Well. Always timely, aren't they.
I was a member of the local sceptics meetup group. I removed myself from the group. Why? It's a religion/cult that I would prefer to stay away from. They preach atheism. Look at this link this guy just posted. Yet another diatribe about the atheism religion. A true atheist would not go to such great lengths to preach and push his viewpoints onto others. A true atheist would just declare there is no such thing as god/religion, stick the matter deep up his behind, and go on with his life content. That's not enough for this organization. They form coalitions and recruit new members. Here they are bugging their way into the LENR controversy.
Scientific skepticism has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. And whenever you see LENR being bashed and then the bait/switch topic of religion comes up then beware and watch out. You are dealing with the organization. No doubt the old adage applies: if you don't know what it's about it's about money. It won't be long before they're passing the hat around and asking you to donate your children's inheritance to their cause.
Reality does not involve science, skepticism, religion, atheism. It just is.
No human delucions required.
Reality does not involve science, skepticism, religion, atheism. It just is.
Speaking of reality. In Los Angeles the atheists/skeptics have a Center for Inquiry on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Vermont. How much does rent for a space like that cost? $10,000/month? At least. Some rich philanthropist probably donated his estate to the cause of atheism/skepticism. They have several employees on staff. Nice! It is amazing how well the atheists do considering that they are not a religion. They are an anti-religion. They pose as skeptics. They lure people in who are interested in skepticism. Hence their interest in this LENR group. You'll notice the article about excess heat starts with a picture of a catholic mass or something of that sort and talk about religion. They are a cult like any other.
Don't care about isms.
Just choose not to believe.
I was a member of the local sceptics meetup group. I removed myself from the group. Why? It's a religion/cult that I would prefer to stay away from. They preach atheism. Look at this link this guy just posted. Yet another diatribe about the atheism religion. A true atheist would not go to such great lengths to preach and push his viewpoints onto others. A true atheist would just declare there is no such thing as god/religion, stick the matter deep up his behind, and go on with his life content. That's not enough for this organization. They form coalitions and recruit new members. Here they are bugging their way into the LENR controversy.
Scientific skepticism has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. And whenever you see LENR being bashed and then the bait/switch topic of religion comes up then beware and watch out. You are dealing with the organization. No doubt the old adage applies: if you don't know what it's about it's about money. It won't be long before they're passing the hat around and asking you to donate your children's inheritance to their cause.
indeed. I'm an aethist myself but this guy and the group of guys like him are far from aethism- they are downright insane!
In response to this website posted above... http://pathoskeptic.com/2015/06/28/excess-heat/
This looks like typical bully-boy rubbish to draw people away from an idea. Yes you could brush away all the peer reviewed science showing excess heat, including that done by the Navy SPAWAR program whose members are giving talks about it, as simply anecdotal. We could look at all scientific research in the world (that we haven't performed ourselves) as anecdotal. But that doesn't seem like a way to get anywhere 
. Up to you though.
The issue is not whether research is anecdotal or not. Much of the LENR research is genuine and written up.
Th issue is whether the work is:
(1) compelling
(2) repeatable
(3) coherent
New physics is characterised by (2) and (3).
LENR experimental results are neither (2) nor (3). None of the claims are individually (1). Even if they were, as in the FTL neutrino experiment which had results so compelling they were published in spite of breaking relativity, a single result never proves an anomaly.
Display MoreThe issue is not whether research is anecdotal or not. Much of the LENR research is genuine and written up.
Th issue is whether the work is:
(1) compelling
(2) repeatable
(3) coherent
New physics is characterised by (2) and (3).
LENR experimental results are neither (2) nor (3). None of the claims are individually (1). Even if they were, as in the FTL neutrino experiment which had results so compelling they were published in spite of breaking relativity, a single result never proves an anomaly.
Cold fusion / LENR / CANR / CMNS / UGC- Lipinski etc, are not even in the same ballpark as the reported OPERA transluminal neutrinos. That is, even for physicists, the possibility of CF etc. is not nearly the same magnitude of threat to the "grand theoretical" status quo. A demonstration of transluminal (velocity > C or FTL, that is Faster Than Light) particles would have required a monumental overhaul of space-time physics. That OPERA FTL report and its thorough discounting is an interesting example of a large and well funded group of physicists (OPERA) appealing to physicists at large to look at the result, to then critique the result... and that is exactly what happened. The CF story is much different in several fundamental ways. First, the F&P several years effort was quite individual and only modestly funded. The CF results were surely not optimally presented to the physics community, who clearly had, and still have, a large "hot fusion" horse in the race (although that horse is becoming "long of tooth" after 6 decades and billions of dollars of losing). Secondly, it was not physicists courteously presenting their one time results to their colleagues. Instead it was renowned electrochemists (Fleischmann a Fellow of the Royal Society, widely recognized for very innovative and very significant work in electrochemistry), whose work was prematurely presented through press stories. But as a paradigm-changing possibility, it was of much less fundamental impact than the apparent OPERA neutrino transluminality. Unfortunately, or providentially depending one's perspective, the University of Utah sought, perhaps from administrative ignorance, to get the jump on potential competitors by prematurely announcing the F & P results. Further, the haste made for poor description of many of the details-- among which we now know that handling and impurities in the Pd electrode materials were later demonstrated quite clearly to be important, and the essentiality of high % deuterium loading-- now well known to be absolutely crucial. None of that was properly understood or addressed by the largely physicist-dominated crowd of replicators-- many with little or no experience with electrochemistry and many with mixed motives, it now appears. Nevertheless a number of successful replications were announced, some were publicized, and some were deliberately "deep sixed", others were published in less than prestigious venues because of heightened editorial bias at high impact journals against the very idea of CF.
I'm stating that there are a very important and substantial differences between your example of "Faster Than Light" and the evidences for CF /LENR which you presume to judge so summarily. There are only much more flimsy theoretical grounds for thinking CF "cannot work". Those "grounds" ignore much of the thermodynamics and appear to concentrate on formulations derived from high energy collisions--- the lifeblood of nuclear physics to be sure, but not nearly so comprehensively buttressed and demonstrated as the Special or General Theories of Relativity. Your categoricals (1 through 3) make my point to many readers here that the CF / LENR story is completely distinct from the absolute velocity limit in say Einstein's Relativities. Your three points fail to be informative or instructive, and many here already know why that is-- which can be summarized as funding and motivation. Those that do not understand can read authors such as Mizuno, Storms, Beaudette, Krivit, Chubb and so on. Your example suggests that you would like us to think all of physics is so well argued and well evidenced that nothing new that does not fit the existing paradigm is even possible. I suspect you yourself don't even believe that... but perhaps I overestimate you.
Thanks for this reply. I'm going to try to answer in a way that is constructive. My statement above is a summary statement, obviously. Your much more detailed reply is also a summary statement. It provides some detail, but to judge the differences between our views on any of the matters you raise (you can correct me if you think you have an exception) would require going back to the original literature and much more detailed scrutiny. I'm not going to answer the details, because it would take too long and be a new thread, but I'm perfectly willing to do this. You choose the detail, citing precise evidence, I will comment or reply, and progress can be made.
Still, I think summary is worth considering and I will comment on your reply below in that sense.
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Cold fusion / LENR / CANR / CMNS / UGC- Lipinski etc, are not even in the same ballpark as the reported OPERA transluminal neutrinos. That is, even for physicists, the possibility of CF etc. is not nearly the same magnitude of threat to the "grand theoretical" status quo. A demonstration of transluminal (velocity > C or FTL, that is Faster Than Light) particles would have required a monumental overhaul of space-time physics.
I agree with you that neutrinos slightly exceeding c would require new physics, but not that it would be a monumental overhaul. Neutrinos are mysterious because they interact so weakly with other particles. Therefore "breaking" behaviour from them would not necessarily lead to breaking consequences elsewhere. Quantum gravity will no doubt result in a deeper understanding in which c is an emergent property. The thing about such properties is that they can, in some circumstances, be broken.
I also agree with you that the situation with LENR/CF is rather different. The problem here is less fundamental and more practical. The practical problems are however of a fundamental nature, and extreme. Also, unlike neutrinos, if LENR existed the fingerprints of it (unexpected isotopic ratios, etc) would be expected throughout physics. That they are not makes it a priori less likely.
So given the combination of theoretical issues and experimental evidence, I put these two phenomena about at equal unlikelihood.
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That OPERA FTL report and its thorough discounting is an interesting example of a large and well funded group of physicists (OPERA) appealing to physicists at large to look at the result, to then critique the result... and that is exactly what happened.
My point about it is that without sophisticated and careful critique the original evidence looked very strong (stronger than anything quoted in support of LENR).
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The CF story is much different in several fundamental ways. First, the F&P several years effort was quite individual and only modestly funded. The CF results were surely not optimally presented to the physics community, who clearly had, and still have, a large "hot fusion" horse in the race (although that horse is becoming "long of tooth" after 6 decades and billions of dollars of losing). Secondly, it was not physicists courteously presenting their one time results to their colleagues. Instead it was renowned electrochemists (Fleischmann a Fellow of the Royal Society, widely recognized for very innovative and very significant work in electrochemistry), whose work was prematurely presented through press stories. But as a paradigm-changing possibility, it was of much less fundamental impact than the apparent OPERA neutrino transluminality. Unfortunately, or providentially depending one's perspective, the University of Utah sought, perhaps from administrative ignorance, to get the jump on potential competitors by prematurely announcing the F & P results. Further, the haste made for poor description of many of the details-- among which we now know that handling and impurities in the Pd electrode materials were later demonstrated quite clearly to be important, and the essentiality of high % deuterium loading-- now well known to be absolutely crucial. None of that was properly understood or addressed by the largely physicist-dominated crowd of replicators-- many with little or no experience with electrochemistry and many with mixed motives, it now appears. Nevertheless a number of successful replications were announced, some were publicized, and some were deliberately "deep sixed", others were published in less than prestigious venues because of heightened editorial bias at high impact journals against the very idea of CF.
I'll agree that due to premature announcement of the original results - politics - there was an inappropiate level of interest initially. Also that when this was realised there was a reaction against. I don't agree that that reaction has lasted 25 years, or that it would trump even one half-way good result. As evidence see the set of Holmlid papers, all published many in reputable journals. Nor do I agree any of the evidence then was strong enough to merit the amount of subsequent research - some 100M? dollars - mostly Japanese and SRI. So the bias remains in favour of doing this high impact - if it ever worked - research.
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I'm stating that there are a very important and substantial differences between your example of "Faster Than Light" and the evidences for CF /LENR which you presume to judge so summarily.
I'm welcome to discuss where you disagree with LENR results not meeting (1), (2), or (3). My statements here are indeed part of a summary - but I'm not judging summarily as you will discover if you put forward any counter-example to these statements (perhaps on a new thread to do it justice).
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There are only much more flimsy theoretical grounds for thinking CF "cannot work". Those "grounds" ignore much of the thermodynamics and appear to concentrate on formulations derived from high energy collisions--- the lifeblood of nuclear physics to be sure, but not nearly so comprehensively buttressed and demonstrated as the Special or General Theories of Relativity.
I've addressed this above. Partial agreement but my point remains untarnished, when the comparison is made more carrefully.
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Your categoricals (1 through 3) make my point to many readers here that the CF / LENR story is completely distinct from the absolute velocity limit in say Einstein's Relativities. Your three points fail to be informative or instructive,
I don't understand your point here. My categoricals are what any claimed new phenomena needs. The extent to which such new phenomena is "fundamentally" new does not affect this.
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and many here already know why that is-- which can be summarized as funding and motivation.
Perhaps you could state this less elliptically - I'm not sure quite what you mean.
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Those that do not understand can read authors such as Mizuno, Storms, Beaudette, Krivit, Chubb and so on. Your example suggests that you would like us to think all of physics is so well argued and well evidenced that nothing new that does not fit the existing paradigm is even possible. I suspect you yourself don't even believe that... but perhaps I overestimate you.
Your point here rests on the idea that the FTL neutrino evidence was impossible. It was not. And there were an awful lot of theoretical physicists relishing the possibility that it was true. Mainstream scientists just love new breaking ideas. Personally, I hoped it was true and while I thought most likely, without checking, it was not, I certainly did not see it as impossible.
