IH considering counterclaims

    Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Here there is an idea that a single test is a 'successful replication," which it can be, but what IH needed was not a single test, rather an ability to make devices with reasonable reliability.


    If it is proven Rossi gave IH the IP and support as required under the contract, the fact that IH then tried to validate Rossi's invention without success will be seen as 'suspicious', not least an excuse to withhold the payment of $89 million.


    The contract was clearly a 'stepping stone' along the way to 'commercialisation' not the full package.


    Just a question, which you may be able to answer. If Penon, West and Fulvio appear in IH's counter claims will this prevent them giving evidence for Rossi?


    Best regards
    Frank

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I think your problem is that you reject the phenomenon because some people offer a magical explanation for it. It is more logical to assume that it actually works. It is widespread and has been in use for thousands of years in cultures all over the world; there are many reliable reports that it works; and many smart, experienced people say it works. You should assume it probably does work. You should also assume there must be some naturalistic reason why it works. Where do you start looking for a reason? In human biology and evolution. Where else? That's were all behavior originates. Do not reject experimentally replicated phenomena because the theory seems wrong. Reject the theory instead.

    Problem? what problem? Mary is swimming in smug certainty. As part of my work on Wikiversity, I got to know some of the parapsychology people. I have personally experienced many "miracles." Things that would seem impossible, though none of them were necessarily impossible physically, i.e,. I've never seen a clear violation of physics, say. These were events where what happened seemed so far out of the ordinary that the facile explanation of "coincidence" seemed ridiculous. However, then I noticed something: all of these events involved at least two people. Obviously, I was one of them. And then there were others, whose behavior was very unexpectedly coordinated and meaningful. And it hit me. What if humans can communicate outside of our ordinary consciousness?


    Yeah, they might call that "telepathy," but ... in one case I could observe a mechanism. I was talking with someone and it was as if we were thinking together. And I could see this. In his face, in his eyes. In one case, it was as if a whole book was transmitted in a few words.


    Oh. High bandwidth communication, not verbally mediated, which is quite slow. And we all do it, to some extent. "Telepathy" implies some non-physical communication, but the phenomena I have seen don't require such an appendage. There are plenty of stories, of "mind-readers" who could read subvocalization, for example, and then skeptics reject it as fraud. But reading subvocalization is quite remarkable enough!


    There is a parapsychology experiment where something completely amazing happened, and skeptics accept an utterly amazing possibility as an explanation, while rejecting a fantasy hypothesis, as you have noted, Jed. This was a standard type of double-blind study where a "sender" was presented with images chosen at random, at first using a standard pseudorandom code generator, and then the "receiver" was to pick the image from the set used. The receiver was correct significantly more often than chance. So then they used a "true" random code generator (is there such a thing? It seems so, but ... this depends on thinking of the universe as having no coherence. Maybe God plays dice with the universe, and maybe not. The jury is out. In fact, the case hasn't even been presented yet.) The improvement over chance disappeared. To the skeptics, Aha! The receivers were able to predict the outcome of a pseudorandom code generator. It wasn't *telepathy*!!!


    Let me suggest that if I could predict the outcome of a pseudorandom code generator, I might be able to predict the behavior of humans. As they say, more research is required! Instead of thinking, "we found the artifact, so case closed."


    There is a journal article where a skeptic gives a Bayesian prior for the reported phenomena of 10^-20.


    Really? I'm not that sure that I exist. Where does such certainty come from? It's obvious: it comes from a personal belief in being right. Using that Bayesian prior, he then rejected some very strong results, because they were not strong enough to overcome that prior. And somehow thought this was science. (This is a version of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," which is a sound heuristic principle then applied with a completely ridiculous definition of "extraordinary." It is very obvious that human argument can be easily flawed, we make mistakes, and, then, no human argument could overcome a prior of 10^-20. Basically, the skeptic position, in this case, is "it's wrong because I say so, and all right-thinking people will agree."


    Jed, I've attempted to explain this to Mary, many times. The Sniffex probably works, sometimes. The same with dowsing, and Mary's argument that the device is not necessary is not based on experience. Phenomena involving what might be unusual human capacities cannot necessarily be tested double-blind, because knowledge may be an element. You did a good job of pointing out how dowsing might work, that would fail an artificial double-blind test.


    Sniffex is also a scam, in that $6000 was being charged for a piece of fake electronics, for a dowsing rod. What would be far saner would be to look for training effects. Can a dowser improve his or her detection capacity? The double-blind tests show that it is unlikely that water is what is actually detected. Water dowsers are often those with experience drilling wells. Because of how the human brain works (much or most of which is outside of consciousness), I would expect intuition to develop, i.e, pattern-recognition that is not verbalized and "logical." And then the person will use some modality to manifest this and a dowsing rod may serve. A skilled dowser would carefully avoid "deliberately" moving the rod. They would be relaxed and observant, looking at the land, sensing the location. To be useful, the technique need only improve results over chance, and not necessarily much, since it may be quick.


    And is all this tested and proven? No, not necessarily. But there is a filter, successful water drillers, on average, will get more business, etc. Much of life is not based on proof, and we make mistakes all the time. However, those who trust intuition *and* who feed it as much sensory information as possible, call it "informed intuition," my sense, are generally more successful than those who insist on understanding everything. Indeed, I watch how such people limit themselves to what they believe is possible, fearing failure.


    Those selling Sniffex for mission-critical applications, without disclosure, pretending science behind it that was fraudulent, were criminals.


    http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Dowsing-or-Divining-Rods ... as a Truzzi- style skeptic, my problem with dowsing is not that it doesn't work, because it does, at least sometimes. It is the explanations invented that are really just ways of saying "we don't know" but giving words to it. Explanations that are, if claimed to be "scientific," and some use "scientific language," are pseudoscientific because they are not testable.


    I could imagine a company that trains people to use dowsing for explosives detection. Part of the training would be understanding the limitations of the technique. If there is a thoroughly concealed explosive device (the double-blind tests generally concealed an explosive material, not a device, the actual concern), it may not be possible to detect this way. But dowsers may pick up behavioral cues, all kinds of "messages" in the senses. And this could, in fact, be tested. "Double blind" tests could miss much of what would work, while leaving what might not work.

    Quote from frankwtu

    If it is proven Rossi gave IH the IP and support as required under the contract, the fact that IH then tried to validate Rossi's invention without success will be seen as 'suspicious', not least an excuse to withhold the payment of $89 million.

    You are postulating something difficult. "IP and support" is demonstrated by success. You seem to think it is a list of instructions.


    However, if the list of instructions provided by Rossi is later shown to be adequate, the burden of proof would shift to IH to show how Rossi failed to teach them. The law and the court will assume good faith, to start. They will assume that someone who paid $11.5 million for IP and support actually wanted that, wanted to learn how to make devices. They will then look at the actual history of communication between IH and Rossi over this. If IH did not privately complain about Rossi's performance in teaching them, about his support of their efforts, they could be screwed. They could lose that line of defense. If they did, then it will be a matter of interpretation.


    Supposedly, Rossi has revealed all that one needs to know in his patents. Yet nobody appears to have confirmed the effect, i.e., at levels comparable to what Rossi claimed. That is a sign (though not a proof, not yet) that Rossi did not reveal everything necessary, and therefore the patents are not valid, and patents were part of what Rossi sold. While he sold them, as far as I can see, without warranty, this may all be an ingredient in the IH defense.

    Quote from frankwtu

    Just a question, which you may be able to answer. If Penon, West and Fulvio appear in IH's counter claims will this prevent them giving evidence for Rossi?

    No. Rossi can testify, Darden can testify, so can any defendant. People with some conflict of interest may testify. Anyone may testify as to their personal knowledge. A witness might be considered "adverse," as I understand it, and cross-examination might be allowed to be a bit tougher, but that's about it. Remember this legal principle: testimony is presumed true unless controverted. This is about testimony as to fact within personal knowledge, not about conclusions.

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    A soul-less, investment-protecting, Spam Bot, status quo-mongering FUD meister was used as the control...

    I deny that I have ever been used as a control in these experiments. :thumbup:


    However, blog comments can be purchased for not much more than $1 each on fiverr.com. Upvotes are naturally cheaper, and distinguishing these from noobs is not easy, unless someone really goes whole hog. Really, if someone wanted to generate confusion, they would be unlikely to use someone as expensive as I'd be. I charged $100 per hour for Wikipedia consultation, for a few clients. All legal, by the way. But confidential, of course, if it had been known who consulted with me, there would have been a screaming mob with pitchforks. They don't care about "legal."

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    But there is a filter, successful water drillers, on average, will get more business, etc. Much of life is not based on proof, and we make mistakes all the time. However, those who trust intuition *and* who feed it as much sensory information as possible, call it "informed intuition," my sense, are generally more successful than those who insist on understanding everything.


    I met a dowser, and read an interview with another. Both were walking encyclopedias on geology, hydrology, the local water table, and so on. Both were experienced in finding and drilling for water. I expect if you put them in the Kalahari desert, they could find water with as much skill as the natives. They have the kind of intuition and sensitivity to nature that a survivalist or hunter has. It is impossible to say where their knowledge ends and their intuition begins. Setting up a test of their skills in an artificial environment would be challenging. I have experience trying to test the behavior of ground squirrels in a semi-artificial environment (a yard fenced in with chicken wire). That's hard enough. It was a single blind test; the squirrels were unaware of what the naturalists and I were looking for. Nor did they care.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    .... My main conclusion is that the internal temperature must have been much higher than the externaly measured one, which is in line with TC critic. To get a reasonable heatflow explanation we must assume that the caps were much hotter (+100) in the inside, because of the additional joule heating. So again I would work outside in to model the E-cat T courve.


    No worries about about the W-T thing. I have made plenty of mistakes. I am more interested in getting us both on the same page.


    Agreed about the internal heat. The caps are certainly hotter on the inside. They are quite a blob of insulation, even with high heat conductivity alumina (Durapot 810). The outer ends of the caps are large radiating surfaces, and their area could be modeled without too many assumptions, I think. But since almost all that heat ends up in the rods anyways, it might be more useful as a limit case for the rod power. I think the inner ends of the caps can be disregarded, since they are not as hot as the main reactor they cannot effectively radiate heat out in that direction. Almost certainly the caps are being heated on that surface, especially in the Active Run.


    The rods are a nuisance to deal with due to sections and temperature profile, and I posted one attempt at what their cooling profile might look like at a higher heat (235°C) on the cap end. (I did that without pre-determining the answer, BTW). I am thinking that the temperature profile should look quite similar to the slope of a cooling reactor, a sort of power law distribution, so that as the temperature increases, the closest rod section to the cap becomes increasingly the dominant heat power (W) producer. And they always approach room temperature on the far end. Modelling the rods as being a single tube 6 cm in diameter seems to work out not too bad for calculating radiation and convection, saving some time. For heat conduction along the length it would probably be fairly wrong.


    Edit: That should be "Modelling the rods as being a single tube 6 cm in diameter, in sections, seems to work out not too bad for calculating radiation and convection, saving some time."

    Jed, I am starting to see why and how you were so flummoxed and bamboozled by Defkalion and Rossi. I don't want to promote thread drift by discussing dowsing and finding water at length. It may well be that some people can find water better than others. I don't think that interesting hypothesis has been tested, however. And if it's true, it's also not been tested whether or not a divining or dowsing rod helps them. That also is possible. And all of that has nothing whatever to do with using a dowsing rod to detect hidden explosives such as suitcase bombs, mines or IED's.


    The study I designed proved conclusively that the divining rod sold by Sniffex doesn't work. They sold the device for $4K to $8K (I bought the exact same gadget to "divine" golf balls on eBay a few years ago for $10). Here is what a researcher who specializes in explosives detectors and works for Sandia Labs said about my experimental design and test results:


    Quote

    THE SniffEx®, SniffEx Plus, HEDD 1
    SniffEx® and SniffEx Plus
    Sometime in 2005, Sandia started getting requests for information about a product called the SniffEx®. This devicehad been invented in Bulgaria and was being marketed by acompany called SniffEx® Inc from Texas. The description of the operation of the device was very familiar. There is noother power source than human generated static electricity, ithad to be held by a human in order to operate, and thedetection was indicated when a swinging antenna pointedtoward the material being sought. Sandia had to respond withthe fact that it had not been tested at Sandia, but based on itsdescription Sandia warned that anyone interested in thisproduct should use caution and insist on a double-blind testprior to use or purchase to establish its efficacy. Thecompany had been generating significant interest in theproduct since following the introduction of the product thecompany had been flooding the Internet with news releasesand was waging a serious email campaign to sell stocks in thecompany. SniffEx® was selling company stock through PinkSheets, an exchange selling “penny stocks”.Sandia never had to test this device because other tests of the device occurred that were more than adequate toestablish the random chance performance of the device. Onetest was performed by an anonymous individual in a double-blind test of the SniffEx® at the Seventh Annual CaliforniaSafety and Security Conference in Anaheim, CA.Hemanaged to talk the president and vice president of thecompany into testing the device in the hall outside of wherethe conference was being held. The results of the test arewell presented at the review website [11]. This test clearly shows that a rigorous double-blind test need not becomplicated and the results are seldom in doubt.


    In July 2008, SniffEx Inc was shut down by the Securitiesand Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC charged thecompany with operating what is called a pump-and-dumpscam. In this scam, a company offers a very low cost stockand then uses news releases and other techniques in anattempt to artificially drive up the price of the stock after whichthe company officers dump the stock at a higher price andreap the profits. Unfortunately, there are still those individualswho have been convinced that the device is effective andcontinue to use it in other countries where it is still being sold.Following the collapse of the Texas-based company, themanufacture and sales of the SniffEx® moved to Germany.The new company (Unival Group of Bonn, Germany) soonchanged the device’s name to SniffEx Plus and indicated thatit possessed enhanced performance. The SniffEx® or SniffExPlus is currently in use in Pakistan... etc.


    I'm sorry that the forum software messes up the copy/paste and I have no time to fix it but the original document is here:


    https://www.scribd.com/documen…es-of-Police-and-Military


    Here again is a link to the "review site" with videos taken of the Sniffex test: http://sniffextest.blogspot.com/ Now I will try to minimize my participation in further OT conversations about this. It's only an illustration of how gullibility kills people-- quite a few people, perhaps as many as thousands.


    The point is that on that day (and on every other day that someone objectively tested it) the Sniffex method and device for detection of lethal explosives DID NOT WORK, even in the hands of the president and of the head salesman of the company. The test was "real life" -- explosives were simply hidden in one envelope and the nine others contained table salt. Sniffex could not tell the difference unless the operator could see the explosive-- then, of course, it worked fine, LOL.


    In all objective tests of water dowsing, the dowsers could not detect flowing water (yes, in PVC pipes-- so what?) or water in 55 gallon drums. Before the tests, they had all claimed that they could. If that isn't a good test, please do tell me what is.

    Someone asked how you prove that dowsing (or anything else) will NOT detect the human aura. Well, for openers, there really isn't the classical human aura described by woowoo psychics and seers. That's pure BS. The proof of that is to take some thick cardboard screens in the shape of a person but slightly larger than the person-- not so large as to obscure the person's surrounding aura as agreed to by the psychics themselves. Then you blindfold the psychic, take a dozen or more screens and position a person behind some of them and not others. Remove the blindfold. Then, you do a bunch of tests in which you ask the psychic to read the aura behind each screen and you tally the results-- did they correctly identify a screen which has a person and one which doesn't and so on. Statistical analysis does the rest. When this has been done, no set of tests revealed that psychics could find people behind screens by their auras (or by any other method).


    There is in fact something human that can be considered an aura but it's not psychic and psychics can not detect it. Mosquitos however can. It's the person's heat signature, the carbon dioxide and warm water vapor they exude, their scent, and so on. Nothing paranormal about that but it isn't the same as the aura seers, psychics and woowoos talk about. Reiki practitioners depend on nonexistent auras. So do the crooks, scammers and ignorami who promoted the disaster called "facilitated communications" (with autism patients) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication and therapeutic touch, disproved by a 12 year old award winner (youngest ever to publish in the Journal of the AMA). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication I do not want to discuss any of this here as it is way off topic. If you want to argue about it, you can join me here: http://www.moletrap.co.uk/forum/

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    In all objective tests of water dowsing, the dowsers could not detect flowing water (yes, in PVC pipes-- so what?) or water in 55 gallon drums. Before the tests, they had all claimed that they could. If that isn't a good test, please do tell me what is.

    The question is "test of what"? Mary, here, completely ignores what's been said to him in order to keep beating the drum of Bogosity. That's live, demonstrated pseudoskepticism.


    "they had all claimed that they could." But they had no experience in such detection, and they do not necessarily know how what they do works, so, as pointed out by another, the problem could be with the theory. Actually testing these phenomena in the real world is quite difficult, because the problem will, to make the testing possible at reasonable expense, generally be greatly simplified. As pointed out, if the dowser is actually predicting (not sensing) water through the lay of the land, the technique could work in real practice and fail in artificial tests like this.


    There is a great test that was done years ago of astrology. The members of an astrological association believed that they could pass the test. As I recall it -- this could be off -- 300 people were given a psychological test, the California inventory. Horoscopes were prepared for each. The 300 horoscopes were distributed randomly, three each, to 100 members of the association, along with the three corresponding personality inventories, but they did not know which inventory went with which chart. Their job was to match them. They failed to achieve better than chance matching. Now, did this prove that astrology was worthless?


    Not exactly. It showed that astrology, as practiced by the members of that association, did not predict personality as measured by the test. And if astrology does have value, it would not be through that ability.


    What about Indian astrology, which uses a different system, with some remarkable stories told .... none of which I "believe," but I do not substitute "do not believe" for "it's false." That is why I'm a Truzzi-style skeptic, and, no, I am not going to run around investigating every claim of a dragon in the garage. I'm *skeptical,* but I also know how what we normally expect can be way, way off. And I've seen that so many times. We have not captured and tamed Reality. Science is a powerful tool, but not a religion, and faith is not fact, but relationship and trust.


    Life is much more fun when not confined to an imaginary box.


    Power Balance bracelets work. <--- trolling Mary Yugo, watch him explode! Fun!

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    I don't want to promote thread drift by discussing dowsing and finding water at length. It may well be that some people can find water better than others. I don't think that interesting hypothesis has been tested, however. And if it's true, it's also not been tested whether or not a divining or dowsing rod helps them.


    It has been tested in various ways, but such tests are difficult. Natural science is a harder than physics when it comes to setting up tests. Even guppies and ground squirrels have a mind of their own. They do as they please, not as the naturalist would like them to do. Behavioral biology does not lend itself to clean, definitive, or double-blind experiments. Also, squirrels know way more about how to be a squirrel than any human naturalist ever will. They know how to deal with snakes, for example. (The behavior I studied.) They know; we are just guessing. People who know how to find water really do know; we are just guessing. It appears to be largely instinctual, so they cannot say how they know, but they do.


    Quote from Mary Yugo

    And all of that has nothing whatever to do with using a dowsing rod to detect hidden explosives such as suitcase bombs, mines or IED's.


    Who said it did? Not me. I was talking about finding water. That's a complicated subject, but there is no doubt people can find water, even in arid places. If they could not, our species would have gone extinct long ago. So can other animals, so it is instinctual. There is also no doubt that some people are better at it than others. If the people who are particularly good say that using a stick helps them, who are you to argue? How would you know? Do you know how to find water? It is a lot harder than it looks. You would have to spend years working with them, learning what they do, and observing them carefully before reaching any conclusion.

    Quote from Mary Yugo

    In all objective tests of water dowsing, the dowsers could not detect flowing water (yes, in PVC pipes-- so what?) or water in 55 gallon drums. Before the tests, they had all claimed that they could. If that isn't a good test, please do tell me what is.


    That's not a good test. It isn't a test at all. It is a farce. No natural scientist or behaviorist would give credence to it. You have described a test of the hypothesis that dowsing is magic. Magic does not exist, so there is no point to testing for it. You need to start with a plausible working hypothesis that fits what we know about biology and natural science. One that might be true. It is a great deal more difficult to design a test that meets that criterion. You have to start with the observed fact that people and all other animals have an instinctual ability to find water. If they did not, they would be extinct. If you doubt that people have that ability, you know nothing about natural science or anthropology. You might as well claim that people have no natural instinctual ability to hunt and kill animals. Humans and chimpanzees are omnivores and predators! If we didn't have that instinct, we would be extinct.


    The knowledgeable dowsers that I have met and read about would NEVER claim they could do what you describe! That's absurd. They claim they can find water underground. They have a track record of doing that. As I said, they are also experts in geology, hydrology, drilling wells, and so on, so much of their knowledge is scientific and up to date. These are not irrational people. It is not possible to separate their modern learned knowledge from their instinctual abilities. You can say the same thing about a carpenter, soldier, sculptor, artist, hunter, dog trainer, mountain climber or anyone who works with his hands with natural materials, or who lives or works in wilderness.


    People are primates, with all of our primate instincts fully working and intact, just as much as any chimpanzee. In wilderness, we are as dependent on our natural instincts for survival as any other animal. Until a few seconds ago in the span of human history, we lived in wilderness and depended on these instincts for survival, so if they were not reliable we would not be here. For millions of years, we lived in arid places where the ability to find water was essential to survival.

    Quote

    Dowsing? SniffEx? Somewhat off-topic no?


    Yeah, it is and I am done with it. I suggest Abd test his theory by using a dowsing rod to get himself out of a mine field or to avoid bombs and IED's. That was what Sniffex was sold for for years and hundreds of millions of dollars.


    While it's off topic, the original issue was about how easy it is for crooks and conmen to fool, bamboozle, and flummox gullible people who do not insist on good, independent measurements. It was also about how easy it is to make some good measurements when the issue is reduced to an appropriate simplicity.


    Defkalion and Rossi's claims could have been easily reduced in that manner. Instead, the Swedish professors, Lewan and Essen used complex, inaccurate measurement methods and tested the wrong devices, all provided, supervised and designed by Rossi. And, it appears, IH relied on these bad measurements without insisting on doing their own testing with capable experimenters. The examples of Steorn, Carl Tilley, Dennis Lee, Bedini, Howard Johnson, Keely and many other scammers, illustrate much the same thing. Those who do not attend to these are doomed to repeat the mistakes.


    Abd, the Master Baiter said:

    Quote

    Power Balance bracelets work.


    As long as this post is OT, might as well take that silly bait. Here is how Power Balance bracelets "work":

    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    Here is an amateur exposure of this silliness:


    External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    I do this at parties and it works perfectly. There are several other similar tricks. The manufacturer in Australia was banned for a while but might have come back with a slightly different pitch. A bracelet costing less than $0.10 from China in quantity is sold by the millions at $20. A nice, profitable scam that petered out for a while and may now be coming back because the average person isn't very smart about technology and trickery, sort of like IH, Jed and Abd aren't. A friend and I enjoyed messing with an exhibitor of this dumb crap at a public venue (a boat show) until nobody was buying the sh*t and she wrapped up the act and went home. We showed the trick "worked" just as well if we used a bag of Fritos rather than their magic hologram (tuned to "The Frequencies" of course).

    When I was at medical school I took part in a research project into homeopathy. Half the patients were told their medicine was a placebo, and half the patients (To whom we referred to as the "dummies") were left unaware of this.


    Out of the patients who were told the truth, every single one reported an increase in the severity of their symptoms, and better yet, these effects persisted for an extended period of time. One patient even died, although I was able to counsel him in his last moments about the futility of believing in a heaven, and I think he appreciated the sentiment.

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