Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion/Evidence

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Evidence presented by Jehochman

Cold fusion is a fringe topic

Cold fusion was a field of science begun in 1989. After about ten years of failure in attempts to verify the initial experimental results, Cold fusion faded into the realm of fringe theory, as reported in 1999 by this source, Physics Today. This is the top ranking reliable source in Google for a search on "cold fusion". Google relies on PageRank, and algorithm modeled on an idea borrowed from academia: the source cited (or page linked to) most often is probably the most authoritative.

Pcarbonn has used Wikipedia for advocacy

Others have presented evidence that Pcarbonn has engaged in Wikipedia:Advocacy (a guideline I have proposed). He advocates the view that cold fusion is disputed field of science, rather than a fringe theory.

• Pcarbonn states that he is engaged in ideological struggle on Wikipedia. [1]
• A cold fusion advocate confirms that Wikipedia has been used to enhance the field's reputation. [2]
• Diffs cited by ScienceApologist in a recent ANI thread:
  • Uses Pioneer anomalie to confuse the discussion; argues for inclusion of non-reliable sources.
  • "Pons is a respected scientist"
  • Stonewalling or wikilawyering
  • "You have not demonstrated that cold fusion is the minority view in reliable, published sources. Please note the quality of the publishers in the list above."
  • Asserts that cold fusion is an ongoing scientific controversy. No plausible reading of the reliable sources would come to that conclusion.
  • Mischaracterizes what a source says.
  • "CF papers have been published in the top third of all journals." No reliable journals are publishing these papers.
• Spinning Cold fusion: [3][4][5]
• Spillover to other articles: [6][7][8]

Pcarbonn has been warned

Pcarbonn has received feedback about editing problems on multiple occasions. In addition to the noticeboard discussions linked in the request for arbitration, I found these diffs from his talk page relevant:

• Verifiability of content: [9][10][11][12]
• NPOV: [13]
• Pseudoscience warning: [14]
• WP:NPA warning: [15]
• Userpage soapboxing: [16]
• Advice to diversify interests: [17]

ScienceApologist has good intentions, but faulty methods

ScienceApologist disputes the presentation of much of this evidence, there are some presentations which are faulty and others which are based on ignorance. However, there is no cross-examination allowed in arbitrations. Please contact User:ScienceApologist via e-mail for his side of most of these characterizations.

ScienceApologist has been under ArbCom restrictions against incivility per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist#ScienceApologist restricted and using multiple accounts Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist#ScienceApologist limited to one account. These restrictions are set to expire 2008-11-19.

Disruptive editing

He has violated decorum or engaged in pointy behavior much too frequently.

• SA's posts to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion are neither calm, nor particularly helpful toward resolving the dispute.
• Edit warring on WP:FRINGE: warning
• Canvassing: warning
• Editing Elonka Dunin after User:Elonka placed him under a topic ban.[18][19][20] warning from Morven warning from Avruchremark by Newyorkbrad
• Continue editing of Elonka Dunin after warnings: [21][22][23]

Valuable contributions

On other occasions, SA has provided valuable input, helped enforce NPOV, and helped discourage sock puppetry:

• Removing unverified or poorly sourced content: [24]
• Removing linkspam: [25]
• Barnstar given by me for helping stop sock puppetry: [26]

Many more productive diffs can be found, but I will not overload the page.

Use of multiple accounts

There are also concerns that SA may have used multiple accounts to evade scrutiny, resulting in a stern warning from User:Lar. [27] SA filed an MfD on the checkuser request, which was courtesy blanked. I have linked to the last revision prior to blanking. Hopefully that won't get me banned, but I think this information is highly relevant to the present discussion. Though some folks view me as a supporter of SA, I have checkusered him on three occasions.

Disruption of ban discussion, which lead to this request for arbitration

When the recent thread at WP:AN on Pcarbonn's topic ban started, the discussion was at first calm and rationale.[28] When ScienceApologist added inflammatory remarks, the discussion quickly deteriorated towards a non-result.

• Attacks the mediator: [29]
• Antagonizing other editors, personal attacks: [30][31][32]
• "Pathological hooey": [33]

This was the proximate cause of my filing this request for arbitration. Had SA stayed away from that thread, I believe it would have come to a proper resolution one way or the other.

Pattern of behavior and prior attempts at resolution

These are not an isolated incidents. When SA loses his cool, he tends to disrupted discussions with shrill rhetoric and accusations presented without evidence.

• Off the cuff remarks that Twoggle should be banned: [34][35]
• Accuses me and Elonka of stalking: [36]

I have tried every possible way I know of to encourage SA to focus on productive contributions and refrain from disruption. Unfortunately, I and other editors have not been completely successful yet. Here are just a few sample diffs:

• Advice on toning down the rhetoric: [37]
• Be calm, be careful: [38][39][40]
• Attempt at mentorship with User:AGK and User:Fritzpoll: [41][42][43]

Kirk shanahan has engaged in COI editing

Kirk shanahan (talk · contribs) is another single purpose account that engages in the advocacy against cold fusion.

• Apparent COI editing, citing K. Shanahan: [44][45][46][47] (30 October 2008)
• Editing has continued up until 31 October 2008 on Cold fusion [48] and until 3 November 2008 on Talk:Cold fusion

Evidence presented by Enric Naval

Disruption to articles can be caused without editing the articles themselves

As seen on the similar homeopathy case, a single editor can disrupt articles even if he never edits the actual article. It's just enough that he wikilawyers on the talk page about interpretation of sources. Bringing again and again the same studies will tire out all neutral editors who have better things to do.

No adequate tools to deal with this

The community does not have adequate tools to fend off the above behaviour, so it all depends on individual hard-boiled editors who have to basically kick the POV pushers out of the talk page in unfashionable but effective ways, like I had to do myself here and here, so they won't scare neutral editors out of the page.

The real point of this case: are cold fusion's walled-gardens representative of scientific consensus or are they fringe

Mind you, Pcarbonn is way lees disruptive than Dana, and he actually raises good points: should the peer-reviewed meta-reviews published at journals where only cold fusion proponents edit be considered reliable sources? Can they be used to indicate scientific consensus or are they just walled gardens that should be considered as fringe sources? See Vesal's statement for a better explanation.

The problem will solve itself by clarifying if we take walled-gardens seriously as part of mainstream scientific consensus, or if we take them as a fringe escission from consensus.

Note: Cold fusion is probably just one of the scientific disciplines where the walled gardens are bigger and more reputable-looking, that's why it has reached arbitration first. I suppose that more will pop up over time, although I can't pin-point a specific field.

Evidence presented by Pcarbonn

Published reliable sources on the subject indicate an ongoing scientific controversy

Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources says "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers".

Here is what the most reliable sources say according to this ranking and WP:PSTS:

1a secondary reputable peer-reviewed papers:

Favorable : Biberian, Jean-Paul (2007), "Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (Cold Fusion): An Update" (PDF), International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology '3 (1): 31–43, doi:doi:10.1504%2FIJNEST.2007.012439,

1b books published in University press:

Negative: Park, Robert (2000), Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513515-6

Favorable: Marwan, Jan and Krivit, Steven B., editors (2008), Low energy nuclear reactions sourcebook, American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8412-6966-8

Favorable: Storms, Edmund (2007), Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: A Comprehensive Compilation of Evidence and Explanations, Singapore: World Scientific, ISBN 9-8127062-0-8

1c primary reputable peer-reviewed papers:

Too many to cite, even if we limit ourselves to the top third of journals by impact factor. Mix of favorable and skeptical articles. See bibliography in our article, or D. Britz bibliography.

The 2004 DOE report and other less reliable sources, including magazines such as PhysicsToday cited by JzG below, also indicate an ongoing scientific controversy. See Ranking of sources per reliability and our CF article. The author of the leading skeptic book cited above, Bob Park, recently said that 'there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions'. This was published in Chemistry world, i.e. not a journal dedicated to cold fusion.[49]

Favorable articles have been published in reputable peer-reviewed journals that are not dedicated to cold fusion

The peer-reviewed journals that have published favorable articles on cold fusion are not dedicated to cold fusion, and are not at the bottom of the Impact Factor list, but in the top third or better, overall or within their category. These are further indication that the scientific controversy is ongoing. Here is what I found on the ISI website with some links to articles:

• Natuurwissenchaften:[50][51][52] 7th among 50 journals in the MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES category. Impact factor: 1.955
• International Journal of Hydrogen:[53] 8th among 32 journals in the PHYSICS, ATOMIC, MOLECULAR & CHEMICAL. Impact factor: 2.725
• Surface & Coatings technology:[54] 31st among 94 journals in PHYSICS, APPLIED. Impact factor: 1.678
• Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry:[55] 21st among 70 journals in CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL. Impact factor: 2.580

The lowest impact factor of these, 1.678, is in the 2291st place overall, just a shade below one third overall (6417 journals in total --> 1/3 = 2139) So, these journals should be seen as reliable and notable enough for wikipedia. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

A neutral reading of the 2004 DOE report shows that the controversy is not settled

There is a disagreement on whether the 2004 DOE report indicates an ongoing controversy. Here is what it actually says:

Conclusion of section 1 : Two-thirds of the reviewers commenting on Charge Element 1 did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions, one found the evidence convincing, and the remainder indicated they were somewhat convinced. Many reviewers noted that poor experiment design, documentation, background control and other similar issues hampered the understanding and interpretation of the results presented.

Conclusion of section 2 :The preponderance of the reviewers’ evaluations indicated that Charge Element 2, the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions, is not conclusively demonstrated by the evidence presented. One reviewer believed that the occurrence was demonstrated, and several reviewers did not address the question.

Conclusion of section 3 : 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. These proposals should meet accepted scientific standards, and undergo the rigors of peer review. No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions.

Final 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 in resolving some of the controversies in the field, two of which were: 1) material science aspects of deuterated metals using modern characterization techniques, and 2) the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods. The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.

Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

"Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world." "Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge; this means that people of all ages and cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles." (Wikipedia:About)

"Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia; there is no practical limit to the number of topics it can cover, or the total amount of content, other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page." "Some topics are covered by print encyclopedias only in short, static articles; however, because Wikipedia does not require paper, we can include more information, provide more external links, update more quickly, and so on." [56]

"Content hosted in Wikipedia is not Propaganda, advocacy, or recruitment of any kind, commercial, political, religious, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias." [57]

I have always encouraged the writing of a section on the controversy itself

The to-do list for cold fusion includes "add a summary from the "philosophy of science" perspective, e.g based on Lewenstein (p. 13-18)", a point which I have added myself.[58]. Lewenstein looks at the controversy on cold fusion to find out how science is actually practised.

As User:Eubulides says below, the literature about the cold fusion controversy is separate from the scientific litterature on cold fusion, and provides a different, usefull perspective on the sociological aspects of this scientific topic, and of how science is practised. Having not read this literature in detail, I do not feel qualified to write such a summary. I do know however that the demarcation problem between science and non-science is not resolved, and that the literature on the cold fusion controversy is similarly equivocal. In my view, there is no basis for the view that the sociological controversy should be presented but the scientific one shouldn't. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:57, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Physics Today is not the most authoritative source on the subject

Google Search returns results adapted to its user, if it knows him. When I log out of Google and search for "cold fusion", the top result that I get is our wikipedia article.

It is not the Physics Today article, as Jehochnan suggests. The article that he considers "probably the most authoritative" is a news article. Here is what WP:RS has to say : "For information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories. Newspapers tend to misrepresent results, leaving out crucial details and reporting discoveries out of context. For example, news reports often fail to adequately report methodology, errors, risks, and costs associated with a new scientific result or medical treatment." Their reporting of the 2004 DOE report is the perfect example of that. It should not be considered as the most reliable source.

The current version is the result of many editors

I have never been blocked, for WP:3RR or otherwise. I have always accepted participation in dispute resolution mechanisms. The article has been listed as GA. There is simply no way for me to WP:own this controversial article. Those who want to criticize my edits should use diffs, not the current version of the article or of its lead.

Statement by Greg L

I used to design PEM fuel cells and am a named inventor on many patents in the technology, (my involvement outlined here). I also wrote much of our Thermodynamic temperature article and have some facility with thermal kinetics. I can speak from an engineering point of view to the current state of affairs regarding cold fusion. I believe the Physics World Mar 1, 1999 article, Whatever happened to cold fusion? should be considered as the paradigm example of a reliable source with regard to cold fusion and should serve as the template for Wikipedia to use in setting the tone and summarizing the current state of affairs on the subject. It is troubling to me that scientists often can’t reproduce certain cold fusion experiments and, even when they do, the reactions disappear in a few days. This state of affairs bears many of the hallmarks of the polywater fiasco, where trace contamination by human sweat was ultimately found to be the culprit. Unless and until there is a breakthrough development in cold fusion that drastically and convincingly changes the status quo, anyone with a consistent pattern of editing on our Cold fusion article that has the effect of ennobling cold fusion and giving the field greater credibility than would be supported by the Physics World article should be considered as editing against the consensus. And a refusal to conform with that consensus view should be considered as disruptive.

I find, based on my review of others’ statements regarding Pcarbonn’s past behavior and based on my brief interaction with him here on his talk page, that he is an advanced amateur with no first-hand experience in cold fusion. He says he has spoken with researchers, which I believe, but given the reality of the situation, those who are currently working on cold fusion should be considered as operating on the fringes of science (“out in left field” in many cases). The evidence for Pcarbonn’s basic grasp of scientific fundamentals at this point is sketchy and elusive so I have little to go on, but I find his arguments for being pro-CF to be less than persuasive.

It is my personal believe that if Pcarbonn does not quickly conform to the basic desires of those who have brought this complaint, that he be quickly and decisively dealt with. Greg L (talk) 22:00, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Eubulides

Cold fusion is considered fringe by the mainstream scientific community

I searched Google Scholar for peer-reviewed literature about the cold fusion controversy (as opposed to the scientific literature on cold fusion itself), and found that the articles uniformly considered cold fusion to be fringe. Here are all the recent sources I found that devoted a substantial amount of space to the topic:

• Labinger JA, Weininger SJ (2005). "Controversy in chemistry: how do you prove a negative?—the cases of phlogiston and cold fusion". Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 44 (13): 1916–22. doi:10.1002/anie.200462084. So there matters stand: no cold fusion researcher has been able to dispel the stigma of 'pathological science' by rigorously and reproducibly demonstrating effects sufficiently large to exclude the possibility of error (for example, by constructing a working power generator), nor does it seem possible to conclude unequivocally that all the apparently anomalous behavior can be attributed to error.
• Little M (2006). "Expressing freedom and taking liberties: the paradoxes of aberrant science". Med Humant. 32 (1): 32–7. doi:10.1136/jmh.2004.000205. It took two years for the cold fusion episode to be laid to rest. There are still scientists and technology companies that retain an interest in the Pons and Fleischman work. Eventually, it was decided that what Pons and Fleischman had achieved was no more than a variation of a well known phenomenon, which could not be scaled up to provide a usable energy source.
• Ackermann E (2006). "Indicators of failed information epidemics in the scientific journal literature: a publication analysis of Polywater and Cold Nuclear Fusion". Scientometrics. 66 (3): 451–65. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0033-0. The epidemic rate of growth is ultimately unsustainable however and dies out once the initial discovery fails to be confirmed or is otherwise found wanting by the scientific community. Two of the more famous examples of unsuccessful information epidemics are Polywater and Cold Nuclear Fusion.

I also found a review of a university-press book that might be helpful, though I have read only the book review, not the book itself. Here's the citation to the book review:

• Yang A (2006). "Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies [book review]". Nova Religio. 9 (3): 133–4. doi:10.1525/nr.2006.9.3.133. Part Two is more empirical, and focuses on what are often called 'pathological sciences' such as research into N rays, polywater, and cold fusion ('pathological' because these have been dismissed by mainstream science) ...

and here is the book:

• Bauer HH (2004). Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phenomena, and Other Heterodoxies. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-07216-2.

Eubulides (talk) 22:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by ScienceApologist

Pulling out of arbitration...

There exists "evidence" presented by Jehochman that flagrantly mischaracterizes me. If we cannot come to an agreement on how to present it, I will leave Wikipedia for good.

ScienceApologist (talk) 09:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Olorinish

I have edited the cold fusion page and its talk page many times over the past 1.5 years (sometimes as 209.253.120.204, 209.253.120.158, 209.253.120.198, or 209.253.120.205, before I decided to log in for every edit), and have disagreed with Pcarbonn on many issues.

Like many others, I support a temporary topic ban on Pcarbonn editing the cold fusion page because of his frequent POV-pushing (see examples below).

I do not think his comments about "winning the battle of cold fusion" should carry any weight. Wikipedia authorities should judge editors on the quality of their edits and their arguments, not their opinions.

In contrast, I do not support a ban on Pcarbonn editing the cold fusion talk page. I believe he honestly wants to improve wikipedia, and I think wikipedia should establish a precedent that editors will not be banned from discussing articles because they make poor edits. The way to counteract POV problems is to increase the number of editors looking at an issue, not limit it. Olorinish (talk) 00:18, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn has pushed the pro-cold fusion POV

Regarding two articles he wanted to mention: [59] [60]

When describing "replication" of cold fusion: [61]

By redundantly over-promoting the potential benefits of cold fusion: [62]

By removing a mainstream journal article (Hutchinson) critical of cold fusion: [63]

Comment on Pcarbonn's section on pro-CF articles in respected journals

I think people should be aware that none of the four journals Pcarbonn mentioned above frequently report on the field of nuclear reactions, or fields close to it. The "multidisciplinary" Natuurwissenchaften reports almost exclusively on biology topics. Olorinish (talk) 14:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by JzG

Fringe advocacy

Cold fusion (CF) is a fringe field which has been subject to advocacy, including from clearly conflicted editors such as JedRothwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), webmaster of the pro-CF website lenr-canr.org.

Examples include [64] where the conclusion of the 2004 DoE review (that little has changed) is "balanced" by a cherry-picked sentence from the middle of the review stating that "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." and misrepresented as if it were a part of the conclusion, which it is not. This phrase is pretty empty, in fact, since I would challenge to to find any area of scientific research where any government funding body would do anything but encourage "individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues" relevant to any question of any importance at all. The conclusion is that nothing has changed since 1989. And that is a very serious blow to the CF researchers, who want to present this as an emerging field.

Article status

Largely as a result of the activities of these individuals, Cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was demoted from FA in January 2006, and has at least twice been reverted to the FA version to roll back extensive abusive advocacy. Featured article status requires extensive peer-review, and the FA version was an accurate reflection of the mainstream view, according to a friend of mine who is a full professor at an English university and was in one of Fleischmann's labs in 1989, taking some part in the experiments. So, the FA version is my personal benchmark for neutrality on this subject.

As a point of principle I do not think we should apply Good Article to articles where content is still a matter of heated dispute, as GA does not really address the quality of the article (far too few people are involved in reviewing the content), only conformance to manual of style. I also think that a defensible maintenance tag (e.g. neutrality, balance) should automatically result in removal of GA status.

The mainstream view

Physics Today is a mainstream publication and discussions there largely reflect the mainstream view. [65] shows that before the DoE review people were fair (as was the FA version WP article) in acknowledging that cold fusion is not so much an imaginary phenomenon as one which lacks significant support due to fundamental evidential and scientific weaknesses. Note the lead to that article: "Whether outraged or supportive about DOE's planned reevaluation of cold fusion, most scientists remain deeply skeptical that it's real".

"The critical question is, How good and different are [the cold fusion researchers'] new results?" says Allen Bard, a chemist at the University of Texas at Austin. "If they are saying, 'We are now able to reproduce our results,' that's not good enough. But if they are saying, 'We are getting 10 times as much heat out now, and we understand things,' that would be interesting. I don't see anything wrong with giving these people a new hearing." In ERAB's cold fusion review in 1989, he adds, "there were phenomena described to us where you could not offer alternative, more reasonable explanations. You could not explain it away like UFOs."

— DoE Warms To Cold Fusion, Physics Today, April 2004

But the DoE report clearly showed that the necessary condition we understand things is not met. This is the main finding of the DoE review, to my reading, that without getting the basic science right and proposing a credible mechanism by which the effect can work, they will not get what they want.

How did Physics Today cover the hotly contended issue of the DoE review? The same author wrote as follows:

Claims of cold fusion are no more convincing today than they were 15 years ago. That's the conclusion of the Department of Energy's fresh look at advances in extracting energy from low-energy nuclear reactions. A report released on 1 December 2004 echoes DOE's 1989 study that followed the headline-making claims of cold fusion by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann.

— Cold Fusion Gets Chilly Encore, Physics Today January 2005

Now, I would invite the arbitrators to review the current article and Pcarbonn's contributions and see how consistent they are, on the specific issue of the interpretation of the DoE review, with that mainstream (read: pro-WP:NPOV) interpretation. That is, I think, the crucial issue here. As an aside, I would note that quoting the above paragraph in the article was resisted to an almost hysterical degree by the CF advocates, and indeed this summary of the Physics Today article on the DoE review is not quoted in the article as it stands today.

Pcarbonn's assertion that "most scientists" amounts to unverifiable WP:WEASEL words is objectively false in this case: we have at least one mainstream source which says precisely that, it's just that the CF advocates will not allow us to quote it; it has been removed every time it's been inserted and was vehemently resisted during mediation. I would argue that there will be few better sources than Physics Today to give Wikipedia a clear idea of how the DoE report (a primary source) was received by the mainstream scientific community and should therefore be described by us. Mainstream sources will only very occasionally revisit fields which have been identified as rejected, unless there is major new work and we (Wikipedia) will only know if such changes in view have happened when there are overview articles in mainstream journals which tell us that the dominant view has shifted. Looking at articles by prominent holdouts is actively unhelpful because they are holdouts, their view cannot be held to support or deny the mainstream acceptance of that view. And this is a very common problem in articles on fringe subjects - advocates for the fringe view will pile up huge numbers of quotes from advocates in order to try to swamp the documented fact that the field's dominant thesis is generally regarded as unproven or even outright false.

The central questions in respect of Pcarbonn seem to me to be:

1. Does the Wikipedia content square with the fact, documented in an overview article in a mainstream and widely-read journal, that the claims of the cold fusion advocates are "no more convincing today than they were 15 years ago", and is Pcarbonn's editing and advocacy in line with that, as required by WP:UNDUE.
2. Is Pcarbonn using synthesis from [usually low impact] primary sources to draw a novel interpretation, that cold fusion is an emergent field of great potential, to offset the documented mainstream view and thereby present cold fusion as a valid alternative of equal stature with the mainstream view, as forbidden by WP:SYN.
3. Has Pcarbonn succeeded in skewing Wikipedia content towards a fringe view and away from the mainstream?
4. If so, how do we change the way we work in order to prevent this happening again?

WP:AGF encourages to allow for the fact that Pcarbonn's actions may genuinely be the result of the relatively common misconception that WP is like academic publishing, where you are positively encouraged to draw novel syntheses. If Pierre Carbonnel wrote an overview of the subject in the terms that Pcarbonn writes on Wikipedia, this would absolutely not violate the policies and norms of academic writing, whether or not it passed peer review, but it does, in my view violate Wikipedia's policies, because on Wikipedia we are not subject matter experts and are not, therefore, permitted to give ourselves the role of a peer review panel, only of editors.

Original research, undue weight, management of same

Compare:

In 2004, the DOE convened another panel which came to a similar conclusion. Of eighteen reviewers, twelve decided the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions was not conclusively demonstrated by the evidence, five were somewhat convinced, and one believed that the occurrence was demonstrated.

"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 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." and "The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field [..] The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals."

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 in resolving some of the controversies in the field, two of which were: 1) material science aspects of deuterated metals using modern characterization techniques, and 2) the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods. The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.

— DoE conclusions

Claims of cold fusion are no more convincing today than they were 15 years ago.

— Physics Today

As far as Wikipedia and this arbitration goes, this is perfectly emblematic of the problem.

• Version 1 is a synthesis from the narrative in relation to one of the three charge elements of the review. It is not a direct quote from the review at all, much less the conclusion, and yet it is in the lead right now [66] as the main and most visible representation of the findings of the DoE review.
• Version 2, a CF advocate's view, quotes part of the conclusion but "balances" it with a paragraph form the report body which is generic (funding bodies always support well-designed research targeted at resolving unanswered questions) but is represented as conferring some kind of endorsement on this field of research.
• Version 3, which is the conclusion of the review - and please tell me I do not have to actually explain the significance of the conclusion of a piece of scientific work - is buried in the middle of the current version of the article.
• Version 4 is the reaction to the DoE review printed in Physics Today, and coincidentally a direct quote from the report's conclusions. This mainstream reaction to the review is not represented in the lead. It is not quoted in the article at all, in fact, but it is cited as a source for the text that most scientists greet the claims of excess heat with scepticism It's a bit more than that, it is the whole claim of cold fusion where they are sceptical, but the para in the current version also obscures that by balancing the mainstream view with a count of the number of publications in peer-reviewed journals, without the necessary context of those journals' impact factors and expertise in the area. But I digress.

The reports of excess heat and anomalous tritium production[α] have been met by most scientists with skepticism,[59] although discussion in professional settings still continues. The American Chemical Society's (ACS) 2007 conference in Chicago held an "invited symposium" on cold fusion and low-energy nuclear reactions, and thirteen papers were presented at the "Cold Fusion" session of the March 2006 American Physical Society (APS) Meeting in Baltimore.[60][61] Articles supporting cold fusion have been published in peer reviewed journals such as Naturwissenschaften, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, and Journal of Fusion Energy.[62][63]

We are told that "most scientists" is weasel words, but what about "in professional settings?" What we have here is a paragraph from the same current version of the article, which clearly asserts parity of esteem between those active in the fringe field, and the mainstream view. And that is a massive failing. And the article is like that despite lengthy mediation, the involvement of large numbers of editors, a high profile blowup following Pcarbonn's description of his "victory" in the fringe advocates' house journal and so on.

The preference for citing primary sources rather than overview sources which demonstrate the mainstream view is evident consistently. Example: [67] which removes commentary from the BBC, Physics World and Physics Today. This is completely counter to Wikipedia policy, which actively prefers secondary or overview sources over primary sources precisely because of the need to control this kind of advocacy.

So, something is clearly very badly broken in the way the community is managing this content dispute, which is similar to many others. I may be wrong in this by my reading of WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR, we should, in discussing the DoE review, cite a mainstream secondary source rather than a primary source. And whichever source we use, we should ensure that what we say accurately reflects the overall tone of the source, which would imply using the conclusion (from a primary source) or the lead (from a journalistic source). Instead we have done the very worst possible thing, which is to synthesis something from a paragraph in the body of the report which implies significant support for a verifiably fringe field.

This is why I am not active on this article. I simply do not trust myself to retain my temper. Anybody who can in all conscience support the use of a synthesised argument obscuring the overall tone ("nothing has changed") in favour of boosting the credibility of the fringe field of "low energy nuclear research" and in the lead of a supposedly good article, should, in my view, be banned from editing any article on subjects of this kind. ArbCom does not rule on content. This is not about content. It's about the wilful and pretty close to fraudulent abuse of sources in violation of core policy.

Pcarbonn is a "mission poster"

Pcarbonn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has admitted both here in an external forum [68] that his goal on Wikipedia is to change the thrust of the article on cold fusion to better reflect what is without question a minority view. This minority is reasonably well organised and has its "house journal", New Energy Times, in which advocacy is evident specifically in respect of the Wikipedia article: [69] Pcarbonn explicitly sees this as a "battle": [70] and sees that he has "won" the battle, which is an accurate perception, the two main problems being that (a) he should not have brought the battle here in the first place and (b) the battle is to violate core policy so should not have been won.

A review of his contributions will show little if any involvement outside of the area of cold fusion, i.e. Pcarbonn is a single purpose account. He has displayed many of the classic attributes of the POV-pusher, including creating a POV-fork at 2004 DoE panel on cold fusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) which covers the DoE panel in terms which are flattering to the cherry-picked supportive statements form the DoE panel.

Examples:

• [71]
• [72], adding large chunks of apologia for CF advocacy, cited in large part from New Energy Times, a journal which has no known acceptance in the mainstream.
• [73] removing the cited text "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"

Whether he has a COI or not is irrelevant. He is a single-purpose editor whose purpose here is to advocate for a fringe field. The DoE report begins: "The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science (SC) was approached in late 2003 by a group of scientists who requested that the Department revisit the question of scientific evidence for low energy nuclear reactions." The DoE review failed to endorse the idea of cold fusion, according to independent secondary sources, and Pcarbonn seems to me to be essentially using Wikipedia to refight the same battle. He has come here to represent the (very small) group of scientists who support cold fusion, and ask that it be re-evaluated. That is not Wikipedia's job.

WP:TRUTH

Pcarbonn's evidence above is yet another example of asserting WP:TRUTH versus WP:NPOV, arguing his personal interpretation of primary sources (forbidden per WP:NOR) instead of the mainstream view as seen in Physics Today and as documented by the Department of Energy review. Indeed, selective interpretation of the DoE review and advocacy for the use of cherry-picked sentences rather than its high-level overview, was a bone of contention in the mediation case. In mainstream science, cold fusion falls somewhere between ignored and derided. The article as Pcarbonn rewrote it, largely on his own since his constant argumentation and tens of thousands of words of repetitive argument form primary sources drove away anyone who did not have, as he evidently does, months to spend on this one subject, more or less hides this fact.

This is an arbitration case, arbitration cases do not address content. Instead they address how content is edited, and whether that is in line with our core policies, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:V. What Pcarbonn advocates is certainly verifiable, although often from dubious sources (i.e. sources that have a systemic bias towards the field and are not considered reliable outside of the field). It does not, however, meet the requirements for neutrality, and often skirts (and I would argue crosses) the boundaries of novel synthesis. Note above that he argues from primary sources about the validity of the field, not about how it is received in the mainstream community, which is the crucial question here. A look at Remote viewing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) will show that it is perfectly possible to write an article from sources which asserts that it is possible to view objects at a remote site using parapsychological powers. The problem, of course, is that virtually every scientist in the word will call it nonsense. So we have a large number of sources which are extremely low impact factor, and often walled gardens, versus a small number of very high profile documents that show the field to be pretty much universally ignored. You will not get a paper in Nature saying "cold fusion still unproven", you might get an overview in Physics Today noting that the last review still found significant deficiencies in the basic science. Which is what happened. So counting the number of peer-reviewed CF papers is always going to violate WP:UNDUE and WP:SYN, as an assertion that this somehow amounts to acceptance where no such acceptance can be attributed to a valid authority. It does not matter how many times Uri Geller bends the spoon, and how many others claim also to be able to bend spoons, spoon bending will not become accepted by the scientific community until there a credible and reproducible mechanism is documented. So with CF. It matters not how many duplicate the experiment and produce anomalous heat, without a credible mechanism (the basic science) it will not be accepted. It would not be accepted anyway, but the highly public Fleischmann & Pons business means that it is especially so with this particular field.

Inadequate controls on missionaries

The core question for arbitration is: does Pcarbonn's involvement serve to promote a neutral point of view, or to move us away from it. Has Pcarbonn's involvement made it easier or harder for Wikipedia editors to document a fringe field in ways that make it clear that it is a fringe field, and why it is so, and will his continued involvement be conducive to maintaining that position or will his continued involvement serve to move Wikipedia content further away from reflecting the mainstream view. I would say that his influence and actions are and always have been counter-policy. It would, however, be entirely legitimate in another venue such as the letters pages of scientific journals. There is nothing evil about challenging mainstream scientists to think again about a rejected field, but Wikipedia is not the place to do it.

Even after it was shown (to my satisfaction) that Pcarbonn is here principally to violate our guidelines in favour of a minority view for which he has sympathy, it was not possible to agree any form of control over that behaviour because he was polite in doing so. Wikipedia currently has no effective method to control people who are single-issue obsessives, since those who resist them and support the mainstream tend to have hundreds of separate single-issue obsessives to deal with, one or two per article, leading to burnout. And let's be clear here, Pcarbonn is far from the worst offender in this line, other articles have much worse missionaries.

That we have tried and failed to control the issue of long-term civil POV-pushing is obvious, since the problem still exists (hence this arbitration) despite the existence of past arbitrations and guidelines such as WP:FRINGE. The history of WP:UNDUE also shows attempts by fringe advocates to change core policy in order to further support their behaviour. Even if ArbCom banishes Pcarbonn to outer darkness, that core problem will not be fixed. It needs to be fixed by giving specific guidance and hopefully teeth. As the homeopathy case shows, the missionaries are becoming expert Wikilawyers as well and will ruthlessly exploit any ambiguity. The Wikipedia community, and the admin community, is not homogeneous, and fringe advocacy is a substantial minority view, sufficient in some cases to prevent consensus to enforce core policy. Guy (Help!) 11:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Pohta ce-am pohtit

On sources for science articles

I've seen this mistake repeatedly in Wikipedia: some journalist's interpretation of a science review is considered by some Wikipedians (JzG in this case) to be more reliable than the review itself. The 2004 DOE report is primary source from a journalistic point of view, but certainly not from a scientific point of view. From the latter POV, the opinions of the science journalist Toni Fender, writing for the Physics Today magazine, even if published by API, carry very little weight relative to the DOE review itself.

(more evidence will be provided shortly)

Statement by Kevin Baas

I am quite surprised to see this arbitration request, nonetheless it getting accepted. I've been on the cold fusion page for quite some time (mostly just on the talk page) and I've seen far more POV pushing from ScienceApologist than I have Pcarbonn. Perhaps it's not as visible because ScienceApologist might be percieved as "defending the mainstream" and I'd imagine he'd contend that to be his "mission". But I really get the impression that his ideal form of the article would leave out a lot of significant, verifiable and pertinent information. Which would be easier to do if people that opposed this were gone.

So I see this request as just a strong-armed extension of ScienceApologist's POV-pushing. He probably doesn't see it that way. And in all honesty, he probably doesn't think of it that way. But there really are no grounds for action here, and I think this request is a waste of the arbitrators' time.

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