Ulrika Björkstén: "Cold fusion is contrary to scientific knowledge"

On NyTeknik, the journal where Mats Lewan works, Ulrika Björkstén director of science editors of the Swedish Radio that organized a clear character assassination against Andrea Rossi and his E-cat, have given an interview to defend her program. (translated in English, in Swedish)

Quote

Shot. Why anyone would give Andrea Rossi's credibility in the form of scientific reports is a mystery. His projects show clear warning flag, writes Ulrika Björkstén, director of science editors of the Swedish Radio.

Her crusade against Rossi to save the taxpayer and the citizen from a scam artist is not impressing me as I know that the real goal is to protect the idea that :

"Cold fusion is contrary to scientific knowledge"
(guess why I use Comic font )

I tried to publish a long, boring long, argument against that meme, and the technology prevented me (ok it is very long , not a "comment" ). So I will abuse of my access here to publish it :
EDIT: in fact it was not technical, but for a short answer to a "nay-believer" I was flagged as abusive ! my post is now published ...

Beside a conspiracy way of mind that is just rationalization of denial, what is shocking me is that Mrs Bjorksten takes as evident that cold fusion is disproved by Science, while factually, scientifically, it is a proved scientific phenomenon.

If Mrs Björksten had a real scientific behavior, she would have read or simply counted the 153 peer reviewed articles (some published in specialized journal in calorimetry, or experimental physics like Journal of electro-analytical Chemistry and JJAP) claiming excess heat, then the 5 written critics on those articles, and then the rebuttal (one of the 5 article is refuting 2 others).
She would have understood that:

• Cold fusion is replicated hundreds of times, and it is published by scientists in P/R journals, as scientific method require.
• There is no critic on the calorimetry that is meaningful. There is also great motivation to refute so there is no doubt that if there was anything serious it would be published already.

Thus that according to scientific method it is a scientifically proved fact.
I know it is shocking, but that is the scientific method.

One of the top electro-chemist in Germany, Heinz Gerisher, after opposing strongly finally admitted there was evidence... in 1992 (when chemist had replicated F&P).

• http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/GerischerHiscoldfusi.pdf#page=2

To understand that short claim, check the data as she should have done. Claiming that science is pathological is a job, it is not just parroting Wikipedia or badly written conspiracy books like the one of Huizenga,Parks, Morrison and Taubes:

First read the list the peer reviewed papers claiming excess heat in that tally

• http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf

If you don't believe, check on by one, and ask experts if there are more, peer reviewed or not...
add this recent

• http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/52/107301/

which cite the experiment it replicates

• http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/41/4642/

Then consult the critics (be kind, don't ask peer reviewed), and their refutation. See if there is answers to refutation ? if the critics are maintained ?
Charles Beaudette have done it, and synthesized all page 5 of his book

• http://iccf9.global.tsinghua.edu.cn/lenr home page/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf#page=35

until 2001.

Kirk Shanahan propose another critic recently which is refuted here :

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/71632

but anyway ignored by all critics even Stephan Pomp who don't dare to defend it. Kirk at least have the courage to defend it, and is blocked too, like all LENR researchers.
The refutation is very interesting to understand that Cold Fusion experimenters are not the "loose scientist" that the myth have painted.

To understand who was loose in that story, Jed Rothwell have made a funny article about Titanic Myth propagated by media

• http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrob…ellJcoldfusion.pdf#page=4

You will see who are Taubes and Morrison, beside incompetent scientists.
Beaudette book, with more details but less aggressively note how those authors avoid to cite any paper after 1989, knowing that chemist took few years to make good papers, as any serious chemist do on such subject.

To see how incompetent was Morrison read that debate

• http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf

if you need more data than the thousands of article found on lenr-canr.org, you can consult the Beaudette donation

• http://www.infinite-energy.com…ne/issue75/beaudette.html

and by the way notice how serious is this engineer when doing Science...

Now you will be surprised that the pile of solid evidence that Cold Fusion is real, according to the scientific method , have not convinced scientists, and journalists, and politicians.

To understand that I will advise you to read books of non consensual epistemology, and of non traditional economics, which all have the characteristic to better match the reality than the academic opinion.

• Roland Benabou Collective delusion in organization and markets : http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Groupthink IOM 2012_07_02 BW.pdf
• Thomas Kuhn, Structure of Scientific revolution : http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb "AntiFragile" : http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/Triana-fwd.pdf
• Feyerabend : epistemological anarchism : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_anarchism
• Alvesson: Stupidity based organization (good on media&corps too) http://www.lth.se/fileadmin/in…onal_stupidity_scaIEM.pdf

If you don't accept the claims, now compare

• http://www.mosaicsciencemagazine.org/pdf/m18_03_87_04.pdf
• http://www.theguardian.com/sci…prize-chemistry-interview

with the Wikipedia vision.

This erased Wikipedia article, full of irony describe the real battle between scientific method, and scientific consensus

• http://pages.csam.montclair.ed…lski/cf/293wikipedia.html

If someone deserve to be a scientific investigator, it is Charles Beaudette.
Read his book before claiming anything on cold fusion science... at least to avoid ridicule . You can buy it on paper (Infinite Energy, Amazon) or read it as PDF :

• http://iccf9.global.tsinghua.edu.cn/lenr home page/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf#page=35

Of course I don't imagine than any denier will take more than 20 second on those links.
I would say that it matches the theory of Roland Benabou on group-think.

I am still waiting for at least one critical paper against F&P calorimetry, because rambling in skeptics lounge, I have seen no written paper that is not yet refuted to the point of ridicule .

The rest on E-cat denial, is just rationalization, because if E-cat is real, this mean that Cold Fusion is real, and thus that it is an epic failure of academic consensus science.

It is hard to admit, for someone impregnated by consensus opinion on cold fusion to accept that Cold Fusion is simply, without any problem, a validated scientific phenomenon, mostly measured through excess heat.
It is even harder to accept that It was massively replicated even in 1990, accross the planet, in various kind of organization s(state, military, academic, industry.

Jed Rothwell have accumulated many articles and some are good at understanding that evidence.

This table "Groups Reporting Cold Fusion Evidence" written by FG Will list the groups having replicated F&P and detected Heat or tritium, neutrons, gamma, He3

• http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/WillFGgroupsrepo.pdf

There was already 93 groups, from Canada, Germany, USSR, Texas AM, Japan, Oak Ridge, BARC,ENEA, China, Utah, Rome, Stanford, Hawaii, LANL, SRI, BHitachi, Spain, Navy,Englehard Industries ...

Now there are many arguments, which don't fit into scientific method that are spread by the mainstream.

They are analysed in that article by McKubre.

• http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHcoldfusionb.pdf

The conclusion of McKubre is flat:

Quote

On the basis of the evidence and arguments presented here, and far more extensively and compellingly elsewhere [5,10], it is apparent that the Fleischmann-Pons effect is a new effect in physics. It requires a new mechanistic description and explanation. This new effect is very likely to be associated with a significant number of other condensed matter nuclear processes that await exposition and development.

I predict that once explained, the underlying effect will not appear strange at all. It will seem, in retrospect, that it was quite clear that we should have understood it all along. It is a heat producing reaction, consistent with nuclear but not chemical effects, both temporally and quantitatively accompanied by 4He. This new effect, the Fleischmann Pons Effect, can be accompanied by nuclear “ash”, 3H and 3He being important. Strong evidence for other isotopes
exists [5]; more may follow.

How do we make progress? We make progress through theory: quantitative predictive fundamental physics descriptions. We will continue to make progress best by using the scientific method. To do so we are going to have to engage the broader scientific community. We simply can’t sit here secure behind our walls and talk in closed groups, we need to invoke enthusiasm in the broader scientific community. The organizers of this conference [ICCF15] are to be
commended for recognizing this need and furthering that process.

Another way of making progress is by engaging in the process of creating a product. Here we might take advantage of the growing public and political interest in real alternative energy solutions. The FPE produces real and useful energy, process heat. In Energetics experiment L64, in a single burst, twenty five times more heat was produced than entered the cell as electric power. This heat was produced at temperatures sufficient to boil water. Such an effect has practical value. Obviously taking an experiment to the market as a product requires several steps that are non-trivial. This exercise however may be an effective means of gaining an engineering understanding of the effect even before the scientific.

Display More

People who did not read the document I cite may find surprising that I claim there was in 2001 only FOUR critical papers against F&P calorimetry... It is written in the book I always advise : "Excess Heat" by Charles Beaudette.
In a way to understand the tragedy, the fiasco of cold fusion consensus, you only have to read that introduction page :

Quote from "Charles Beaudette"

Unfortunately, physicists did not generally claim expertise in calorimetry, the measurement of calories of heat energy. Nor did they countenance clever chemists declaring hypotheses about nuclear physics. Their outspoken commentary largely ignored the heat measurements along with the offer of an hypothesis about unknown nuclear processes. They did not acquaint themselves with the laboratory procedures that produced anomalous heat data. These attitudes held firm throughout the first decade, causing a sustained controversy.

The upshot of this conflict was that the scientific community failed to give anomalous heat the evaluation that was its due. Scientists of orthodox views, in the first six years of this episode, produced only four critical reviews of the two chemists’ calorimetry work. The first report came in 1989 (N. S. Lewis). It dismissed the Utah claim for anomalous power on grounds of faulty laboratory technique. A second review was produced in 1991 (W. N. Hansen) that strongly supported the claim. It was based on an independent analysis of cell data that was provided by the two chemists. An extensive review completed in 1992 (R. H. Wilson) was highly critical though not conclusive. But it did recognize the existence of anomalous power, which carried the implication that the Lewis dismissal was mistaken. A fourth review was produced in 1994 (D. R. O. Morrison) which was itself unsatisfactory. It was rebutted strongly to the point of dismissal and correctly in my view. No defense was offered against the rebuttal. During those first six years, the community of orthodox scientists produced no report of a flaw in the heat measurements that was subsequently sustained by other reports.

The community of scientists at large never saw or knew about this minimalist critique of the claim. It was buried in the avalanche of skepticism that issued forth in the first three months. This skepticism was buttressed by the failure of the two chemists’ nuclear measurements, the lack of a theoretical understanding of how their claim could work, a mistaken concern with the number of failed experiments, a wholly unrealistic expectation of the time and resource the evaluation would need, and the substantial ad hominem attacks on them. However, their original claim of measurement of the anomalous power remained unscathed during all of this furor. A decade later, it was not generally realized that this claim remained essentially unevaluated by the scientific community. Confusion necessarily arose when the skeptics refused without argument to recognize the heat measurement and its corresponding hypothesis of a nuclear source. As a consequence, the story of the excess heat phenomenon has never been told.