Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/newspostings/2701-2800/2750

Internet Message Format | 1996-07-07 | 3.7 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Patrick Juola)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,sci.skeptic,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Dr. Paul Hill's repulsive force field
Date: 7 Jul 1996 19:46:43 GMT
Organization: M.R.C. Research Centre in Brain and Behaviour, Oxford University
Lines: 61
Message-ID: <4rp473$[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <4rglql$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Christian Holscher) writes:
>In article <4rglql$[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mark O'Leary) wrote:
>
>> But [cold fusion] certainly was considered extraordinary. The numerous
   attempts
>> toreplicate it *were* the extraordinary evidence. Most new physics is tried
>> once by a single lab wanting to get into the same field (as in the room
>> temperature superconductors sequence).
>
>   I'm confused by this post. I thought that "extraordinary evidence" was
>needed in SUPPORT of extraordinary claims, wheras you appear to be saying
>that the extraordinary evidence was required to debunk it.

The extraordinary evidence was needed to examine the claim.  The
same sort of evidential work that eventually debunked cold fusion
would have been needed to support the claim.

There's no magic touchstone by which scientists can know (beforehand)
which side the extraordinary evidence will fall.  All they can do is
make guesses, and as Mr. O'Leary indicated, people were guessing on
both sides.  (I admit, I guessed wrong and believed CF.)

> Where was the
>extraordinry evidence that led you to consider that an attempt at
>replication was warrented? Unless you're going to claim that you attempt
>to replicate every effect whose existence you deny.....

There were several political factors involved that made the cold
fusion claim important enough to replicate :

    i) First, CF would have serious economic value
    ii) Second, the experiment itself wasn't difficult to set up
    iii) Third, Utah (and Pons and Fleishmann), were at the time
        considered to be decent professional researchers.

and, perhaps most importantly,
    iv) There's not a group of psychotic "believers" out there
        poisoning the wells of the few researchers who are
        doing sufficiently good work to withstand research.

Notice, for instance, that SETI has a fairly postive reputation, while
many of the USENET lunatic fringe doesn't.  Coincidence?  I think not.

>
> Secondly, if the cold fusion claim was considered "extraordinary" in the
>same sense that alien visitors, ESP and Dowsing are considered
>"extraordinary" by the Scientific Community, then why were Fleischmann and
>Pons on the T.V. giving their results, why was there a mad rush to
>replicate their results in so many Physics labs, and, more importantly,
>why DON'T  I see R.D. Nelson, Jessica Utts and T. Jahn on the T.V., and a
>mad rush to replicate THEIR results in many different labs? I'm afraid I'm
>forced to conclude that their are two different types of "extraordinary" -
>only one of which isn't also considered "impossible"  and "pointless".

Or you simply saw scientists at their worst in that scenario.  Most
scientists, when they saw P&F on the television playing up the hype
and not responding to the questions that had been raised started to
take their claims less seriously.  Mainly because at that point, they
had stopped doing science....

    Patrick