User talk:Phil153

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CF discussion

Hi Phil 153. I noticed you self-reverted a comment on the CF talk page about some of Jed Rothwell's claims. To whit, you wrote:

Jed, the study you linked does not support the claim that cold fusion boiled water. It suggests that boiling may have continued longer than it should have in an already boiling cell. As for the rest, I'm confused. You said:

No chemical reaction has ever been found in a successful cold fusion experiment., yet this article on Arata's demonstration clearly says: This generates heat, which Arata says is due to a chemical reaction, and the temperature of the sample, Tin (green line), rises to 61 °C. Are you saying that Arata's demonstration was not a successful cold fusion experiment? Phil153 (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Congrats on beginning to see Jed's tactics. He does this all the time. That's why I learned not to bother with him. He just wastes inordinate amounts of time.

I moved you comment here so that people could see what you found out. If this was spf, everyone would be yawning, because Jed did this for years there, but Wikipedia is new territory for him, so the word needs to get out. Hope you don't mind, if you do please delete this unceremoniously. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No worries, I reverted cause I didn't see the point in continuing and it wasn't helping the article.

As for Jed, I started off giving CF maybe a 5% chance of being real (there's a lot of smoke for no fire), and revised down with every cold fusion paper I read. Phil153 (talk) 13:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

In 1989 when CF was announced I wasn't 'in the field'. I and a lot of people I knew guessed that there was something going on, but not what F&P claimed because that was too far out. Unfortunately, the field polarized and cemented and they basically stopped looking for any other explanation of the effect. My thesis is that they are seeing real effects, just not nuclear ones. Basically, you have my mechanism for how to get apparent excess heat, and the rest is just various forms of contamination. 192.33.240.30 (talk) 14:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC) Oops, forgot to login Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

If you mean "they're faithfully recording what their instruments are telling them", then I'd agree in most cases. Phil153 (talk) 19:17, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Phil, I noticed that, above, you said that your opinion that there might be something to cold fusion went down with every paper you read. I've been finding the reverse effect, but, then again, I started with the SPAWAR findings with their usage of CR-39 for radiation detection, which has been confirmed and which seems to be reliable. The consensus in the field now seems to be that what is happening isn't simple fusion, though that was pretty obvious from the beginning. I.e., the environment in the lattice isn't smashing two deuterons together to form a helium nucleus. Even if helium is being produced. But LENR does indeed seem to be taking place. As one researcher pointed out, the problem isn't that they don't have any theory as to what is happening, the problem is that they have too many. But the excess heat is pretty well established, it's not just experimental error, and there is ample report of tritium that just shouldn't be there. But the SPAWAR results with CR-39 shows radiation that also shouldn't be there; and it's been confirmed with mylar-shielded CR-39, ruling out the chemical possibilities. There are a number of indications of nuclear transformations, transmutation of elements, taking place in the palladium; again, something very strange is going on. It's fairly obvious to me that the original flap has suppressed publication, or we'd be seeing more RS on this. Refuting it, if nothing else. Regardless, there is vigorous ongoing research in the area, all over the world. Fringe, this is not. Fusion? Who knows? But where is the radiation coming from? Tritium, maybe some contamination? Neutrons? Calibration problems. But CR-39? It's just a piece of plastic! There is apparently work in process to more accurately characterize whatever it is that's causing the tracks in CR-39. But, since you seem to be both knowledgeable and skeptical, what have you seen, recently, that makes you that way?

"They stopped looking for any other explanation of the effect." Who? The mainstream doesn't seem to believe that there is any effect, so this would have to refer to the LENR researchers. I'd say, from this, that you don't seem to be familiar with the recent work; they aren't calling it "fusion." They are just detecting excess heat and radiation coming from the cathode. They are detecting elements that shouldn't be there. They "hypothesize," sometimes, certain nuclear processes, such as palladium fission for certain results. For palladium to fission, not supposed to happen, except that a mechanism has been proposed. But we just don't know enough.

By the way, I was very aware of the work in 1989; when I read about it, I immediately went to Credit Suisse and put $10,000 in a palladium account. Which was all the money I could put together. Fortunately, I didn't put it into palladium futures! I think I lost a little money, not much. It was a long shot, in fact. Still might be. If nuclear reactions are taking place in that lattice, it may turn physics upside down, but it doesn't necessarily mean cheap nonpolluting energy, it might turn out to be impossible to scale it up. On the other hand, it appears that it's fairly well known now how to get excess heat. Using palladium rods, very difficult. Using codeposition of palladium and deuterium so that the palladium is 100% loaded with deuterium from the start, much easier, it seems. And I can say practically none of this in a Wikipedia article, because the major publications aren't looking at it. Actually, there have been reports and reviews, but scattered.... --Abd (talk) 04:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

---

That Palladium investment was pretty clever, even with a small chance of CF being true. :)

As for me, I'm far from knowledgable about CF compared to someone like Jed. My skepticism is basically the following plugged into Baye's theorem:

• The magnitudes of the effects are miniscule and close to the typical levels of error. This is the biggest death blow to the field. Very scattered claims of much larger magnitudes can be comfortably dismissed as nonsense. Some come from known frauds (mentioned previously), none have been published in good sources. In short, don't let the language of science fool you - they're no better than Joe down the street telling you he's made a water car.

• The evidence presented is full of contradictions. Some detect helium with heat, others detect no helium and just heat. Some detect tritium and no helium. F&P found much larger effects than later researchers with higher loadings and a more refined technique for loading. Claims of required high D2O loadings required to explain lack of reproducibility conflict with reports of heat measurements from experiments that couldn't produce adequate loadings given their design. Some claim to be able to produce heat with light water, while light water is used as a control in other experiments. Gamma rays have been reported, and not reported; no gamma rays were found in other experiments, but alpha particles were found instead. It was neutrons in another experiment. Nope, no neutrons, but transmutations were reported. All of these are taken by proponents as evidence as evidence of nuclear activity, instead of evidence of serious problems with low level measurements.

• There has been virtually no progress in improving the magnitude of the alleged effect after 60 million dollars and 20 years. It's not rocket science. If you're getting a fraction of a degree, that could plausibly be due to error, the first thing you do is scale it up. If fusion is happening on the surface of palladium, increase the surface area 10 fold by putting in 10 electrodes or plated nanodes in the same calorimeter, and note if you get several degrees heating instead of half a degree. If you get the same level of heating, you've very likely got error in measurement and little else. Use several detection methods instead of one; there are multiple available for alpha particles and neutrons. Report them all simultaneously. These procedures are so obvious that it makes me wonder if they've been done, and not published but merely discounted as not working for unknown reasons, because the experimenters believe that cold fusion is real.

• The findings conflict in multiple extremely unlikely ways with a broad range of observations under many different conditions. These are called "theoretical issues" but in reality what they are is direct conflict with multiple, highly reliable, highly reproducible observations. As the DOE reviewers said, you really need three *independent* miracles to make this work. The fact that nothing of this kind has been observed under the vast array of conditions in which we've observed nuclear and sub nuclear goings on, doesn't look good. There is probably a theory that could explain cold fusion, but a theory which could explain cold fusion *AND* everything else we've observed in the 60 odd years of looking at nuclei is unlikely.

• The cold fusion community is full of credulous people with little integrity or sense. The cold fusion papers themselves bear this out, and many of the DOE reviewers noted the very poor experimental designs and lack of self criticism in the field. The field has all the hallmarks of crackpot central - the promise of free, clean wonderful energy that could potentially save the world , and would have if only the establishment, the bureaucrats and the cynics hadn't tried to brutally suppress them from giving free boundless energy to the planet (sound familiar?). These kind of fields attract loons, frauds, dissatisfied researchers and wishful thinkers by the dozens, substantially lowering the probability that the claims made by researchers in these fields are reliable. Many of the credentialed researchers are ancient, well past their prime (two examples: Aruta, and the Nobel Prize winner who was outraged at not getting published). And if you've ever been in a physics lab, you'll realize that quite a few of the people work there, while technically competent, don't always have their marbles. Claims are just that, claims.

• Basic research in science is a huge mess. I've always said it's little better than alchemy. Instruments screw up all the time, often without the researcher knowing; assumptions are made that aren't reflected by real world conditions; errors get fudged; missing results get approximated; contradictory evidence gets ignored or downplayed. It's a combination of the complexity of the work and basic human nature, and it's why we invented the scientific method in the first place and placed such a high premium on reliable replication. As an anecdote...when I was in my final year of college, a group of my professors received a large grant to do some research which I was involved with (I'm not going to say what it was). They purchased expensive equipment and spent a month organizing the time sensitive experiment. During the experiemnt, a drift in one of the key machine's components developed, and we had to correct it periodically. The machine was performing a time dependent measurement of something, and the correction involved resetting the gain to where it "ought" to be, then quickly noting its position before it dropped again. Despite this hilarity, the final analysis summed up hudreds of these crude corrections in order to do the analysis (which had to have zero drift). Needless to say, this introduced large amounts of error in the sensitive final result. Any bias during noting the position on reset (say, a bit late, a bit early, or a machine that fluctuated during a reset), a cumulative bias would be introduced that would make the conclusions worthless. When the paper was written up and published in a national journal, only brief mention was made of the gain problem, and it was downplayed, because the results "looked" like we thought they should. Most groundbreaking research is riddled by this kind of crap, even in the best labs. N-rays and polywater are classic examples of multiple laboratories being fooled by totally non existent phenomenon for long periods of time.

• I don't know see what you do with the CR39. I disagree that the chemical possibilities have been ruled out. One group has *claimed* that the chemical possibilities have been ruled out, while others dispute that and have found that the CR39 pits are likely chemical in origin. I don't find it even close to convincing given the fact that these are non typical pits in an unusual environment subject to potential chemical attack. I would want to see textbook alpha tracks to even be interested, and probably other forms of detection as well.

Phil153 (talk) 01:12, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The Cry (film)

I have spent the last 90 minutes bringing the article up to code and feel I have shown definite notability since its DVD release of last May. Might you suggest anything else I might add? Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 01:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you're more familiar with this topic than I am. I commented on the AfD. I think any film with reasonable distribution is clear keep, but the guidelines disagree completely according to my reading. Wikipedia:Notability_(films)#General_principles. Perhaps the guidelines need to be reviewed? Phil153 (talk) 02:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I have answered your concern at the AfD and have included those beefier sources in the article itself. I had almost given up in the first few minutes of my search because as a theatrical release it did not make much money nor was well received. But it was after discovering that it had a well received release on DVd last May that I was able to find a few quite nice reviews. So it now meets the guidelines. Thanks, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

My response to your message at Cold Fusion talk

I uploaded this but it got deleted a few times. Perhaps a robot or person is erasing my comments there. They told me they would do this.

It is not important, but I thought you might want to see it.

. . . Ah. They have deleted the entire discussion. As Bob Dylan put it:

"Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good

They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would"

- Jed

Phil153 wrote:

I understand that you have a BA in Japanese. While commendable, I fail to see how this gives you expertise in either chemistry or physics.

Again I suggest that you read the papers and books I have written about cold fusion, and judge whether I understand the subject -- and whether I know my own limitations. I have edited over 200 papers in this field. Do you think the authors would trust me to do that if I accidentally changed their meaning or messed up the documents? Please, use your common sense and your judgment to evaluate my work.

As for the issues surrounding your site, your point on checking the sources doesn't really cut it. It is simply too time consuming to check every one against paper sources for evidence of changes.

As I said, you can easily establish that the authors trust LENR-CANR.org. They would not give me their papers or add links to the site in their papers and books otherwise. They always check my version for errors -- I tell them to.

Wikipedia points to millions of documents. You do not go around checking every one of them. Once it is established that a site has credibility, you assume that all documents there are legitimate. It is much easier for you to check the bona fides and establish credibility for LENR-CANR than for other sites, because every one of our documents lists the original source at the top.

Are you categorically denying having ever added a lead or other commentary to a source paper?

Oh for crying out loud! This is ridiculous. Read the document and see for yourself. It is here: lenr-canr.org PLUS /acrobat/ERABreportofth.pdf

As you see, I wrote a two-page introduction, in a different font, signed by me. No, I do not "categorically deny" writing something and signing it. The document begins:

"ERAB, Report of the Cold Fusion Panel to the Energy Research Advisory Board. 1989: Washington, DC.

A copy of the ERAB report has been prepared by the National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS) organization (www.ncas.org). It is available here in HTML format: http://www.ncas.org/erab/. It is converted to Acrobat format in this document, below.

This organization has not posted any other papers about cold fusion.

Cold fusion researchers consider the ERAB report highly prejudiced for many reasons. It was concluded in a rush long before there was time to perform and publish serious replications. . ."

The LENR-CANR index for the document says:

"A copy of the ERAB report has been prepared by the National Capital Area Skeptics (NCAS) organization (www.ncas.org). It is available here:

http://www.ncas.org/erab/

This library contains a brief introduction to the report and a copy of the NCAS version of the ERAB report."

We have similar short introductions to many other documents, listing -- for example -- where the document came from, who translated it, or noting that different versions have been published.

Now let us look at the statement by Guy:

"In one case I found that a purported link to a major paper started with an editorial by the site's "librarian", (JedRothwell), spinning the content . . ."

A purported link? You can click on the link and see in an instant whether this is a good copy or not. What is "purported" about that?

An editorial? I told the reader where the document came from, where to get the original, and what the researchers think of it. Is the reader so vulnerable and suggestible he cannot survive reading my introduction and still judge the ERAB document?

"In one case" Guy found a document with an introduction? He did not look very hard. There are dozens of others, as I said. In all cases the introduction is clearly marked and signed.

- Jed Rothwell, Librarian, LENR-CANR.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.89.102.50 (talk) 16:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

POSTSCRIPT. What was that you were telling me about how there is no oppression at Wikipedia? You must think it is okay for those people to shred my reputation, and publish nonsensical insinuations about how I secretly slid a two-page signed introduction into a document, hoping no one would notice my signature. I am not allowed to protest or set the record straight. If you see nothing unethical or even unreasonable about this, you and I have different standards.

Anyway, Wikipedia is a disgrace, as I said. Quoting Lore Sjöberg:

The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment.

- Jed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.89.102.50 (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Just in case Jed reads this - the above does not address the relevant copyright question. Having the permission of the authors is not sufficient (in fact, in many cases it is legally irrelevant.) For example, authors submitting to Elsevier journals are required to transfer their copyright to Elsevier. The legally relevant question is whether you have permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the papers that they own the copyright to. Do you have permission from, for example, Elsevier to publish their copyrighted material? --Noren (talk) 04:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Noren, Jed has answered this question many times and in many places, as he does it, again, below. For some reason it keeps being asserted that he only has author permissions. He's stated, categorically, he always gets the permission of the author and the publisher. I asked admin DGG, who is a librarian professionally, his opinion, and he considered the site to not be in violation of copyright, on the face. Obviously, unless we check the documentation on every paper, we couldn't be certain, and even then ... were the signatures notarized? And I've even encountered a forged signature that was notarized, it's doesn't take much to fool some poor notary. It is extraordinary for us to require the kind of proof that User:JzG has, in the blacklisting discussions, asserted that we must require. Jed, in the Talk page post, laid out the reasons why it would be preposterous to consider that lenr-canr.org is involved in massive copyright violation, and occasional minor violations, even if they existed, don't negate external linking or the like. --Abd (talk) 04:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Noren asked:

Do you have permission from, for example, Elsevier to publish their copyrighted material?

Yes, but only for a few papers. There are several outstanding cold fusion papers published by them which I do not have permission to reprint, so they are missing from the library. Publishers did not grant me permission to upload most of the recent papers by Szpak and Mosier-Boss, so I have only their older papers, conference papers, and public domain U.S. Navy publications. You can see a list of their papers here, and you can see that I cannot upload several of them, regrettably: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSspawarsyst.pdf As you see, papers 15 through 21 are not uploaded. I am negotiating for one of them.

Most of the papers at LENR-CANR.org are from conference proceedings, rather than journals because there are fewer copyright restrictions. I would prefer to reprint the journal versions, which are often similar in content but better.

In some cases I have permission to reprint some number of selected pages, but not the whole document. See, for example: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHdevelopmen.pdf In some cases the publisher gives permission to upload a manuscript version, not the final version. See, for example: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LiXZachinesevi.pdf I think this manuscript version was presented at conferences and before publication, but I do not know if it appeared in any conference proceedings.

- Jed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.89.102.50 (talk) 14:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think the copyright thing is ok. But after having read your comments, I agree with the blacklisting. Having sources that contain editorial spin, even if clearly marked, is not an appropriate source to link to, especially when all can be linked via DOI references. You may not think you are introducing spin, but you are. For example, if I owned a website containing CF sources, I'd be very clear to mark Energetics Technology's work as originating from a investment seeking company headed by a doctor (and not a physicist) found guilty of defrauding his patients. This is highly relevant information, and I'm guessing (please correct me if I'm wrong) that you don't mention it in the lead of those papers or papers that rely on that work. Yet you feel free to editorialize some other papers which are critical of CF results. So I don't think it's appropriate to use your site for sources. Phil153 (talk) 03:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You wrote:

For example, if I owned a website containing CF sources, I'd be very clear to mark Energetics Technology's work as originating from a investment seeking company headed by a doctor (and not a physicist) found guilty of defrauding his patients.

I wasn't aware of that, but I do not see how it can affect the calorimetry. I think that the technical content of papers should be judged on its own, without regard to the fact that the money to do the experiment came from an investment company run by a sketchy person. Also, this experiment was replicated at SRI and the ENEA with money from DARPA and the Italian Gov't, which are not run by sketchy people as far as I know. (I can't vouch for the Italian gov't.)

If I am going to start digging up all kinds of facts & dirt about the authors, the people paying for the work, the people behind the people paying for the work, and the people who supply coffee to the people behind the people paying for the work . . . do you think it would also be appropriate for me to mention that several of the researchers such as Fleischmann, Bockris, Will and Oriani are the world's leading electrochemists, former president of the Electrochem. Soc., Distinguished Prof of this and that? Or should I let the reader judge the work on its own merits?

- Jed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.19.101.157 (talk) 15:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Or should I let the reader judge the work on its own merits? Exactly. So why /acrobat/ERABreportofth.pdf? There is no defense. Either let the reader judge the work on its own merits, or admit that you are not "letting them judge the work on its own merits". You seem to want it both ways.

I wasn't aware of that, but I do not see how it can affect the calorimetry. I think that the technical content of papers should be judged on its own, without regard to the fact that the money to do the experiment came from an investment company run by a sketchy person

Seriously? The only thing scientific papers contain is *claims* of having observed particular phenomenon, *claims* that the instrumentation was properly set up, that possible sources of error were properly excluded, that the results were reported and analyzed with due care. They do not have an objective truth of their own except as something written by someone. Reputation and replication is *extremely* important before we start taking extraordinary claims seriously. Certainly someone like Hagelstein has far more credibility than Energetics Technologies (which you must have known about - there were 6 paragraphs in the Washington Post, for crying out loud) or a wanker like Fleischmann. Phil153 (talk) 16:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You wrote:

The only thing scientific papers contain is *claims* of having observed particular phenomenon, *claims* that the instrumentation was properly set up, that possible sources of error were properly excluded . . .

We have much more than mere written claims. The experiment at Energetics Technology has been visited by outside experts, extensively reviewed, and independently replicated.

Reputation and replication is *extremely* important before we start taking extraordinary claims seriously.

No one has questioned the reputation of the researchers, as far as I know. You mentioned something about the funder. Since you think replication is *extremely* important, why do you not accept this and other replicated experiments? The cold fusion effect has been replicated at high s/n ratios in over 200 major institutions. Any other effect of this nature would have been accepted after 5 or 10 independent replications. Why do you make an exception for cold fusion, move the goalposts, and ignore your own standards?

. . . or a wanker like Fleischmann.

I suggest you learn something about him. He is ex-president of the electrochemical soc., holder of the Palladium Medal, Fellow of the Royal Society, etc. He and Bockris literally wrote the book on modern electrochemistry. It is possible that he knows more about this subject than you do.

- Jed

Jed, Fleischmann published claims of gamma rays without a corresponding Compton edge, something you learn in freshman physics. With extraodinary claims like that he didn't even run it by a single physicist before putting his name to it and glowingly announcing it to the world. You can say what you like about him, his actions when the chips were down speak louder than any of your glowing testimony. The man is a wanker, and if your field is in fact true, he did tremendous damage to its development.

Claiming what you are about replication doesn't make it true. You're left with the rather uneviable position of having to deal with the fact that the best physicists in the world near unanimously think your "replicated" result are nothing but nonsense and error, and I am not. Good luck with that. Anyway, I wrote out a long reply to Adb covering this which I'll post tomorrow. Phil153 (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

You wrote:

Claiming what you are about replication doesn't make it true.

Yes, but peer-reviewed journal papers describing these replications does make them true. Again, that is the standard of science. Waving your hands and pretending these papers do not exist does not count.

You're left with the rather uneviable position of having to deal with the fact that the best physicists in the world near unanimously think your "replicated" result are nothing but nonsense and error, and I am not.

Ah, that would be the "popularity contest model" of science. Let me set you straight:

1. You are factually incorrect. There is no unanimity of opinion among scientists. Many leading scientists believe in cold fusion. Most of the world's leading experts in electrochemistry have, in fact, replicated cold fusion, and published papers describing their work. Other scientist are sharply divided according to reliable polls and opinion surveys.

2. Even if you were right, it would not matter what these people think. Opinions do not count. The scientists you speak of would have to publish peer-reviewed papers showing experimental errors in hundreds of leading experiments. They have not done this. Nobody has. Only a handful of papers that attempt to find errors have been published. You can read most of them at LENR-CANR.org, and you will see that they have no merit

A negative view does not get a free pass. It must be held to the same standard of rigor as a positive view. If you cannot show errors in the 150-year-old methods of measuring heat used in these experiments, then you have no case.

More to the point, if the skeptical objections to cold fusion were correct, they would also overthrow the laws of thermodynamics. The skeptics would have to prove that calorimeters do not work, and heat can flow from a cooler body to a hotter body. There is no chance you will do this. To put it ungently, you people are a bunch of perpetual motion machines crackpots, and like all such crackpots, you are wrong. It is ironic that you accuse us of being perpetual motion machine crackpots!

- Jed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.219.153.157 (talk) 18:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Ah, I see that you reference the Washington Post article, Weinberger 2004, and you are talking about Dardik, not the funder. Regarding that subject, I agree with the comments by McKubre, quoted in this article. In any case, the results have been independently checked and replicated, so even if Dardik turned out to be the world's worst con man and a serial killer to boot, this particular claim is correct, and his background and reputation are perfectly irrelevant. Reputation should only be considered in the initial stages before independent replication, when no objective scientific method of evaluation is available. After replication it wouldn't matter if a claim was originated by the Birdman of Alcatraz or Heinrich Himmler. Replication proves it is true and NOTHING can ever prove it is not true. Replication at high s/n ratio is the one and only standard of truth in experimental science. You and other skeptics want to replace it with reputation, or a popularity contest, or whether the effect seems to fit theory or not, but these methods are invalid.

- Jed

Phil, that's an abuse of the blacklist. What you would do if you owned a website isn't necessarily what Jed or another would do. There are a number of complex issues here, and the decision to use a source or not is an editorial one that depends on the exact context, there is no generic prohibition that applies to lenr-canr.org. If you were a library, you might very well not mark ET's papers as you describe. Most papers hosted on lenr-canr.org have no header whatever, as far as I've seen, and the comment you just made would be ... controversial. I think no library would put that in their index. Do you? But if someone wants to cite that paper here, all that could become part of the discussion. That a paper is hosted by lenr-canr.org doesn't *in the least* establish it as a reliable source, only that it's been noticed and included. Lenr-canr.org isn't a "reliable source." But many of the papers that it hosts are. And the bibliography is worthy of an external link, I'd say, I've found it invaluable in coming up to speed on the topic. In any case, the blacklist is to be used to prevent linkspamming when it has become so massive that ordinary procedures like removing links and blocking offenders doesn't work. That was the vision; it's considered a last resort, and was definitely not to be used as a means of preventing editors from citing a source on the basis that it's allegedly biased. To my knowledge, the only "editorialized" paper I've seen was a DOE review, where a moderate introduction was prepended. (I now see that above, Rothwell acknowledges providing more introductory comments.) Given that this is public domain, he had the right to do that, but he should remove that, actually, and just host the document itself. Editorial comment shouldn't be mixed with the library function. But that's moot. It didn't establish unreliability.

If a paper which lenr-canr.org hosts is found to be useful, it should be cited to the original, not to lenr-canr.org. If a copy isn't readily available elsewhere, though, we serve our readers -- isn't that what this is about? -- by providing the link. But it is now impossibly cumbersome to do it. It's worth it for the bibliography, but I'm certainly not going to go through the process for the simple convenience of readers for one paper. And whitelisting would have to be done for each and every one that falls into the category of appropriate copy. --Abd (talk) 04:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

My point is that if you're going to editorialize, it shouldn't be one sided. He chooses to "introduce" papers that are highly critical with his own commentary, but doesn't introduce papers where similarly relevant information makes cold fusion look bad. The guy is spinning what should be plain original sources. I don't know of any library or librarian that would modify original sources with their own comments. I don't agree that /acrobat/ERABreportofth.pdf is "moderate" - I consider it highly prejudicial to the paper that follows. Some of it is just plain nitpicking (i.e. the throwaway use of "simple") designed to make the authors look biased where there is no credible claim of bias from that particular passage.

For these reasons I do not think it's appropriate to use lenr-canr to link the source of any paper. In my opinion it's far better to not have the full source online than to have altered sources introduced with prejudice. It's just a bad idea; it allows anyone to upload some source paper, add their own commentary to the lead and potentially tamper with other things, and use it as a source on Wikipedia instead of the typical and totally unbiased DOI links.

Whether this justifies a blacklisting based on policy is another matter; it may not. I'll take your word for the scope and purpose of the blacklist, in which I agree that blacklisting lenr-canr.org is extreme. I'd agree that it certainly deserves a place in the external links section. I've also found it invaluable for getting up to speed on various papers. However, if blacklisting is the only way to stop this terribly biased source from being used as a reference, then I support it. Phil153 (talk) 05:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Another point to make is that many of the sources are not the final versions that appeared in journals (Jed says this above). Should we be linking to these items as if they were the final peer reviewed product? To give an example, F&P's original manuscript included claims and measurements of gamma radiation. In the final printed version put forward by F&P, these claims were not made, as they were known to be either the result of fraud or incompetence due to the lack of a Compton edge. Phil153 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Abd wrote:

That a paper is hosted by lenr-canr.org doesn't *in the least* establish it as a reliable source, only that it's been noticed and included. Lenr-canr.org isn't a "reliable source."

This is 100% true!!! I have made this point again and again. LENR-CANR.org is not only the largest collection of cold fusion papers, it is also the world's largest collection of anti-cold fusion papers by harsh skeptics such as Morrison and Jones. As far as I am concerned, these people do not have a shred of credibility.

There are also many papers in the collection that I think have no scientific merit. I have only included these because the authors asked me to. The papers were published elsewhere, and they are about cold fusion, so it would not be fair to turn them down, but I did not actively seek them.

It would also not be fair for me to say which papers I think have no scientific merit. I felt it was appropriate to point out some problems with the ERAB document, because that is a political attack, not a scientific paper. It was never intended to be anything other than political hatchet job: the authors declared on day 1 that their assignment was to discredit cold fusion and "bury it"; they said that anyone can see Fleischmann and Pons are idiots just by looking at them on television; and they ignored Miles when he told them he was seeing excess heat, and included only his original null results. I included only that last fact in the introduction I wrote; I could write a book describing all of the machinations and unethical behavior behind the report, but I do not need to. The guy in charge of the panel, Huizenga, wrote it for me. I have never seen such a damning indictment of the skeptics as his book.

I would love to reprint Huizenga's book and his papers on LENR-CANR but alas he never gave me permission, and he is ill and no longer able to communicate. I would also love to include more from Robert Park, Sci. Am. and Nature but they have not granted permission.

- Jed

Let me point out one other aspect of this copyright discussion. As I noted on the U.S. Navy introduction page, (lenr-canr.org/Collections/USNavy.htm) I copied 13 of their papers from the Navy's own web site. With permission, of course. Several of these papers are from copyrighted journals. I copied several other papers from websites run by the authors or their institutions, such as the University of Utah. I met with the head of the U. Utah library and with the people in charge of their extensive cold fusion archives when I visited there. They are well aware of my activities. They do not think I am violating any copyright laws. They are experts in copyright law.

I should add that those people have been very helpful. They gave me thousands of pages of material which, unfortunately, I cannot upload. We are negotiating with some of the authors but these things take time.

I doubt that the Navy or U. Utah has violated any copyright laws.

Let me note that I also consulted with a top copyright lawyer in Atlanta (who is one of the best in the country). Fortunately, he consulted pro bono, or it would have cost me a bundle! He assured me that I am not violating copyright, because, for example, I am not selling the papers; they have little or no intrinsic commercial value; and LENR-CANR is obviously an academic website, so this falls under the fair use category. I consulted with him because, for the most part, I depend upon the authors to negotiate with publishers, as I did with the Navy collection. I have contacted publishers directly, and in joint letters with authors, and in several cases they denied permission. You can see the gaps in the library. There are many missing papers by leading authors. You can be sure that I personally have copies of all of them.

- Jed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.19.101.157 (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

And here is another interesting point! As I noted, I copied the ERAB document from the NCAS site: http://www.ncas.org/erab/

Have a look. You will see that they wrote their own introduction to the document. I assume you will now condemn them as strongly as you condemned me, for adding their opinions.

- Jed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.219.153.157 (talk) 18:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your mistake of citing the reputation of a researcher, instead of discussing the content of the research itself, I mentioned the Birdman of Alcatraz, Robert Stroud. That is a highly relevant example. Stroud was a crazed murderer and psychopath who attacked and tried to kill several prison guards and others. He had to be held in solitary for years. He caused constant dissension and chaos. He was personally loathsome and filthy. He was also a leading authority on bird disease, and he wrote a textbook which is still in print, and highly recommended:

"Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds"

The fact that he was a lunatic and completely untrustworthy about everything other than birds has no bearing on the scientific validity of his claims. Once his methods were confirmed by others, they were valid and all considerations about the man himself became irrelevant. Any discussion of his criminal record or personality or personal reputation becomes an ad hominem logical fallacy, once he passes the replication stage. (Reputation is, as I said, a very weak standard that might be applied at first before replications can be made.)

The same is true of Fleischmann. Even if he were a "wanker" as you claim, and even if you could prove beyond doubt that some of his claims were "fraud . . . due to the lack of a Compton edge" that would have no bearing on his other claims of excess heat beyond the limits of chemistry. These other claims have now been replicated. That makes them right -- case closed, debate over, no other standard allowed. If you don't buy that standard you are engaged in some form or religion, or a popularity contest, not science.

- Jed

Phil, you lost me with "wanker." Sorry. Jed, I highly recommend not debating with editors who have their minds made up, unless it is brief, and even then, it can simply irritate them and you give fuel to those who might accuse you of tendentious and disruptive argument. Save your time and energy for more productive pursuits. Phil, sorry for troubling you on this page. See you around. --Abd (talk) 21:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

"Wanker" is British slang for "jerk-off." You wrote:

Jed, I highly recommend not debating with editors who have their minds made up, unless it is brief,

I know that! I am not debating anyone. Just sharpening my arguments. Thinking out loud. If it irritates a skeptic that's a side benefit. Robert Stroud has been at the back of my mind for a long time, and I thought I should write it out.

Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on Stroud does not even mention that he was an expert on birds who authored a textbook still in print 40 years after he died. That's a remarkable accomplishment!

- Jed

Jed, it's interesting discussing with you, I'd never heard of Stroud. But the analogy doesn't hold - a history of fraud is important to the credibility of someone's research. Vitally important. I had thought that Energetics had had results greater than reported elsewhere, which is why McKubre has mentioned them frequently despite their shadiness. You claim (I think) that all their results have been replicated by many other independent researchers, in which case, fair enough, they don't matter.

I find it interesting that you think the case is closed on the heat. Just how many times were the results of polywater or N-rays replicated? Some of them took years to die, held on to ardently by hardcore advocates who'd seen the "proof" and "replication" for themselves. Clearly, there is a mechanism in science or human nature - even among careful researchers - for error to creep in and be repeated, especially near the broad limits of measurement error. And if cold fusion has truly been reliably replicated as much as you say, I'm curious as to why you think it's shunned. I could write a list of a hundred novel behavior - unexpected by theory or experience - that have been quickly accepted. Including some in nuclear physics, like the Mossbauer effect, muon catalyzed fusion, and so on. You have to postulate some pretty implausible things to explain why CF hasn't been accepted.

As for wanker, where I come from it means "idiot" or "incompetent", a bit of a tool. Phil153 (talk) 01:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Due to the possibility that this might have some relevance here, I'd like to point out that when the "Cold Fusion Hypothesis" article was posted at WikiSource ( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cold_Fusion_Hypothesis ), there was a lengthy period in which copyvio was a concern. The author expressed some concern about how WikiSource wants everything posted there to be freely editable outside of Wikisource; who, upon reading such an edited version of the original, would know what parts were intact and what parts had been distorted? In the end WikiSource added to its collection of "acceptable licenses" the FAL (Free Art License http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/ ), so that that article could be licensed under it. This license is different from most others in that it requires an edited copy to provide information about how to access the original. Then anyone reading a distorted copy would be able to discover what the distortions were ... the relevance here is that as long as lenr-canr.org provides information about accessing originals, when some sort of "spin" has been prepended to a hosted document, the reader is free to ignore the spin and access the original. We may not like the fact that the spin is there, but as long as the integrity of access to the DATA is not compromised, what does it matter, really? V (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

To see why lenr-canr sucks as a source, imagine instead of lenr-canr.org we linked to lenrskeptics.com, where some of the articles had a lead in actual paper explaining why the research is probably nonsense and how some of the researchers are known frauds. I have a feeling you, Jed, and Abd wouldn't be quite so fervent in defending the site. I on the other would be arguing just as strongly against its use as a source. Phil153 (talk) 01:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)