator excoriated Park.) Under the influence of Park, the APS long had a strong practice of attacking cold fusion, very odd for a scientific society. The 1989 DoE review, and the 2004 DoE review, both recommended further research under existing programs. Plenty of grant applications have been submitted, by experts. None have been approved, in spite of massive open research questions -- as pointed out in the reviews --, and suspicion is strong that this is due to political pressure. What government funding there has been has mostly been through the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA has been awarding contracts. --Abd (talk) 23:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Groan. This really is like talking to PJR.--BobSpring is sprung! 17:54, 11 March 2012 (UTC)