In that article Jed Rothwell tell the story of the myths and manipulation about Titanic tragedy....
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusion.pdf
He also describe the misconducts of Cold Fusion denialist , with incredible lack of any ethic.
It confirms and extend the description that Charles Beaudette give in his book "Excess Heat".
Just see the paragraphs, with some emphasis on the most shocking facts...
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When a scientist writes about cold fusion, he should be held to more exacting standards. He must not dismiss or condemn cold fusion without reading the journal papers, and without presenting a credible, technical reason for doubting those papers. Society relies upon scientists, lawyers, ship captains, and other professionals to make unbiased, informed statements about their areas of expertise. It is unethical for a scientist to endorse or condemn a claim he has not carefully analyzed.
In rare cases, a few scientists have been guilty of even more unethical behavior. McKubre and other prominent cold fusion scientists have given copies of journal papers to prominent critics, including Douglas Morrison, Robert Park, and John Huizenga. The papers directly contradict assertions made by the critics regarding matters of fact, not opinion, such as the amount of energy produced by cells in continuous bursts, the percent of input versus output, or the amount of chemical energy that a mass 0.5 grams of palladium deuteride will release as it degasses. Morrison often claims the degassing can account for the heat produced during an experiment performed by Fleischmann and Pons. Fleischmann gave him a paper showing conclusively that he is mistaken by a factor of 1,700. Morrison has been told about this mistake countless times, at conferences, in writing, and in a formal reply published in Physics Letters A. Yet he recently contacted a Nobel laureate and repeated the same misinformation. Fortunately, the Nobel scientist contacted me, and I was able to give him the correct numbers.
Gary Taubes is another prominent critic. He made many misinformed claims in his book, on the radio, and in the mass media. He may not be qualified to read journal papers, because he does not appear to understand basic concepts such as electricity. He claims people sometimes measure electrolysis amperage alone and not voltage, and he thinks that regulated power supplies put out more electricity over the weekend because factories use less power. He thinks some researchers measure tritium once, after the experiment, without establishing a baseline or taking periodic samples. His book is filled with hundreds of similar errors. Perhaps the most mind-boggling one was his statement that a cell might have huge temperature gradients, “say fifty degrees hotter on one side than the other.” This is like asserting that you might stir a cup of coffee, drink from the right side and find it tepid, but when you turn the cup around and drink from the left side, it will be steaming hot.
Taubes wrote his book using the same methods employed by sensation-mongering reporters in 1912: he pieced together second-hand rumors and made wild guesses about a subject he does not understand. He described his methods in the introduction, footnotes, and appendices. The book is based upon interviews and telephone conversations with 257 people, listed in an appendix. He spoke with seventeen people who actually performed experiments. Four of the seventeen are implacable enemies of cold fusion, including the authors of the three famous “negative” experiments. Most of the remaining 240 are critics like Frank Close and William Happer, who deplore cold fusion, and have staked their reputations on its demise. They have attacked it in the mass media, the ERAB report, and in books. Although more than a thousand peer-reviewed papers were published by the time Taubes wrote the book, he did not reference a single one of them in the footnotes. His descriptions of the experiments are wildly at variance with the facts, in major and minor details, so it seems unlikely that he read a paper. Describing an experiment is an exacting task, even when you understand electricity, you read the paper, visit the lab, and ask the experimenter to review your description. When a scientifically illiterate person tries to imagine how an experiment works based on allegations made by people who despise the research, indescribable confusion and distortion result.
Taubes’ book was recommended in enthusiastic blurbs by four Nobel laureates and the chairman of the American Association of the Advancement of Science.
These people could not have actually read the book, or if they did, their judgment was skewed by animosity. This shows how easy it is to spread false information, and how careless distinguished scientists can be. It takes only a small group of people to poison the well of public opinion. There may be a few other active critics in the mass media, but most attacks originate from these four: Morrison, Park, Huizenga, and Taubes. They are not famous or influential. They succeed because many scientists bear a grudge against cold fusion, and are willing to believe the worst about it. When Robert Park attacked it with inflammatory ad hominem rhetoric, a room packed with hundreds of members of the American Physical Society (APS) applauded and cheered.
Mistakes Caused by Culture, Denial, and Psychology :
One way to learn how to separate fact from fiction is to study the ways mistakes and disagreements arose in the first place, and why they remain in the historical record, seemingly impervious to correction.
I know Taubes was in error, but such absurdities should not convince anybody with a college level, even on Wikipedia.
I really would like to read those books, but I cannot spend more than 10cents on them without feeling guilty against honest authors.
