Talk:Cold fusion/Archive4

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Jim Jast

My word. This is almost as interesting as Jim Jast's stuff. Remember his opus?--Bob^{Spring 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.Godotoi, 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.[1] 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)

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 saidil'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.

• 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 sayil'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.--^talk 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.--^talk 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 [24] 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.[25] 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.[26]

• 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.--Bob^{Spring 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: [27].

"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.[28] 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?--Bob^{Spring 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.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 17:54, 11 March 2012 (UTC)