Humor: In the brain of a skeptic

I watch a swedish discussion
http://www.klimatupplysningen.…rossi-kan-radda-klimatet/

and this is the occasion to see the usual argument, of self evidence.
That E-cat is clearly a fraud, that cold fusion is clearly pseudo-science.

Quote

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

McKubre duck (tested in closed cell, with flow rabbitometry and H+O2 rabbitobination)

Rossi's duck (note that this one is clearly a duck , even if some uninformed observer consider it can be a rabbit, a rat, a mole, but not a duck...)

ENEA duck quite clear, and with some style

SRI , NRL, ENEA joint replication of duck

Greek Canadian Duck (Credit to Luca Gamberale for the pics)

In 1989 there was less data and I concede there was an ambiguous vision of the reality, and that for physicist there was clearly a Duck, because there was no rabbit in their labs, only ducks.
But today, the photography is more clear.

F&P duck, a duck without any doubt. many duck books written.

Thomas Kuhn used that image to make people understand what is paradigm change.
http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html

Today given the massive data, the ambiguity looks absurd.

The description of his work is interesting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend
the result is simply that as anyone looking at real science in history, that method not only was never respected, consistency neither, but that trying to apply a method and consistency would ruin science...

I've learned basics of cognitive ergonomy, and one of the basic is that the boss and even the worker often don't understand how they really work.

what he propose is really the opposite of that apparently rationalized science that current bureaucracy is supporting. In a way I don't see anything really shocking.

Maybe the description is mild...
Like for Kuhn i just see what is clear and evident for someone observing real history of science, real bureaucracy in enterprises, real markets and organizations irrationality, and how innovation works in real world...

I've heard nasty things against Thomas Kuhn, but his philosophy is clearly matching facts, and based on basic psychology.
hard to understand what makes people moan, except the strawman they develop against him to protect their mythology.

I've often heard of relativism accusation, claiming that no science can be judged better than another...
Kuhn was clear that there was a better paradigm, which was the most productive, useful, practical...

however as we see currently, until it is fruitful, even perfectly scientific evidence respecting the exact letter of scientific method, facing not the least real critic, coherent with known science, cannot convince people who feel endangered as a paradigm supporter.

Cold fusion is proven by at least 153 peer-reviewed positive excess heat papers (2 independent would be enough if not challenged), with 4 refuted critics, and the story is coherent (nuclear, condensed matter, collective effect) despite lack of detailed theory.

In fact what skeptic see is :

• It is hard to reproduce (so what, cloning too, flying too, even A bomb is not easy), translated as all success are errors, and any rare event should be ignored, or rather that physicist cannot make mistake thus chemist are wrong if they disagree.
• it need good chemistry competence (need 1 year of chemist work, 2 years of chemistry trained physicist, no hope for others) that physicist cannot implement, translated as it is pathological science based on extremely precise measurement of +/-0.1% on +50% phenomenon.
• Nature, science don't support cold fusion (because they refuse any paper on the subject, even to correct broken negative papers), meaning that people trust more those generalis tabloid of science than specialized journal like journal of electroanalytical chemistry, or non US Japanese Journal of applied physics.
• American Physicist Society, and AAAS have clearly been convinced cold fusion was pathological days after the announce, before any result and have been applauded for, proving thus that no evidence was needed, and no evidence could challenge that clear consensus of the less concerned profession for a calorimetry measurement inside an electrochemical cell : nuclear physicist... whose only genius idea was to accuse the thermometers because they could not do their job: to find a theory.
• That the positive result were strangely developed by incompetent chemist, electrochemist, radiochemist, with some having Nobel prize, or student books at their name... and strangely that good valid real negative result were done by nuclear physicist who were more competent in not finding particle, than in finding heat.

Such a level of delirium is a pathetic example that Kuhn and Feyerabend are one thousand miles ahead from Popper about real epistemology.

As I say often, Off with their head... at APS, DoE, Nature, Science, SciAm, texas AM, and also to the parrots and rats at CEA, INFN,Spawar...
some people have to be fired, ridiculed, deprized.