Talk:Cold fusion

The Cold fusion article was the subject of formal mediation from the Mediation Committee in 2008. Please visit its talk page before making significant changes.

Pathological science

Why are Alchemy, Pathological Science, Protoscience, and Transmutation linked to Cold Fusion here? Wouldn't Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Fission, and some other kind of energy production linked to this article? They seem almost unrelated to this article, other than the fact that most of those require a fusion of some sorts (namely alchemy and transmutation) and that this is a new science (protoscience). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.119.185.104 (talk) 03:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Cold Fusion isn't protoscience so much as it is pathological science, hence the links. I have no idea on Alchemy or Transmutation, though. Titanium Dragon (talk) 09:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Cold fusion was considered pathological science in the 90's, but it isn't anymore: the 2004 DOE was evenly split on the evidence of excess heat, and identified several areas of research to resolve the controversy. You would expect such an assessment for a protoscience, not for a pathological science. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seen any evidence that the field's reputation has improved since the 90's. According to the Physics Today 2005 article, cold fusion is still in a state of "disrepute." Therefore, the link to pathological science should probably stay. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 01:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Funny enough, the title of the Physics Today article you refer too is "DOE Warms to Cold Fusion". That article does not talk of "pathological science" at all. Actually, I do not think that there is any post-2000 source presenting cold fusion as pathological science. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The Physics Today April 2004 article is titled "DOE Warms to Cold Fusion" while the Physics Today January 2005 article is titled "Cold Fusion Gets Chilly Encore." The former states that the scientific community "shuns" cold fusion, while the latter states that "Claims of cold fusion are no more convincing than they were 15 years ago." Physics Today is the principal magazine published by the main association of American physicists. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 12:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Surely the numerous recent articles on cold fusion would present cold fusion as pathological science if that's the proper way to present it. None is doing it. Pathological science is a a clearly defined concept: a science in which "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions". None of your statement nor your sources supports that view. Instead, they are consistent with a new field of study trying to establish its legitimacy. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

They recommended against giving it any federal funding, and considering some of the things the federal government HAS sunk money in (the infamous telportation report, the remote viewing program, ect.) I don't think that's exactly a vote of endorsement. They listed some very basic stuff which cold fusion has ultimately failed to answer; I think calling it pathological science is justified given it seems more that people WANT to believe in it rather than actually having solid evidence for it. The whole thing reminds me strongly of polywater. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken : the 2004 DOE DID recommend giving federal funding (but not in a focused program). Here is a quote from the 2004 DOE report : "The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues relevant to the question of whether or not there is anomalous energy production in Pd/D systems, or whether or not D-D fusion reactions occur at energies on the order of a few eV."

Polywater has been shown to be pathological science, not cold fusion : small impurities were invariably found to explain the polywater phenomena; many experimental reports of cold fusion have no satisfactory explanation at this point. If some people want to believe in CF, as you suggest, others chose to show "pathological disbelief" towards cold fusion, only on the basis of their belief system. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

A general principle on controversial articles is to keep the See also section quite short and not to use it to introduce aspects of the controversy that should be dealt with in main article space. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The relevant scientific literature does classify Cold Fusion with Polywater. See "Indicators of failed information epidemics in the scientific journal literature: A publication analysis of Polywater and Cold Nuclear Fusion", E. Ackermann, Scientometrics 66, 451-466 (2006) --Noren (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You can't conclude that cold fusion should be considered pathological science from that paper, only that it should be considered as a failed information epidemics. The definition of failed information epidemics given in that article is distinctively different from the definition of pathological science. I would have no problem tagging the cold fusion article as a failed information epidemics, but it would require this topic to be presented in the article (as itsmejudith explained). Pcarbonn (talk) 06:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia; we report from a NPOV and use RSs. RSs say that cold fusion is a pathological science, and indeed it is more commonly thought of as a pathological or pseudoscience than as an actual science by scientists. Hence, we MUST state that it has a reputation as being such; it would not be neutral for us to do otherwise. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Then please provide a reliable source, among the many published since 2000, that say that cold fusion is pathological science. Wikipeida policies require that any challenged statement be backed up by a reference. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

You mean other than the source already in the article? Titanium Dragon (talk) 04:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Refer to pcarbonn's previous comment, where he notes that said source does not say that cold fusion is pathological science. Kevin Baas^talk 15:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Google reveals: Columbia university cites it as an example of such: [1] Hyle criticizes the term "pathological science", but cites cold fusion as an example thereof: [2] It is associated with pathological science as strongly as polywater and N-rays, perhaps MORE strongly in some people's minds because it is more recent. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Columbia's citation is from 1998. Hyle's citation is from 2002, and he says that OTHER people called it pathological science, with examples from pre-2000. A lot of things have happened in the field since then (such as the 2004 DOE report, which presents it as an ongoing controversy). Again, I don't know of any people saying that cold fusion actually is pathological science after 2000. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

They don't use the phrase "pathological science," but here's an article in Discover from 2006 which calls cold fusion a "fiasco" which delivered "little besides unpredictable results." They even put "cold fusion" inside quotes which implies that they have a low opinion of the field. http://discovermagazine.com/2006/jan/physics 209.253.120.198 (talk) 02:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, they are not using the word "pathological science". So, we agree. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is it being from 1998 important? That's silly. I could put all sorts of arbitrary requirements on you, but that doesn't mean they make sense. How much attention is paid today by mainstream scientists to it? Why? Why do they look down on it so? The answer is quite clear. Denial is a terrible thing. Titanium Dragon (talk) 09:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• Cohen references cold fusion in his Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line and talks about it being pathological science.
• SFgate.com had an article about it and talked about how it showed all the signs of pathological science, but I can't find the article.

Is this the one where Hal Plotkin says that "I've become convinced that the federal Department of Energy is responsible for a massive failure to serve the public interest."(May 17, 1999) ? Hardly a support to the pathological view ! Pcarbonn (talk) 16:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• The NYT quoted Morrison in 1989 calling it pathological science.

Indeed Morrison and many others have said that Fleischmann & Pons made mistakes in radiation measurements in their initial reports (but not on the excess heat). But you cannot infer that the later researchers did the same mistakes. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• Jasper McKee, editor of Physics in Canada, talked about cold fusion being pathological science, and again referenced something else Morrison said.
• Apparently the book Voodoo Science calls cold fusion pathological science.

Its author said in 2007 : 'there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions'." (source) Pcarbonn (talk) 16:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• The Undergrowth of Science talks about cold fusion as pathological science.

Titanium Dragon (talk) 09:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

We are writing an article representing the current view of the subject, that's why recent sources matter (except for the history section, of course). That's why it is important to find a recent reliable source saying it's pathological science. Even if such as source is found (pls provide the date for your sources), it also has to be shown that it is the majority view, or we have to qualify it as the view of so and so.

By the way, if there is a consensus that CF is pathological science, why did the DOE recommend further scientific research on the subject ? Why is DARPA financing research in it ? See here. Cold fusion is a controversial effect, like many others, that is studied by real scientists.

We are having this discussion for the "See also" section: during the mediation, it was agreed that we would not have one (See here), and that, if we had one, it should not include controversial links (see Itsmejudith's comment above in this thread). A link to "pathological science" is already in the lead section: no need to add it in a "See also" section.

The same can be said about a "pathological science" category for the article: there is no recent proof that there is a clear consensus that CP is pathological science, so there is not enough support to put it in that category. It's better to put it in the Category:Unsolved_problems_in_physics. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Cold Fusion should be placed in Category:Unsolved_problems_in_physics AFTER data showing a convincing deviation from established physics has been reported in a top journal. Until then, let's wait and see how the research progresses. By the way, the fact that some people study something does not mean it is not pathological science. By definition, all pathological science has had someone studying it, or it wouldn't even exist as a type of science. The term pathological merely labels those people as being incompetent, not nonexistent. A better metric for detecting pathological science is whether results are repeatable and reproducible. Good researchers strive to publish results in top journals (Science, Nature, Physical Review), so if they can't, there is a good chance their results are not repeatable and reproducible, which supports the use of the "pathological science" label. In other words, if something is discussed but never makes it into top journals, that is by itself evidence that something is wrong, at the very least. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 12:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The cloning of animal is difficult to repeat, and very few teams can actually repeat it. Yet, nobody says it's pathological science. Just after the cloning of Dolly, i.e. when it was not yet reproduced, nobody said that it was pathological science. Also, many discoveries never make it to Nature : would you call them pathological science ? Pathological science has a well-defined meaning: let's stick to it. Your criteria, while related to pathological science, are not enough to classify something as pathological science. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

First off, government funding does not mean it isn't pure pseudoscience; see, for instance, the millions the government spent on remote viewing experiments over the course of decades, or the infamous teleportation report [3]. Any argument based on "the govnernment gives it money, therefore it isn't pseudoscience" is pretty worthless, as the US government has in the past funded pseudoscientific garbage for a variety of reasons.

Second, there is consensus by the scientific community that it is pathological science; see my references above. Our job is to report reality, not the incredibly incorrect POV you hold. We say it is considered pathological science by many in the introduction to the article, it would be completely inappropriate for us NOT to classify it under Category:Pseudoscience in light of that. You are the one who is going against what was agreed upon during arbitration, and you are the one who is, I'm sorry to say, in ignorance of the modern reality - it IS viewed as such by the scientific community at large. While not as poorly looked upon as, say, intelligent design, it is viewed as pathological science at best and crankery otherwise. And the New Energy Times seems to exist for the promotion of such, and doesn't look to be the most realiable or neutral source on the subject matter.

And comparisons to animal cloning show a complete lack of comprehension of how science works and reproducibility. People have, in fact, reproduced animal cloning, but more to the point, unlike cold fusion research, a clone is still extant over time - that is to say, if I claim to have cloned an animal, it is easy for you to confirm whether two sheep are clones via genetic testing. There is an enormous difference because a cloning project actually produces an object which is proof that it worked. Cold fusion is poorly regarded by the scientific community at large, it is seen as pathological science, and it is very different from novelties like animal cloning in essential ways. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The things that are categorized as pseudoscience are categorized as such because they meet the definition of pseudoscience. As pcarboonn has already pointed out, cold fusion does not meet that definition. If some people hold that POV, then it is a POV, and should be presented as such. Using a category presents it as a fact, not a POV, and wikipedia does not take sides on POVs. Since it does not meet the definition of pseudoscience, it is not factually pseudoscience, so wikipedia cannot take a stance that it is, even if some people hold that pov. (while others don't - which brings up a whole 'nother issue: balance) Kevin Baas^talk 14:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thing is, EVERYTHING related to that is an "opinion". Homeopathy, for instance, is clearly pseduoscience, but its supporters ceratinly don't believe it to be so. Same with perpetual motion machines, which fall under Category:Pseudophysics, as this would. And yes, it IS categorized as such; pathological science does not have a category of its own and is instead put into the appropriate subcategory under the larger umbrella of Category:Pseudoscience. And no, a category doesn't present it as "fact", it presents it as a -category-. The point of categories is to categorize stuff, and to group things together appropriately. And the scientific community at large (and world at large), regardless of what Pcarbonn CLAIMS, in actuality classifies cold fusion alongside polywater and N-Rays; comparisons are pretty common and it is commonly referred to as pseudoscience and pathological science. It should be grouped with them because it is commonly grouped with them, and the purpose of categories is ease of finding such. You can find people who contest ANYTHING, but amongst the scientific community, it is broadly considered to be pathological science. I have shown numerous books, universities, articles, researchers, ect. to consider it such. What does he offer in contrast to that categorization? If categorization was endorsement of a given POV, there's no way we could even have a meaningful pseudoscience category, much less put things like homeopathy or intelligent design in it. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, Titanium Dragon, the criteria for pathological science is not reproducibility anymore, but whether the result of an experiment is extant over time. Luckily, the evidence of CR-39 detectors and of nuclear transmutations pass this test, and has been reproduced, so cold fusion is not pathological science by this criteria either. Also, why do you change the criteria ? This is a typical tactic of "pathological disbelief".

I wish you have read the definition of pathological science : it is the "process in science in which "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions"". So, it is not so much defined by the experiment than by the method used by the researchers. I wonder why the new criteria you propose is not mentionned in the pathological science page. What evidence do we have that the recent researchers have been tricked into false results ? And, on the other hand, do those who keep changing definitions follow the process of science ? Please have a look at the characteristics of pseudoskepticism.

We agreed in mediation to represent the view of the 2004 DOE panel: indeed, this is the most notable neutral review of the field. My "incredible POV" is shared by a significant number of its panelists, just as your incredible disbelief is by others. Clearly, there is no consensus that it is pathological science. So, we cannot categorize it as such. If the article on homeopathy represent a false consensus, we should fix it too. Actually, there is an arbitration going on for that article: hopefully, they will do what's necessary. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You said that the article could be categorized as an Unsolved problem in physics only AFTER it has been clearly established as such. Likewise, could we say that the article could be categorized as pathological science only AFTER it has been clearly established as such ? If not, why the double standard ? Pcarbonn (talk) 08:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Titanium Dragon, I read through the articles you cited (homeopathy and polywater) and I really don't see how either of them can be compared to cold fusion. Homeopathy is clearly not science - they didn't do anything scientific. Polywater was shown to be a result of contamination - it is falsified science; the result of sloppy experiments, the cause of which was later discovered to be impurities in the water. I would call homeopathy not science, just like i'd call intelligent design not science. I would call polywater a solved problem in science - as the cause of the phenomena was discovered - or one might call it falsified. But it's not perpetual motion. that i'd call pathological or pseudoscience - as it directly violates the second law of thermodynamics. Cold fusion is not like polywater because the cause of the phenomena has not been discovered and hypothesis for it have not been falsified. Cold fusion is not like homeopathy because the scientific process is used in research of it. And finally, cold fusion is not like perpetual motion because it doesn't violate any fundamental laws of energy and entropy. So I don't see the relation you're trying to make when you bring these things up. None of the objectionable qualities that these things have are shared with cold fusion. Kevin Baas^talk 14:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

'And finally, cold fusion is not like perpetual motion because it doesn't violate any fundamental laws of energy and entropy.' CF does not violate fundamental laws of energy and entropy, but it would violate other laws that are similarly respected: coulomb repulsion, and expected products from deuteron fusion. Unless some fifth force is acting, cold fusion is about as likely as perpetual motion. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 00:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a source for that. The DOE never said it. It just said that a new nuclear process would be needed. It didn't say this is unlikely. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Aren't there dozens of articles quoting scientists as saying cold fusion is unlikely? Also, I haven't read them, but by googling for a few minutes I found these two articles which appear to say cold fusion is unlikely: http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v63/i1/p59_1 http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v63/i18/p1926_1 209.253.120.198 (talk) 12:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The sources you quote are essentially saying that "fusion, as we know it, is unlikely in a cold environment". They say nothing about the possibility of a new nuclear process that DOE say would be required to explain the observations. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

For the record, i cited the laws of energy and entropy because there are no other laws that are similiarly respected; they are fundamental axioms which precede any other physical law. forces such as coulomb repulsion and processes such as nuclear reactions are defined in terms of them. we could not use mathematical equations to describe the universe where it not for a law of conservation of energy, and we could not describe dissipative systems such as sound waves or chemical reactions without some mechanism to quantify evolution probabilities, such as entropy. Without laws of energy providing a framework to describe transfers of causative power and laws of entropy to describe the statistical mechanics of that transfer, we wouldn't have physics (as we know it). Kevin Baas^talk 22:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I see: Pseudoscience is defined as a body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific or made to appear scientific, but does not adhere to the scientific method,[2][3][4] lacks supporting evidence or plausibility,[5] or otherwise lacks scientific status.[6] homeopath does not adhere to the scientific method, polywater - i don't know how that fits in - it's just disproven science - perpetual motion lacks supporting evidence or plausibility. If "otherwise lacks scientific status" wasn't so vague, it might be more helpful. Cold fusion meets all the criteria of "science", so it has the "status" of "science" in that sense. It hasn't been falsified like polywater has, so in that sense it still retains "scientific status" whereas polywater might be said to no longer have such status. But "scientific status" could mean so many other things, it's hard to say. Kevin Baas^talk 15:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Though in the context of that sentence, "scientific status" can be reasonable construed to mean something other than being "scientific" or not, or having supporting evidence or not, as that would make the sentence redundant. Apparently it refers to something more elusive, and possibly subjective. Kevin Baas^talk 15:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I read the rest of the intro to the pseudoscience article and the "identifying..." section, and it just doesn't fit. For example:

Pseudosciences have been characterised by the use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims, over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation, lack of openness to testing by other experts, and a lack of progress in theory development.

Cold fusion does not meet any of these criteria. And, in fact, the identifying section has this to say:

If the claims of a given field can be experimentally tested and methodological standards are upheld, it is not "pseudoscience", however odd, astonishing, or counter-intuitive. If claims made are inconsistent with existing experimental results or established theory, but the methodology is sound, caution should be used; science consists of testing hypotheses which may turn out to be false. In such a case, the work may be better described as ideas that are not yet generally accepted.

So I have to conclude from the article on pseudoscience that cold fusion is not pseudoscience. Kevin Baas^talk 15:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Cold fusion research has been characterized by confirmation bias and a lack of reproducible results. Indeed, the USDOE 2004 reviewers commented on the difficulty of reproducing the results and expressed skepticism. This is why it is seen as pathological science; basically, people see what they want to see, and troll through their own data to find significance. The problem is that they have not established that they can reproduce the results of their experiments; back after the initial furor in the 1980s a ton of people tried to reproduce the results and couldn't. Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation is exactly what trolling through your data trying to find meaningful results is, and that's exactly what they've been accused of - wanting to see something that isn't there. They do not suffer from lack of openness, but other experts have been unable to duplicate their results, and a lack of progress in theory development is very evident in the field of cold fusion. So it meets most of the criteria of pseudoscience; the only one it fails to meet is openness. Exaggerated claims is part and parcel of cold fusion; indeed, that is exactly what the initial reports were, and the original authors ended up withdrawing their claims for exactly that reason, along with the lack of reproducibility. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You are confusing skepticism and rejection. Most scientists are skeptics of cold fusion, as Physics Today said: it does not mean that they reject it as pathological science. To do so would require to show that people have been tricked into false results. Yet, the DOE said that cold fusion could not be yet proved nor disproved. So, it cannot be proven to be pathological science either. Again, we decided in mediation to represent the view in proportion to the DOE panel's. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." - first sentence of abstract, Int. J. Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, Vol. 3, pg. 31 (2007). The author, Jean-Paul Biberian, is himself an author of cold fusion papers but acknowledges the fact that cold fusion is widely regarded as pseudoscience. I think that not 'a genuine scientific research theme' is a fine definition of pseudoscience. --Noren (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

For every quote in favor of pathological science, there is one to the contrary. Here is what Bob Park, the famous author of Voodoo Science said in 2007 : "Bob Park, at the University of Maryland, US, [...] concedes that 'there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions'." (source). If the guru of pathological science acknowledges cold fusion, why not the others ? In any case, no consensus --> no categorisation. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, there is a fallacy in your argument: "not saying A" is not the same as "saying not A". "The scientific community does not say it is a genuine scientific research theme" is not the same as "the scientific community say it is not a genuine scientific research theme." Again, this is the difference between skepticism and rejection. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that cold fusion research has been characterized by confirmation bias - but rather by people considering the probabilities and finding them to be way out of line from what is expected. If one does 20 experiments, and theory predicts 0 of them to produce anomolous results, while experience predicts about 2 of them to have erroneous results outside the 90% confidence interval (perhaps due to contamination or some measurement error), and one gets, instead, 5 of them outside the 99% confidence interval - well, that's highly improbable. That high improbability is cause for surprise - and a curious person would say "there's something going on here that i don't understand. i want to find out what it is." I would characterize someone who takes the opposite view - the view that nothing interesting is happening - as led by confirmation bias - because they're disregarding the anomolous results and thus not weighing all of the evidence - they're picking and choosing what to include in order to confirm their pre-ordained conclusion and ignoring anything that refutes it. When you weigh all of the evidence, both good and bad, you come up with something that's highly improbable. That's not confirmation bias, that's being rational.

As regards "a lack of reproducible results", firstly, results have been reproduced - historically they haven't been nearly as reproducable as the norm (but neither is cloning sheep), but they have been reproduced. the pseudoscience article says nothing about things that are difficult to reproduce (such as hot fusion, for instance), and rightly so. the phenomena observed in these experiments have been difficult to reproduce. that does not make it pseudoscience. furthermore, there are now experiments (such as those done in SPAWAR) that have very high reproducability, so your premise is critically flawed anyways.

"trolling through your data trying to find meaningful results is" called trying to find an explanation for the phenomena. That's what good scientists do.

"and a lack of progress in theory development is very evident in the field of cold fusion. " - the rate of theory development in proportion to the number of people working on it is actually very high. theories in physics don't just develop overnight. it often takes decades. (quantum physics, and relativity being two well-known examples) and the whole string theory / m-theory stuff has been around for a few. That's thousands of scientists working on one problem for a couple of decades and producing a total of two theories. Point is I think you're sense of scale is a bit off here. The rate of development of c.f. theories, esp. given the relatively small number of researchers and the mysteriousness of the phenomena, is quite impressive.

As regards exaggerated claims, it seems to me that you're taking the initial statement "there seems to be something nuclear going on here" as "exaggerated claims" that are categorically pseudoscience, and I really don't think that's what the article means to say. I've read a lot of the papers and i don't see any exaggerated claims in them - i see exact numbers and graphs and it all looks very scientific and conservative to me. it looks to me like you're cherry-picking here -- and all you've got is one cherry -- and even that's disputable. The claims made in the papers publishing results of the experiments are not exaggerated. They are very testable and specific.

So in conclusion, it does not meet any of the criteria. The only way you can make it seem to meet the criteria is by twisting the meaning around while simultaneously cherry-picking and disregarding any results that refute your hypothesis. Kevin Baas^talk 15:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is it IS confirmation bias; one of the things which the cold fusion community has been specifically criticized for is data mining. If you run a thousand experiments, you'd expect about ten of them to be out pretty far on the tail on the top, and about ten to be pretty far out on the tail at the bottom. If you then write a paper and take only twenty results, ten of them the high ones and ten others, and claim you have something, you're basically committing scientific fraud. People do this fairly often, unfortuantely, and it isn't always intentional - sometimes they really believe they have something because they WANT to believe it. This is the confirmation bias I'm speaking of. You simply aren't going to run a perfect experiment every time, most likely, and if you get a couple of anomalous results, which checking them out is a good thing, it doesn't mean there is ANYTHING significant. The fact that other people cannot replicate these experiments speaks volumes about the controls on them, and the scientific community at large does not take it seriously.

Hot fusion is very easy to reproduce, it is just very expensive and you need specialized equipment. Moreover, how it works is well known and it is fairly readily observable otherwise - just look up. Cold fusion simply doesn't work in many labs, which is very reminiscient of early polywater experiments - a lot of people are sloppy, but some people aren't. There aren't examples of it in nature, either.

There is no "twisting" here; there is a reason cold fusion research is laughed at by so many physicists. I don't think you really understand the nature of it. It is considered to be pathological science, which is why so few people pay attention to it. Its like a lot of other nonsense - the scientific community just doesn't spend much time on it unless they consider it worth their while, and they often don't find it worth their while to refute what they consider nonsense in scientific papers and the like unless they're specifically criticizing something which actually got published in a worthwhile journal. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

A lot of what you just said is conjecture, and a lot of it is just false. You mention "confirmation bias" - while it seems to me that, ironically, you're the one exhibiting the symptoms thereof. I have seen no evidence of data mining and you certainly haven't presented any - nor have i seen anyone present any. Even if you can find some people who've made the accusation - without any substantiation it's just hearsay. Now from what I can tell, it's like I said - when you take both the positive and negative results together (in other words, to NOT DATA-MINE), you get something that's very improbable and can't be explained by measurement errors and the like - if that were the case they'd occur far less often (in addition to producing a much smaller deviation from whats expected). It is only rational to conclude that "there is something interesting/unexpected going on here." To come to the opposite conclusion one would have to ignore most of the positive results and suggest that the negative results vastly outnumber the positive results when it's clear that this simply isn't the case - to do that would be confirmation bias.

And again you claim that nothing is reproducable, after i just told you that this is not true (in bold), and even gave an example. To me that looks very much like ignoring (even forgetting almost immediately!) anything that refutes your pre-established conclusion. This is a symptom of confirmation bias. (and i dare say pathological disbelief, as well.)

You have a strange definition of "easy". re: "how [hot fusion] works is well known" Yes. That's why hot fusion is currently an engineering problem whereas cold fusion is a scientific one. That's the difference between engineering and science. It's amazing how many people confuse the two. Roughly put, in engineering you apply, in science you discover. Hence by definition we don't know what's going on in these phenomena. if we did, it wouldn't be science. And there'd certainly be no point in doing any experiments.

Cold fusion hasn't worked in many labs because it's not well understood and it's very sensitive. A lot of the early negative results were because scientists were sloppy. But now, as I've said before, (and please remember it this time, so i don't have to repeat it again) there are experiments which are HIGHLY REPRODUCABLE. (bold didn't work, perhaps uppercase will.) Such as, for example, the co-deposition technique and gas-loading. But, like hot fusion, these experiments are expensive and require lots of specialized equipment and careful controls. And the scientists doing these experiments certainly weren't sloppy.

I've shown how cold fusion doesn't meet any of the criteria for "pseudoscience" listed in the corresponding article, and how your fitting it to the criteria was based on faulty reasoning and/or faulty assertions. You've responded to this largely w/conjecture and opinion. Of what you said that was logically related to the criteria, your responses were conjecture, unsubstantiated accusations, and/or demonstrably false statements. Now I don't know what's going on in these phenomena, whether it's nuclear or what have you, but I have seen nothing to convince me that it's not a valid scientific endeavor to try to find out. Kevin Baas^talk 18:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You can tell me it is reproducible, but they found in both 1989 and 2004 that it wasn't. Indeed, one of the things which is stated in this article is specifically that the 2004 DOE panel expressed skepticism at it.

The reality is that if the scientific community at large thought cold fusion works, there'd be absolutely enormous amounts of money thrown at it because it would have the potential to massively change world energy supplies. Look at reality: cold fusion research is looked down upon and scorned. Given the profit potential, the only reason it would happen is if the community at large thinks it is just not real.

You haven't shown how it doesn't meet the defintions of pseudoscience; you've shown you haven't done the research, or that you rejected it. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Your middle paragraph about "the reality is that..." is a non-sequitor and not even sound logic anyways. you make too many unsupported assumptions and the conclusions you draw don't logically follow from them. The argument doesn't address the question as to whether or not cold fusion meets the criteria - it tries to infer its status indirectly from hypotheticals.

I don't see where I showed that i haven't done the research, nor where i rejected any research. To the contrary, i cited research that you seem to be unaware of and in any case are rejecting. About two replies up i did a point-for-point rebuttle, about a paragraph per criteria ("definition"). And i didn't just tell you it is reproducable, I gave you concrete examples of experiments that have been found to be very reproducable. Generalizations that were written in a report that did not review those examples do not speak to them. Furthermore, you should note that, in spite of the reservations noted in the review, said DOE report answered charge #3 (the relevant charge here) in the affirmative. Kevin Baas^talk 22:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

We need to distinguish occasional reproduction from reproduction "on demand". While the first one is enough to justify further scientific study, the second one is necessary for commercial applications. The DOE recognized the first one, but not the latter : that's why it found the evidence somewhat convincing, recommended further research on selected topics, but did not recommend a large-scale program. Again, saying that this field is pathological science would require the demonstration that it is based on false results, something that the DOE and many other sources did not say, and that would be contrary to what they actually said. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should bring this thread back to the article. Does anyone have a proposed edit that might be acceptable to all of the interested parties? If not, how about any kind of improvement to the article? I think the article is pretty good right now. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 23:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this discussion could go on for ever. The point is that there are 2 different views, and no consensus about whether cold fusion is a story of pathological science or pathological disbelief. We agreed in mediation to present a balanced view of the field, in line with the notable, respected, DOE review where a significant number of reputabe scientists found the evidence convincing. All this means that a "pathological science" category is not justified. So, no other edits are necessary. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Except, of course, there is a great deal of consensus on it, just as there is a great deal of consensus that intelligent design is pseudoscience. Its just that believers are never going to accept that. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, the only person of the opinion that this article should be put in the pseudoscience category is you, and that doesn't exactly constitute consensus. And secondly, I shouldn't have to tell you that you're comparing apples to oranges. The analogy, besides being outright insulting, is false on so many logical levels. Kevin Baas^talk 16:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I ask this again: Does anyone have a proposed improvement to the article? Is this thread going anywhere? If "a pathological science category is not justified" how should the article be changed? 209.253.120.198 (talk) 23:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Post-2004 literature reviews

There were some recent peer-reviewed literature reviews mentioned during mediation which were published after 2004 (which is where the "History" section currently ends.) They are here and here. I think a summary of their abstracts and conclusions should be included in the article. What do other people think? Wide and Slow (talk) 04:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I fully support it (but don't have the time to do it). Pcarbonn (talk) 07:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

You may also want to add this 2002 report: Szpak, Stanislaw & Mosier-Boss, Pamela A., eds. (2002a), Thermal and nuclear aspects of the Pd/D2O system - Volume 1:A decade of research at Navy laboratories, Technical report 1862, San Diego: Office of Naval Research/Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center.Pcarbonn (talk) 07:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Someone please do this

Updating the article with current reviews is far more important than arguing about whether to link to potential copyright violators; is it not? NMD prime (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Current Science published a comprehensive review of highlights of the research last month. Is this a good reference to include? [4] Krivit, S.B. "Low Energy Nuclear Reaction Research – Global Scenario," Current Science, (Indian Academy of Sciences,) Vol. 94, No. 7, p. 854-857 (April 10, 2008)

lenr-canr

The lenr-canr site has to go. For example, J. Electroanal. Chem., 304 (1991) 271-278 Elsevier Sequoia S.A., Lausanne at the head of www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BushBFheliumprod.pdf is, on its face, an admission of blatant copyright theft. Elsevier do not allow websites to host full text of their journal articles (I know, I have asked them). It's also been shown in the past to host supposed "copies" of material (specifically the 2004 DoE review) which started with editorial. It's also been spammed by the site's owner. Its main function is as a mirror of copyright material wrapped around with pro-CF advocacy. It fails abjectly as a WP:RS, and if the reliable sources aren't available online then we just use {{cite journal}}. Feel free to show any content it has which is hosted with permission and which comes from reliabel, independent, credible, peer-reveiwed sources, which are themselves not available online. Guy (Help!) 17:47, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Although you do not provide hard evidence for many of your strong statements, I agree that there is a reasonable doubt of copy violations by lenr-canr.org. I propose to remove the links, and to correct the citations that showed incorrectly lenr-canr.org as publisher (instead of removing them). OK ? Pcarbonn (talk) 09:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

You are reversing the burden of proof. Where a site hosts content it has not originated, the onus is on the site's owners to prove that they have a right to use it. No such assertion is made. All links to lenr-canr should be removed due to past spamming and present copyright violations and unreliability (WP:RS, WP:C). Guy (Help!) 11:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

2004 DoE CF documents that do not start with editorials: http://newenergytimes.com/DOE/DOE.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.194.190 (talk) 00:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah, right. New Energy Times is also a pro-CF site. The DoE documents can and should be sourced direct from doe.gov. Guy (Help!) 11:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Our article does link directly to the report on doe.gov, so I don't see any issue here. The link to lenr-canr.org version of the DOE report has been removed a long time ago. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Given the risk of copyvio, we should avoid linking to it at all, even as a link of convenience. Everything that is reliable will have another publisher. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

But that publisher may not be online and if it is it may not be free -- that's the trouble with scientific journals nowadays. Kevin Baas^talk 14:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a problem in WP sourcing. See WP:V. For example, if I have a copy of A Brief History of Time and you don't, can't afford to buy it and don't live near a library, never mind. It's still a reliable source. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

But why link to content that no one can read when we can just as well link to the exact same content that everyone can read? Kevin Baas^talk 14:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Precisely because the original article is likely to be copyright and available only for payment.Itsmejudith (talk) 15:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Scientific papers generally aren't copyrighted, as far as i know - that would be anti-scientific. In any case, if the original article is copyright and available only for payment, then by definition, there wouldn't be the exact same content available for everyone to read. (w/o payment) Kevin Baas^talk 15:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people would agree with that the principle is anti-scientific, but look inside a journal and you will see that the publisher regards the contents as copyright. Academics write the papers for no payment, then the publisher charges their university library a heavy subscription fee for online access that costs them nothing. Hence the growing support for open access journals. Just my tuppence-worth, my opinion not relevant to WP policy. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Scientific journals are frequently very expensive, and the restriction of copyright is the primary reason that they can charge thousands of dollars per year per journal subscription.--Noren (talk) 05:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Undisputed fair use claim

If a site like Lenr-canr.org makes a claim of fair use, and the publishers, for whatever reason, do not to dispute that claim, is Wikipedia policy really to consider them to be violating copyright? I am concerned that statments such as "U.S. Navy researchers have published more than 40 papers on cold fusion" have been removed in toto merely because they had a citation linking to lenr-canr. --Why? (Why not?) 11:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

On the first point, yes, that is the policy, because the likelihood is that the publishers have not been alerted. The rules for fair use are quite clear. You can cite excerpts of an article in order to illustrate a point but you can't put the whole text online without permission. On the second point, if lenr-canr is the only source for the statement, then I wouldn't support it being included, because it is not a sufficiently reliable source for this article. It is possible to continue with what WP calls "source research" and say the same thing on a better basis. By "US Navy researchers" I think Pamela Mosier-Boss's team is meant. The number of papers she has authored can be found in Web of Science or similar, and that would be an appropriate addition. An even better addition would be to say how that team's research has developed over the years, citing three or four of their most significant papers. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

faraday efficiency section

Some proposed changes (inserted text is in italics):

Lacking any other plausible explanation, the anomalous excess heat produced during such electrolysis was attributed by Pons and Fleischmann to cold nuclear fusion. It was discovered that, in some circumstances, such excess heat can be the product of conventional chemistry, i.e. internal recombination of hydrogen and oxygen. In some electrolysis cells running at low voltage, internal recombination of hydrogen and oxygen can create the appearance of excess heat. Such recombination leads to a reduction in the Faraday efficiency of the electrolysis. The Faraday-efficiency effect is the observation of apparent excess heat due to a reduction in the Faraday efficiency. This is called the "Faraday-efficiency effect".

In 1991-1993, a group of investigators[46][47] led by Zvi Shkedi, built in 1991-1993 built several well-insulated light-water electrolysis cells and calorimeters which included the capability to measure the actual Faraday efficiency in real time during the experiments. The cells were of the light-water type; with a fine-wire nickel cathode; a platinum anode; and K2CO3 electrolyte. A total of 64 experiments were performed in which the actual Faraday efficiency was measured. The results were analyzed twice; once with the popular assumption that the Faraday efficiency is 100%, and, again, taking into account the measured Faraday efficiency in each experiment. The average Faraday efficiency measured in these experiments was 78%. With this taken into account, the calculated excess heat was 0.13% +/- 0.48% of input power. If instead a Faraday efficiency of 100% was assumed, the apparent excess heat was 21%. The first analysis, assuming a Faraday efficiency of 100%, yielded an average apparent excess heat of 21% of input power. The second analysis, taking into account the measured Faraday efficiency, yielded an actual excess heat of 0.13% +/- 0.48%. In other words, when the actual Faraday efficiency was measured and taken into account, the energy balance of the cells was zero, with no excess heat. The investigators concluded their publication with the following word of cautionthat: "All reports claiming the observation of excess heat should be accompanied by simultaneous measurements of the actual Faraday efficiency."[48][page # needed] Jones et al. confirmed the Shkedi et al. findings with the same conclusion: "Faradaic efficiencies less than 100% during electrolysis of water can account for reports of excess heat in 'cold fusion' cells."[49]

Making the section read:

In some electrolysis cells running at low voltage, internal recombination of hydrogen and oxygen can create the appearance of excess heat. This is called the "Faraday-efficiency effect".

In 1991-1993, a group of investigators[46][47] led by Zvi Shkedi built several well-insulated light-water electrolysis cells and calorimeters which included the capability to measure the actual Faraday efficiency in real time. The average Faraday efficiency measured in these experiments was 78%. With this taken into account, the calculated excess heat was 0.13% +/- 0.48% of input power. If instead a Faraday efficiency of 100% was assumed, the apparent excess heat was 21%. The investigators concluded that: "All reports claiming the observation of excess heat should be accompanied by simultaneous measurements of the actual Faraday efficiency."[48][page # needed] Jones et al. confirmed the Shkedi et al. findings with the same conclusion: "Faradaic efficiencies less than 100% during electrolysis of water can account for reports of excess heat in 'cold fusion' cells."[49]

Edmund Storms observed that "[the] values attributed to Jones et al. [...] gives a good example of biased reasoning. They measured the recombination fraction at very low currents, where [uncertainty] is high, and used these values to dismiss all measurements using open cells, without acknowledging that most successful studies used much higher currents or closed cells where this correction is unnecessary."[50]

Fleischmann did measure Faraday efficiency in his experiments: it was better than 99%.[51] Fritz Will, former president of the Electrochemical Society, noted in his review of Jones' paper that "[the] fraction of O2 recombining with H2 decreases significantly with increasing current density. [...] On the basis of their results at low current densities, a group of researchers recently concluded that H2 + O2 recombination is the source for the "excess heat' reported by other groups and attributed by some to 'cold fusion'. However, reported excess heat values, ranging from a low of 23% at 14 mA/cm2 to a high of 3700% at 6 mA/cm2, are much larger than can be explained by recombination. Whatever the explanation for the large amounts of excess heat reported by various groups, H2 + O2 recombination must be rejected as a tenable explanation."[52]

Kevin Baas^talk 16:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Kevin. I fully support it. In fact, the shorter we make it the better. We might even delete it as this hypothesis has no notability, in line with WP:Undue. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that most of the original text was copied straight from the faraday efficiency effect article, which explains why it was so - ironically - inefficient. It strikes me as kind of odd to have a section that reads like "x claims y, however, they're obviously full of sh*t." Then why mention it? It might also violate WP:FRINGE. However, I'm afraid to touch it because it was part of the version formed via mediation. In any case, I'd like more opinions before implementing the changes. Kevin Baas^talk 17:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

shortening seems like a good idea. I'm not happy with "Edmund Storms observed", as it appears to endorse Storms' view. This section reports a disagreement between scientists in the field, so should be reported as neutrally as possible. Since there are two papers on one side of the debate and Storms on the other, this would seem to be a notable issue in the cold fusion controversy and therefore should stay in the article. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The only thing that isn't indisputably an observation is the first part ("..gives a good example of biased reasoning."). So it gives a good description of what storms is indisputably doing, notwithstanding the first sentence. And Mr. storms is not disagreeing with the results of the experiments. The only think he disagrees with is jones' logic (or lack thereof). --and note: jones is the only one making the claim - while both storms and flieshman are disputing it) And the people who did it (including jones) aren't disagreeing with storm's observations. And they don't logically contradict each other. You said that "there are two papers on one side of the debate and storms on the other" - this is a misrepresentation. Every scientist studying cold fusion is clearly on the other side of the debate, and they vastly outnumber jones, who is actually the only one who opines against c.f. on the basis of the faraday efficieny effect. Furthermore, to be on jones' side, a scientist would have to believe that 1) the faraday efficiency effect is significant at high current densities, and that 2) the faraday efficiency effect is applicable in a closed cell. Neither of these beliefs are mainstream scientific views. Hence, WP:UNDUE. Kevin Baas^talk 18:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose alternatively one could believe that 1) all cold fusion experiments where done at unusually low current densities, and 2) no cold fusion experiments used a closed cell. And in either case, one would have to believe that 3) flieschmann did not measure the faraday efficiency. All of these are results of ignorance, and 1) and 2) are implausible in light of scientific norms. In any case, even giving the benefit of the doubt, these beliefs are still WP:FRINGE. Kevin Baas^talk 18:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I forgot to add that they would also have to believe that cold fusion excess heat results where in the range of those observed by the faraday efficiency effect experiments - about 21%. Again, attributable to ignorance, but nonetheless a minority view. As far as I can tell, there is only one scientist who ever held the view in question: Jones. That doesn't exactly elevate it to the level of notability. add to the fact that this view goes against numerous mainstream scientific beliefs, as pointed out above, and, well, that certainly doesn't help. Kevin Baas^talk 18:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There are several thousands of articles on cold fusion, and only 2 on this topic. Are we going to write a full section on each of the other disputes too ? Pcarbonn (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to have sections on all the issues where there has been a genuine scientific controversy and this seems to be one of them. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see a scientific controversy here. What I see is "make sure you take this into account...", followed closely by "already did that. but thanks." Kevin Baas^talk 20:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Regardless, I want to get at least two approvals for my suggested changes. Itsmejudith, do you think this is better?:

Edmund Storms labeled Jones' conclusions "a good example of biased reasoning", observing that "[Jones et. al.] measured the recombination fraction at very low currents...

And are you okay with the proposed changes (including that one if you prefer it)? Kevin Baas^talk 21:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, good wording. And as far as I understand the question, I don't disagree with your summary of it. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that there are actually three people listed in this section as disputing Jones. I propose the last line of the second paragraph be split off, and the remaining material be re-ordered from storms,pons,fritz to fritz,storms,pons, each with their own paragraph, plus two more wording changes:

Jones et al. confirmed the Shkedi et al. findings with the same conclusion and concluded that: "Faradaic efficiencies less than 100% during electrolysis of water can account for reports of excess heat in 'cold fusion' cells."[49]

Fritz Will, former president of the Electrochemical Society, noted in his review of Jones' paper that "[the] fraction of O2 recombining with H2 decreases significantly with increasing current density. [...] On the basis of their results at low current densities, a group of researchers recently concluded that H2 + O2 recombination is the source for the "excess heat' reported by other groups and attributed by some to 'cold fusion'. However, reported excess heat values, ranging from a low of 23% at 14 mA/cm2 to a high of 3700% at 6 mA/cm2, are much larger than can be explained by recombination. Whatever the explanation for the large amounts of excess heat reported by various groups, H2 + O2 recombination must be rejected as a tenable explanation."[52]

Edmund Storms observed that "[the] values attributed to Jones et al. [...] gives a good example of biased reasoning. They Edmund Storms labeled Jones' conclusions "a good example of biased reasoning", observing that "[Jones et. al.] measured the recombination fraction at very low currents, where [uncertainty] is high, and used these values to dismiss all measurements using open cells, without acknowledging that most successful studies used much higher currents or closed cells where this correction is unnecessary."[50]

Fleischmann did measure Faraday efficiency in his experiments: it was better than 99%.Fleischmann measured Faraday efficiency in his cold fusion experiments and found it to be better than 99%.[51]

The first wording change was because jones' conclusion is actually different from shedki's (as shedki's didn't mention cold fusion). The second because it's style is more encyclopedia (the original was rhetorical).

If there are no objections to all these changes I'll propose it to an admin when I have some time tomorrow. Thanks for your input. Kevin Baas^talk 23:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Implemented. Kevin Baas^talk 18:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you should also consider this publication: Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 44 (2005) pp. 396-401. Quote: We have observed as much as 80 times more hydrogen generated by plasma electrolysis than by conventional electrolysis at 300 V Melethron (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

mediation block on top of page

Does anybody know what the block on top of the page should say now ? The current one says that the mediation is still going on : it should be updated. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I have checked the archive of mediation requests, and could not find any example of a block / tag in closed cases. So, I have just deleted the tag on top of this page. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Plan of attack for Good Article nomination

Hello, I will be your reviewer for this Good Article nomination. This is a highly contentious subject with a long history, and anyone and everyone is welcome to weigh in; I don't have any opinions on what kind of discussion is or isn't allowed, but the first step in any WP:GAN is the quick-fail criteria decision. I will only pay attention to the quick-fail criteria until it's clear the article should not be quick-failed; this is the description from the WP:GAN page:

Before conducting an extensive review, determine whether the article should be "quick failed". Issues that may warrant a "quick fail" of the nomination include:

1. A complete lack of reliable sources - see Wikipedia:Verifiability.
2. An obvious non-neutral treatment of a topic - see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Articles on controversial topics can still be NPOV and stable, but scrupulous efforts must be made to keep the article well referenced to ensure neutrality. Remember that neutrality does not mean that all points of view are equally covered, merely that no point of view is given undue weight in the article.
3. Presence of any correctly applied cleanup banners, including, but not limited to, {{cleanup}}, {{wikify}}, {{NPOV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{fact}}, {{clarifyme}}, {{huh}} or similar tags.
4. The article has been the subject of recent, unresolved edit wars.
5. The article specifically addresses a currently unfolding event with a definite endpoint. Articles about participants in or other articles related to the unfolding event, but not about the events themselves, should undergo a more thorough review.

is not a problem. The fact that someone doesn't believe a source, or that they feel that there are better sources, isn't relevant to whether Wikipedia considers a source reliable or not. The folks at the Reliable sources noticeboard are very good at what they do, and questions about reliability of sources should be directed to them. Clearly, this article doesn't have a "complete lack of reliable sources".

is a problem. As a rule of thumb, people will often say that the difference between "guidelines" and "policy" on Wikipedia is the difference between statements that ultimately wind up being followed 90% versus 98% of the time when there's a dispute. However, in particularly contentious issues, Wikipedia's guidelines and policies are often the only way to keep everyone sane and productive. I am quite willing to put in much more than the usual time reviewing this article, and to help both sides prepare the very best case you can for any future WP:GAR or WP:FAR, but my assistance to one side ends at the point where that side pleads that they have a special case in which the usual rules don't apply. See the one-paragraph essay No common sense. There are many potential problems with WP:NPOV here, and I'll let both sides make their own case, and we'll see what we've got. I strongly encourage reading the relevant Guidelines; apply the same reasoning that has been applied in other contentious science articles.

is an obvious problem; there are a large number of unresolved {{fact}} "citation needed" templates.

is, hopefully, not a problem, because of the recent mediation; that is, we can hopefully get a sense of resolution by the time we're ready to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on the quick-fail.

might a problem; I'm not up to speed on the current DARPA program. What are the chances that this program going to issue something definitive some time in the near future?

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts:

Firstly, by "problem" i assume you mean "issue"; as in "area that may have some focused attention paid to it". With that semantic grievance noted, i'll give my thoughts regarding the article in relation to the enumerated criteria:

1. simple.
2. well we seem to all be satisfied with the neutrality of the presentation; even though we have different pov's, we've arrived at a presentation that we all can agree on. certainly there's nothing "striking", and we seem to have weeded out even the more subtle controversies. but it's always good to have a new pair of eyes take a look at it.
3. i was not aware of this. i'm aware of 1 page number request. i certainly wouldn't say "large number" - if that were the case i would have at least noticed one. in any case, i'm sure whatever oversights exist can be fixed on-the-fly.
4. sense of resolution was achieved before this article was nominated.
5. cold fusion is definitely not a current event. there's no definite "endpoint" in sight. and even if there were - the article isn't about an event, it's about a phenomena. If the proposed explanations for it that are controversial were disproved, cold fusion would still have an article, just like polywater does. And that's the form the article attempts to take on, a description of a phenomena, and the context surrounding it, not an event with a definite duration. And the chances that this program going to issue something definitive some time in the near future? Slim to none.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. Glad to have you aboard. Kevin Baas^talk 20:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I fixed point 3, by removing the unsourced statements. They are not very important anyway. Please clarify point 2: where do you see "an obvious non-neutral treatment of a topic" ?? Which "both sides" are you willing to help ?? The mediation addressed all these points already, and we came to a conclusion accepted by all. We agreed to represent the views of both DOE panels, which are both notable and reliable, and we quoted them fully in order to avoid introducing bias. If you see any issue, please raise them more precisely. I agree with Kevin that CF is not a current event. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Dan, I would like to hear more about your point #2. My view is that the introduction accurately describes the doubts about this field held by many scientists, but the lengthy descriptions of the recent work may mislead the reader about the still low reputation of the field among scientists. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 03:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I applaud the recent mediation and the attempts to reach accommodation, but I'm not yet convinced that the article should not be quick-failed; I need to hear the arguments. (And of course, even if you didn't run through the arguments here, you'd have to make the case if this gets to WP:GAR or WP:FAR.) NPOV is sometimes misunderstood to mean that contentious issues should be handled the same way the 24-hour news channels handle them: interview people from both sides, express a position approximately halfway between those two positions that avoids saying anything concrete, and represent this position as the "unbiased" position. Instead, the way we do it here is to try to identify all possible areas of agreement, or at least of lack of disagreement, and then see what's left. If the two sides are still not really close...and that's my sense here...and especially if there is a certain unwillingness for the two sides to swap and compare methodologies and results, then NPOV requires that we let each side tell their story, without overly intrusive "editorializing" by the other side. WP:UNDUE further requires that the amount of space devoted to either side should not be way out of line with the level of acceptance of their position in the larger scientific community.

I've read the Dec 2004 DOE report, and I was a little disheartened. The sense I got was that the clear signals of excess heat were still never being observed outside the labs of the supporters, and no nuclear byproducts had been measured outside the labs of the supporters, either; is this true? I'm not trying to "play scientist" here, I'm trying to establish whether the criteria are present that make this the kind of article where you simply have to allow each side to tell their story. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the DOE says anything like "the clear signals of excess heat were still never being observed outside the labs of the supporters", and I'm not sure it would be relevant anyway. Anybody who would find clear signals would become a supporter, wouldn't he ? Those who did not find clear signals were just unable to reproduce the experiment, for unknown reasons: this does not invalidate the other experiments, as the DOE said (see our "reproducibility" section).

What the DOE said is this:

• Evaluations by the reviewers ranged from: 1) evidence for excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no convincing evidence that excess power is produced when integrated over the life of an experiment. The reviewers were split approximately evenly on this topic.
• When asked about evidence of low energy nuclear reactions, twelve of the eighteen members of the 2004 DoE panel did not feel that there was any conclusive evidence, five found the evidence "somewhat convincing" and one was entirely convinced.

These are the key issues about the cold fusion phenomena, and the DOE clearly said that they have not been resolved yet. Hence the need to present both sides in our article. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "present both sides"...absolutely, both sides need to be presented no matter what, that's not what I'm getting at. In less contentious science articles, the bulk of the article should find and focus on areas of agreement, and then let each side describe how they differ. In articles about more contentious subjects, especially subjects where the two sides tend to talk past each other and not share results, it's important not to let the normal Wikipedian process of article-building, which includes and ought to include lots of assumption of good faith, obscure the fact that the two sides really are still far apart. When that's the case, the article should give both sides all the space they need to explain and justify their positions, unless we're talking about truly fringe science, like Polywater or N rays. The DOE wouldn't fund a "review" of Polywater experiments, even if a hundred scientists started publishing papers on Polywater again.

But we're talking past each other a bit; that's okay, I'll keep reading and find out the answer for myself. My question is, did the DOE panel consider experimental results that were presented to them on paper, or were they able to get these experiments running in their own labs? From "unreproduceable", I'm guessing the former, but I'll find out. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It may be helpful to consider at this point whether the recent Storms book, by consensus RS, is used to good effect in the article. There may also be scholarly reviews of the book that we should be citing. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Since you are interested, here is the reference of a review of Storms' book: D. Britz, J. Sci. Exploration. Vol. 21, #4 page 801 (2007). Winter issue Pcarbonn (talk) 14:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, I'm not sure how your question relate to the quick-fail process, but here is the answer: the DOE did not conduct any experiment in their own lab during their review, nor did they visit other labs. They reviewed the documents presented to them, and met the researchers in a one-day session. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Pcarbonn. Food for thought while I'm reading up: the 1994 DOE panel report ends: "Conclusion. While significant progress has been made in the sophistication of calorimeters since the review of this subject in 1989, the conclusions reached by the reviewers today are similar to those found in the 1989 review. The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful...." Here's a koan for meditation: when the answer is the same 15 years later, is it the same answer? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'm not sure where you are getting at. Are you saying that the article fails NPOV ? The 1989 report said that "it was not possible to state categorically that cold fusion has been convincingly either proved or disproved", and "it was sympathetic toward modest support for carefully focused and cooperative experiments within the present funding system", among others. That seems very similar to the 2004 conclusions, as presented in the article. So, yes, when the answer is similar 15 years later, it is a similar answer. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

In case you are interested in whether cold fusion should be presented as pathological science or as an ongoing scientific controversy, please have a look at the discussion at the top of this talk page. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Right, I'm reading up; you don't need to worry that I'm going to jump in and declare Cold Fusion a hoax. Yes, there is a chance that the article "fails" NPOV unless changes are made; I could make that decision myself as the GA reviewer, but it will be much more helpful to the GAR or FAR process if we all decide it together. These really tough issues are a great way to really nail down what NPOV is all about, what is unique about how Wikipedia handles these things. My reaction so far is that the article needs to do a better job of not taking a position, and this is no surprise at all; this what usually happens to articles like this over time. There have been long discussions at WP:Words to avoid and other NPOV-related guidelines pages on how to discuss controversial subjects...how to divide up the narrative, what words to use and avoid, how to make Wikipedia's position crystal-clear. By the time we're finished with the quick-fail (which might not be so quick in this case, out of respect for the complexity of the issue), speaking for myself, the goal is to get the article into 100% compliance with Wikipedia NPOV-related guidelines, and for everyone to understand exactly what those guidelines are. The key is that WP:AGF stops at the border of Wikipedia; out there in the world, people are willing to say all sorts of things, and mostly, they're willing not to say what they know, and it's our job to sort the mess and make sure that each side is presenting a clear and powerful case. Anyone who knows nothing about "Cold fusion/Low energy nuclear reactions" should not, when they are finished with this article, think that they have the answer, but everyone should know where they could go and who they could talk with if they want to pursue finding the answer, without having to waste time sifting through the third-best answers and sources and second-best answers and sources; this article should present the very best, on both sides. This is what Wikipedia offers the world on difficult, unresolved issues: we don't answer the question, but we save people a lot of time if they want to look for answers. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. Let's wait for your review and proposed actions. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've read most of the 30-page submission by the proponents to the 1994 DOE review, and I think this article largely complies with NPOV-related guidelines from the point of view of the proponents. If I were writing for the proponents, my preference would be to move some of the material to Wikibooks and link it there, so that you can have the best of both worlds: detailed science information for the scientists, without confusing the people you're trying to reach through the encyclopedia with experiments that they don't understand and can't evaluate. (And I'm not talking about that vague "more information at Wikibooks" graphic, I'm talking about specific in-line links in both directions.) But not everyone takes the Wikibooks approach, and I'm only evaluating quick-fail NPOV concerns at the moment. The bottom line is that I'm happy with what the proponents have done.

Not so much with the opponents. Let's start with the very first sentence, in the hatnote: "This article is about the controversial nuclear reaction". Are the opponents willing to concede that there is in fact a controversial nuclear reaction going on? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your question is. FWIW, IMO, the phrase "controversial nuclear reaction" does make it sound kind of like there's this nuclear reaction going on and it should be scolded for doing so because of all the controversy it's created -- like some a-bomb going off has sparked off contentious political debates. But what's really meant -- and i think readers will understand this -- is that it hasn't been conclusively determined whether whatever's going on does in fact produce a change in the composition of atomic nuclei. And I don't see either "proponents" or "opponents" would dispute that. until some mechanism for the process has been convincingly demonstrated, by definition, we don't know exactly's what's going on, and it remains an open question. But there's more to it than that. For instance, some people would insist on classifying it w/polywater, even though polywater is clearly a closed question. So i'd say there's controversy. And I don't really think anyone here, or in the field for that matter, is presumptuous enough to assert that there is, beyond any doubt, a nuclear reaction taking place. I hope that helps to answer the question. (And I'm fine with the sentence in question. ) Kevin Baas^talk 18:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Obviously for such a controversial issue, you'll find people on both sides to say that there is no controversy: some proponents will say it has been demonstrated without doubt, some critics will say there is not even a remote possibility that it exists. So, it's more a question of reliability and notability of the sources. As far as I know, there isn't any notable, reliable and reasonably recent source which would say that there is no controversy. Even Bob Park, author of "voodoo science" and a long-time notable critics of CF was quoted as follows in March 2007: "Bob Park, at the University of Maryland, US, [...] concedes that 'there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions'." (source).

I agree with you that opponents have not done a good job at criticizing cold fusion: it is hard to find a serious critique of the subject. Skeptics explain this by saying that serious scientists don't spend time criticizing the work of others, while proponents say that they don't critique it because the strong evidence makes the critique too difficult. This is particularly true for the transmutation observations. Therefore, it is hard to find reliable and notable sources of skeptics for this wikipedia article. So your critique on the opponent side describes the field itself, I would say. The article only reflects that. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Now that I have read more about the definition of a "good article," I feel very strongly that this article does not fit the definition. Labeling it a "good article" would imply that it is one of the top 10 or so articles in entire group of physics articles. It has had relatively recent edit wars, for one thing. For another thing, its structure is disjointed and complicated. For example, the "excess heat" section and the "excess heat by electrolysis experiments" section should be merged and shortened. Simlarly, the "ongoing controversy" and "moving beyond the original controversy" sections should be merged and shortened. There are many ways to accomplish this, but a good outline might look like this: (1)Experimental reports (1a)Excess heat (1b)Fusion products (1c)Transmutations (2)Proposed mechanisms (3)History (3a)Early work (3b)Pre-announcement (3c)Post-announcement (3d)Recent work (4)Other types of fusion. This would produce a more readable and useful article. One a side note, perhaps we should use the word "proposed" instead of "controversial" in the introduction. On another side note, I am puzzled by Dan's reluctance to "play scientist." As wikipedia editors, we should all strive to act like scientists: asking questions, seeking good quantitative data, stating opinions clearly and politely, trying to understand opposing viewpoints, etc. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 12:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on the structure of the article. I'm in favor of merging and shortening the excess heat sections as you propose, and of placing the experimental reports first (although that has been disputed in the past). I'm not sure what you would put in the "proposed mechanism" section : I suppose it would be based on material in the current "ongoing controversy" section. However, I'm concerned that the section title you propose could be seen as an implicit acceptance that the effect is real, and rejected by skeptical editors.

On your other comments: the definition of good article does not say that it should be in the top 10 or so articles. Also, we should "play editors", not "play scientists". That is, we should based our discussion on sources, not on our opinions as scientists. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

When I say I'm not going to "play scientist", what I mean is that I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not; in the history of the cold fusion debate, there's been some of that on both sides. I should finish my background reading today. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm also favorable to the idea of removing the detailed description of experiments from the article, as Dank55 suggested earlier, and possibly moving them to a wikibook. I'm not familiar with the idea of writing wikibooks linked to wikipedia articles: is there a good example that we could draw from ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This "WhatLinksHere" page shows there are between 1000 and 1500 WP articles that use a graphic that links to a page on Wikibooks, usually a specifically relevant page. Links can point to specific sections. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Reverted edit adding "claimed"

See WT:Words to avoid for a discussion of why we don't use the word "claimed" in contentious articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Edits attempting to reflect NPOV and accuracy concerns

Feel free to revert or modify any of my edits. I changed the first sentence from: "Cold fusion is a controversial effect reported by some researchers to have been produced from nuclear reaction at conditions near room temperature and atmospheric pressure" to "Cold fusion is a controversial heat effect which some researchers believe is caused by nuclear reactions in desktop electrochemical devices, at temperatures and pressures far below those generally believed to be required for nuclear fusion." My target reader is reasonably interested in science but doesn't know anything about "Cold fusion/Low energy nuclear reactions". I think "heat effect" gets people up to speed faster than "effect". Researchers don't so much report nuclear fusion as make a reasonable hypothesis about fusion, based on failure to find any other sufficient source of heat, and some also find "nuclear ash", but I'll get to that later. Temperatures over 100 C are not considered by most people to be "room temperature", they are only room temperature by comparison with the temperatures generally considered to be necessary for deuterium fusion. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Another checkmark; I've reviewed all the edits since the beginning of May 8, and they have only improved the article, except for the one I reverted concerning "claimed", a word to avoid. There's nothing I would describe as "instability" here. At least, not until my edits :) I'm doing some copy-editing now; feel free to revert or ask questions. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yoshiaki Arata public experiment

i found news only on this Italian newspaper: http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/SoleOnLine4/Tecnologia%20e%20Business/2008/05/nucleare-fusione-fredda.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.208.231.53 (talk) 08:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

New Energy Times has just published news on yesterday's public demonstration of cold fusion from one of the leading CF researchers. See here Pcarbonn (talk) 11:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

We should keep an eye on the scientific reaction to this one, and attempts to replicate. Does anyone know how much ⁴He he is measuring? He uses a powder of ZrO₂ and Pd, so this isn't the experiment that was reviewed by the DOE in 2004. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, only some of the CF evidence was presented to DOE 2004. With my limited knowledge of Italian, the Helium he produced is commensurate with the excess heat: "Quanto all'Elio, la quantità è assolutamente confrontabile e compatibile con l'energia prodotta, ed è la firma inequivocabile dell'avvenuta fusione nucleare." FYI, here is an older paper that he published on Helium production. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

That's from 1999; do you happen to have his paper published just this March? Btw, I get no hits on a Google news search, and I don't read Japanese so I can't gauge the reponse in Japan. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't have his 2008 papers (yet). Pcarbonn (talk) 13:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I have created an entry on wikinews. (Title may be changed though) Pcarbonn (talk) 16:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There is now an entry on PhysicsWorld blog. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

To be correct, Arata's work was actually presented to the 2004 DOE: see 4.3 and Appendix C of Hagelstein's paper. Pcarbonn (talk) 05:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Articles:

http://physicsworld.com/blog/2008/05/coldfusion_demonstration_a_suc_1.html

http://newenergytimes.com/news/2008/29img/Arata-Demo.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.83.19.62 (talk) 17:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Slashdot has now picked up the story, and it's starting to get legs; Gizmodo has it too. In true Slashdot fashion, some of the responses are quite funny. Italian for Helium is "Elio", and the first poster remarked that the experiment was obviously a success, since all the H's are gone now. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This is still POV

The article repeatedly uses the phrase "the field" to mean "the field of cold fusion", though there is no such "field". The article also implies that the US Department of Energy acknowledges the existence of such a "field" in its findings or conclusions, though the Department may also disagree on the level of evidence "the field" has in its favor. This implication is completely false, as there is no such field, and there never was. Cold fusion is still, as it always has been, a completely fringe cult that is based on the god-of-the-gaps notion that any anomaly must be corroborating evidence of the cult's beliefs, until proven otherwise. The methodology is completely ascientific, and to describe people who find anomalous effects as members of some "field" of cold fusion is spurious. --70.131.118.218 (talk) 16:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I follow what you're saying. This was my answer to a similar question on WT:Words to avoid, and this argument was widely accepted:

Read Miracle, and see how many times the words incident, event, and occurrence are used. What makes that okay is the statement in the lead section that it's disputed that there's any evidence at all, and what makes "phenomena" okay in Parapsychology, IMO, is the statement right up front that it's fringe science, although the article could be improved by additional examples of debunking. Articles like this wander into NPOV territory, and NPOV says in this case: even when you don't believe it, if there are significant numbers of people on both sides of the issue, you have to let both sides tell their story. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

And btw, please don't take that to be my "view" on cold fusion; I don't have one. There are obviously a couple of things that distinguish the cold fusion issue from well-known quackery like "polywater": if these cathodes aren't producing energy in some way, then they may be an interesting storage device; and if there is something to be ashamed of here, then both sides deserve blame. It would have been trivially easy for the 2004 DOE review panel to run the experiments themselves and find the presence or lack of helium, and put the issue to rest one way or another. They chose not to, instead taking the position that science questions never need to be answered, they just need more study. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

There are 4 occurences of field in the article. Both occurrences of "field" in the intro come directly from the corresponding quoted sentences in the DOE report. The following occurrence comes directly from David Goodstein. The last occurrence is also well sourced. How can all this fail NPOV ??? On the contrary, 70.131.118.218's statements are not sourced at all, and expresses his personal POV unless proven otherwise. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, some people still believe that the Apollo Moon landing are hoaxes. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Dan, I am baffled by your suggestion that cold fusion skeptics might deserve "blame." Who are you talking about? Also, do you really think that cold fusion experiments that produce negligible excess helium values would put the issue to rest? Some people would say that those experiments were flawed, and that cold fusion has not been disproved at all. On a side note, it certainly sounds to me like you do have a "view" on cold fusion. I would say that most of us here have a view on cold fusion; otherwise we would not be posting and editing. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Did I say that they deserve blame ? I don't think so. As editors, it's OK to have differing views on cold fusion, as long as they do not impact the way we edit the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I was the one who assigned the blame. I don't have a view; that is, I have absolutely no idea whether cold fusion is a series of sloppy mistakes and possibly occasional fraud (because I haven't kept up with it since the early 90s, and I'm not familiar with the quality of the work), or whether helium is being produced. The fact that I don't know after 19 years is surprising and disappointing. The blame comes from the fact that with trillions being spent on energy, the DOE panel couldn't be bothered to round up spectroscopy equipment and take a car ride to investigate whether helium was being produced or not; instead, they were content to read papers, find flaws, and declare that more work needed to be done. As to my role here, I'm in the fourth category I mention below: I'm a Wikipedian interested in building and applying policy and guidelines equally across all of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has two spectacular strengths: the output of the wikiprojects, and the quality of the very contentious articles, which we tend to get right in a world where no one else seems to be able to (on a broad range of topics). - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:06, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I want to point out that the 1989 DOE panel did visit laboratories and examine equipment, and came away unimpressed. I suspect the reason the 2004 DOE panel did not do the same because they were so unimpressed with the data available in the documents that they thought visiting laboratories would be a waste of time. Remember, cold fusion researchers can submit papers to publications whenever they want; the absence of articles with convincing evidence of cold fusion after 19 years of work indicates it probably is not being produced. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 01:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I missed that in the 2004 report; can you point out where they said or implied that? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent press report

http://www.newenergytimes.com/news/2008/29img/Arata-Demo.htm claims a live demo of cold fusion. Stephen B Streater (talk) 16:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. You don't have the scoop though: it was already announced in the "Yoshiaki Arata public experiment" thread above. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes. But I may have been the first to post that particular article ;-) Stephen B Streater (talk) 08:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure, but that's not very important anyway.See [5] Pcarbonn (talk) 09:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

OK - I'll try harder next time. It's not an area I've been following for a few years, but with oil at $130/barrel interest will pick up. Stephen B Streater (talk) 09:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment

Hello Wikipeople. I wish to bring to your attention an apparent innacuracy in this section.

The text states: This experiment has been critiqued by Wilson,[43] Shkedi[44] and Jones.[45] Cold fusion researchers find these critique unconvincing, and not applicable to other experimental design.[46][47][48]

Wilson et al. performed and published a critique of the original FP experiment. Shkedi and Jones, however, did not. Furthermore, Shkedi and Jones published a critique of potential problems with recombination in these *types* of electrolytic cells.

The Shkedi and Jones critiques do not take into account the fact that FP measured the Faraday efficiency of their cell and that F&P took this problem into account. The Shkedi and Jones critiques suggest that the FP excess heat could be explained by recombination, if FP failed to consider recombination. However FP did take into account recombination effects.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sentence not needed due to obviousness

Does anyone have an opinion about this sentence in the Nuclear Transformations section?: "At the same time, the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss experimental evidence." I say this is an obvious statement about science in general, does not contribute to the understanding of transmutation or cold fusion, and damages the NPOV of the article, so it should be removed. While Pcarbonn is correct that the statement is important(see recent history of main article), it is not important to state it in this cold fusion article. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 17:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I see 4 classes of readers who have some kind of stake in this article: supporters, opponents, undecideds, and encyclopedia-builders, that is, people who watchlist the article and try to keep the article quality from degrading. What drives people in the last category nuts with contentious articles is the daily back-and-forth of people trying to subtly shift the argument. The way to keep the guardians of article quality sane is to clearly mark a section where opponents make their strongest arguments, and a section where supporters make their strongest arguments, and to leave these two sections relatively stable. By that I mean, from time to time, invite a lot of people in and have a big discussion on what you can and can't say in these sections, and between the times when you have a lot of participation, revert any statement that shifts the arguments on sight, on the principle that one person's opinion doesn't outweigh the consensus of the masses.

In this case, "the lack of a satisfactory explanation cannot be used to dismiss experimental evidence" is a key statement by supporters, and needs to be in the article, but IMO, it needs to be in a section that is clearly marked as following the assumptions of the supporters. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not support splitting the article in 2 parts, one for the proponents and one for the skeptics. The reason is that many statements can be read either way. Take for example: "it would require the invention of an entirely new nuclear process". Skeptics read it as saying: "You see, it's impossible", while proponents say: "we told you it should not be called 'cold fusion', but 'low energy nuclear reaction'". Or this one: "the field would benefit from the peer-review processes". Skeptics say: "we told you, the reports have not been reviewed and are thus unreliable"; proponents say: "DOE finally says that the field should not be suppressed anymore". Splitting the article in 2 would make the article unreadable.

We had the big discussion during the mediation in the last month. We agreed to represent the view of the DOE reports, for good reasons. This view is balanced. Let's keep it that way. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I won't fail this article at the GA level for the lack of such sections, but I would fail it at the FA level. There is no such thing as a "balanced" view if there are significant numbers of people with radically different viewpoints whose opinions need to be represented per NPOV. The "average" of two opposing viewpoints is not honest; it's dishonest. Honest would be to let both sides forcefully make their case about the fundamental fallacies committed by their opponents. But I'm not a physicist or electrochemist so I wouldn't be able to do a good job of it; and if no one else can do it either, then that's okay, at the GA level. I'm close to passing this article, btw. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you give some examples of GA or FA article with such sections ? Thanks. Pcarbonn (talk) 05:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I found the following articles interesting on this issue : Wikipedia:Avoid thread mode and Wikipedia:Pro and con lists. I don't think the article suffer from thread mode today, as most sections is divided in 2 clear parts: pro and con. If cold fusion was generally accepted, we could start with presenting its case, and follow it with a "criticism" section. Writing the other way around ("cold fusion does not exist", followed by a criticism of this position) would be weird. So, for the moment, it's not clear to me how we could improve the structure of the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I made some edits following this proposal: in "ongoing controversy", each section starts with the skeptic view, and is followed by the pro view. In the "Experimental report", it's the other way around. Is that better ? Pcarbonn (talk) 15:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Other than technical problems with the references (I'll pass your concerns along to Ealdgyth), I think the article basically satisfies GA requirements, or will when I'm done, but I'm not quite finished. It's not the tone or the order of the arguments that makes me feel that this isn't FA-quality yet, it's the sense that both sides are being silent about things that they should be speaking up about. Clearly, the DOE panel and many other scientists don't think that there is any measurable helium signal, because if there were, that would mean fusion; so why do they discount the helium measurements? Do they think there is helium hiding in the palladium, is it an issue of insufficient helium depletion in the ambient gases, is the equipment outdated, is the technique sloppy, does the measurement need to happen in a different location? They don't say, and they should. Proponents say that there are no other possible energy storage mechanisms that could explain the sudden release of heat; are they sure? Have they looked? What about relaxation of a deformation of the palladium crystal? The bottom line is that, when reading this article, you get more of an impression of things unsaid than of things said, which is of course the problem with the cold fusion controversy as a whole. It would be nice if Wikipedia did a good job of pointing a finger at the biggest missing pieces and the most persuasive observations on both sides. But the world hasn't succeeded in sorting this out, and we haven't either. If you want to move this article on to the WP:FAR level after we're done here, I would want to make a better effort at that level. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, the proponents have done their homework, not the skeptics. And I'm not talking on wikipedia, I'm talking in the real world. The issue is pathological disbelief, nothing else. But that's only my opinion. In any case, what you propose to do is borderline with original research. I'm not sure wikipedia policies would allow us to do it. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:31, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

No original research is needed to make this a better article, IMO, because of the immense volume of written material concerning cold fusion; it's a matter of sorting and sifting, but that's a very tough chore. When this gets around to WP:FAR, I'll spend more time reading the sources, and take another whack at it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:59, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. I would propose that what is really lacking in the article is a sociological analysis of the event. What happened in 1989 ? What are the "political" errors that were made, on both side, and why ? What are the evidence of pathological science and pathological disbelief ? The section could be titled "Pathological science and pathological disbelief", and could go in the "Ongoing controversy section". What do you think ? Pcarbonn (talk) 18:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that kind of material would be very helpful, and also very encyclopedic, but in order to reduce misunderstandings...this is just a suggestion...I think that that kind of material should be in a separate article. That is, the clear purpose of this article would remain as it is, to do the best job possible of pointing to the strongest arguments by both sides, to help people understand the science, while the purpose of that article would be to explain how science does (and often, doesn't) get done in the real world...what the social realities of the scientific process are, both in general and for the 19-year history of cold fusion. I believe I remember seeing a red link to Cold fusion controversy, was that in the 2004 FA version of this article? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

Okay, I'll list any problems here. I asked User:Ealdgyth about some of the references, and she said, "I noticed a format glitch up in the footnotes (current ref 37) and a number of the footnotes are lacking page numbers (current ref 53, 69, 70, 75, 76, etc.)". There's also a problem that some of the web cites in the references don't say "Retrieved on (date)"; if you don't know the date, and if there's a chance the material might have changed since it was last accessed, then please access it again and give the date that you access it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the material in the last section, Other types of fusion, such as muon-catalyzed fusion and sonoluminescence, isn't cold fusion and doesn't shed any light on cold fusion. It seems to me it should either be in a separate article or in Wikibooks. The one-sentence mention of hot fusion could easily move into one of the other sections. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I changed "There are nearly 200 published reports of excess heat and other reviews by cold fusion researchers reach similar conclusions" to "...of excess heat by cold fusion researchers"; if the number reporting excess heat is smaller, then lower the number, please. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Please clarify what you want to see done for GA. I've seen GA articles without pages numbers in the ref (e.g. electricity, Plasma (physics)): is this really part of the GA requirements ? Please note also that some page numbers are listed in our bibliography, instead of in the references: please clarify where do you see them missing. The section of other types of fusion is already in nuclear fusion, so it can be safely removed from here. They is a list of 200 reports in Storms book, so no need to lower the number. Pcarbonn (talk) 05:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't put the access date for DOI and ISBN numbers. I suppose this is not necessary. Let me know otherwise. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Why did you delete the "other reviews by cold fusion researchers reach similar conclusions" ? Pcarbonn (talk) 08:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Part of complying with WP:V and WP:OR, which is policy for all articles, is making sure that readers can actually find your references, once they're holding the book or looking at the website you used. I'm not the expert on this, but User:Ealdgyth is, and I don't want to pass references that she's not happy with. We can ask her to hop in here, if you like. Are there at least 200 reports in Storms's book that measure excess heat? Retrieval date is only necessary when your source is a webpage.

Yes, it would be great if she could clarify. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

"Other reviews by cold fusion researchers reach similar conclusions" is a good example of what not to say in a scientific article. Reviews where? In what Wikipedia considers reliable sources? What's "similar" to excess heat? And 200 reports are quite enough to indicate what's going on, one way or another; if additional reports didn't make Storms's book, is there some other reason they should make the cut into the Wikipedia article?

I edited the article to clarify this point. See article history. Definition: "reviews are a category of scientific paper, which provides a synthesis of research on a topic at a moment in time. " Pcarbonn (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The lead is fine for GA. At the FA level, the lead would need to be rewritten so that all the references (other than the references to quotations) move out of the lead section. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:V really does require page numbers, and if you're thinking of taking the article to FAC, it would be a requirement there. Note that you don't need page numbers for journal articles, just books. There is an exception, if you're using the fact that the book exists as a fact (i.e. "So and so published a book (ref to the book here)" you don't have to give page numbers of the book. The relevant part of WP:V is "The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question." which is generally interpreted to mean you need page numbers for books of any size. (A book that's about the size of a pamplet wouldn't be as big a concern) As for access dates, that's not a policy, I just figure that it's a good idea for most weblinks. DOI and ISBN numbers though, they don't need access dates. But if you link a journal article, it's a nice courtesy, but not required. And it doesn't have to be the date you originally accessed it, it can be the date you double checked that it actually still is there. (That's really the point of the last access dates, trying to figure out when web pages were still around so if a link goes dead you can start searching the internet archives for archived versions. Lots easier if there is a date you know the article was existant.) Hope this helps! Ealdgyth - Talk 17:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have read and re-read the 5-page 2004 DOE panel report, and I'm still confused about when the word "reviewer" means "a member of this panel" and when it means "one of the people who reviewed reports and submitted their review to this panel". Can anyone clear this up for me? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, I can't be sure that there is support for the statement that (in my rewording) "The panel was split approximately evenly; about half found that the evidence for excess power is compelling...". They don't use the word "panel", they are referring to "reviewers". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

IMO, 'Reviewers' mean members of the DOE panel, unless stated otherwise. If there is any particular instance where there is a doubt, let us know. Pcarbonn (talk) 18:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I would say that the researchers presenting to the panel were all convinced of the reality of cold fusion. Pcarbonn (talk) 18:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, the third time I read it, I got it. "Reviewers" in that context means the 18 panel reviewers. However, immediately following, it says that most of those reviewers believed that "many of the reported experiments were not well documented", and it's really impossible to parse what this means; to be fair, we should just include the quote, and let the reader figure out what it means. Grrr, I hate the DOE. :) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think there are only 2 references to books left without page numbers: Miley and Evans. I don't have these books, so I can't help. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The article needs to be careful with "adsorbed" vs "absorbed"; it was claimed that Paneth and Peters (incorrectly) reported adsorption, but the given reference mentioned only absorption. I've fixed it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The bulleted list of researchers in Cold fusion#Moving beyond the initial controversy would benefit from short descriptions of their reputation, especially Arata.

Whew. It's been a lot of work, but worth it, because I think this article could not only become a featured article again, but more than that, become one of those articles on very contentious subjects that Wikipedia can be quite proud of. Pending approval of some of the technical aspects of the references by Ealdgyth, I'm passing this article, assuming that not too many of my edits have been reverted by the time I finish this post :) Here is a summary of the GA criteria:

• well written:
  • I've done a lot of copyediting on it, and I hope it would be considered well-written now, but I've been working fast and a little sloppy, and further editing would be welcome.
• lead sections:
  • The lead section is now fine for GA, but references that don't support quotations will need to be moved down below the lead section before this article gets to WP:FAR.
• jargon:
  • Jargon is always a problem with a very technical article, but many improvements have been made, and I daresay this article is a lot easier to read than some others I've seen on the topic.
• words to avoid:
  • After some work, the article seems to be in compliance with both the spirit and the letter of WP:WORDS.
• fiction:
  • let's hope not :)
• list incorporation:
  • I made a suggestion for the one incorporated list.
• It is factually accurate and verifiable:
  • I was familiar with some of the material from the early years myself, and I haven't seem claims that anything in this article is not factually accurate. The references seem to check out. There are an overwhelming number of inline citations; great care has been taken on all sides to avoid WP:OR.
• breadth:
  • It's pretty broad, yes. I deleted one section (other fusion topics) that didn't seem relevant enough. Additional material might possibly be split off into a separate article on what this controversy reveals about the scientific process in the modern world.
• neutrality:
  • There are very few people who have done a lot of reading on the subject who are undecided, and neither proponents nor supporters will be 100% satisfied with this article, but especially following the mediation, the feeling seems to be that the article is fair. I hope no one believes that bias has been introduced, either by my changes during this review or by any other editor, but my door is always open. Lack of bias is certainly the goal.
• stability:
  • The article is fairly stable, especially for such a contentious topic. The edits since May 8 have, in general, only improved the article. The article was the subject of formal mediation earlier this year.
• images:
  • All images are appropriately tagged. They're also attractive and illustrative, and the captions are well-written.

Whoa, hold on. Some of the reversions to my edits, I can't live with. I'm making a list now. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, problems to clear up:

I just noticed that the quote in the lead was repeated 3 times, once without quotation marks; I've removed it except in the lead, and wrote something short in the other two places; hopefully that's enough.

I agree that we'll probably have more than enough evidence of the notability of the recent Arata talk soon; there's a very vigorous discussion on Slashdot, for instance. But I don't see that news of it has shown up in a reliable source yet; correct me if I'm wrong, but we can't count web sites except in exceptional cases (Slashdot, Gizmodo, New Energy Times), or the Italian story that has a strong connection to a company that works with Arata. I'll keep an eye on news.google.com, but for now, we don't have a way to get this talk into this article.

I don't know why it is that cold fusion proponents keep saying "room temperature and atmospheric pressure". I don't fault Pierre for re-inserting this after I took it out, because that's what the proponents say, but it's flatly not true, except by comparison with the temperatures and pressures inside stars and high-temperature fusion chambers. Arata in particular uses high pressure to force deuterium into "palladium black", and "boiling" is not "room temperature". I can accept "ordinary temperatures and pressures", and I would also be happy with something more specific, but it has to be accurate.

nuclear transmutation

Dan, you act in good faith, but IMO, you take too much risk of injecting original research. I encourage you to stick to sources. I have the following comments on your recent edits:

• "Proponents of cold fusion research have charged that opponents have been willing to dismiss these observations without examining the evidence. " Not sourced. I would think that some opponents did look at the evidence.
• "Opponents have charged that their attempts to replicate these experiments have been unsuccessful" Unsourced. I don't believe that any opponent has ever attempted to replicate transmutation experiments.
• "that it is extremely unlikely that such results could be the result of anything but experimental error". Unsourced. Opponents have found many other "explanations": contamination, incompetence, fraud, delusion, ...

Pcarbonn (talk) 20:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Give me more than two seconds before you revert please; I've read these and similar statements many times, and I'm looking them up. We don't have to express it this way, but I wasn't happy with the paragraph the way it was. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. Sorry. I have not found any skeptical sources on transmutation yet, so I'd be interested. The current paragraph is already a stretch: 1989 DOE could not talk about transmutations because they had not been observed yet. The "additional Coulomb barrier" argument has been added by editors after consensus in mediation. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

On the first and third points, this explanation is repeated many places, it's just a matter of figuring out where we want to point people to an easily readable treatment of these points. I like http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library/2003StormsEStudentsGuide.pdf, page 36, which starts off with "Skeptics suggest that all cold fusion results are experimental error and instrument artifacts." Is this an acceptable reference, Pierre? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a fine reference, but it does not particularly apply to transmutations: it is for all CF results. Hence, I don't see why it would be placed in the transmutation section. Also, the paragraph that you quote discusses the method of argumentations rather than the arguments itself. I suggested before to have a section explaining the pathological science and disbelief. I would propose that we add this material there, and find a better section title if needed: it would cover the method of scientific (and not so scientific) argumentations related to cold fusion. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I see where you're going. Yes, I can easily live with that; after we're done here, let's think about a separate article on the nature of the argumentation. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Btw, I thought "additional Coulomb barrier" was a very nice way to put it...it's not like there isn't a big problem with the Coulomb barrier for D+D, nor is it true that the additional transmutations are "impossible"...it's simply more of a stretch to get to the additional transmutations, under current theory, and it was quite appropriate to add that. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I have not suggested to remove this part of the paragraph. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the anonymous deletion of a subsection heading

The subsection heading "Moving beyond the initial controversy" (and only the heading, no text) was deleted anonymously; I restored it. I'm going to revert anything on sight that smacks of the kind of thing that drives article watchlisters in controversial articles crazy: small, arguable edits designed to subtly shift the tone. My second-favorite thing about Wikipedia is how good a job we do with controversial topics such as this one, and part of what makes this work is, I usually find that people have a low tolerance for "guerilla warfare". Shifting the tone is fine, as long as we get a lot of people participating in the discussion, we make a decision, and we make the change in tone obvious. Obviously, we can't get everyone looking at this article all the time, and since we're near the end of a GA review, people are probably a bit worn out now. Let's give it some time before we try any big changes, and if people want to make a list in the meantime for consideration of big changes in a few weeks, that's fine, as long as a bunch of people are asking and they're making a good case. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:56, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. You do know about the RFM? Might give you some more insight into the article's rather interesting history. seicer | talk | contribs 02:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Moving beyond the initial controversy

The section title "Moving beyond the initial controversy" should be removed or changed, since people have not moved beyond the initial controversy. Any thoughts? 209.253.120.198 (talk) 03:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)