Kirk Shanahan's critique of LENR experiments

Quote from JedRothwell

Nope, it is not even a little like them. They answered you.

This is where the extremeness of your state of denial becomes clear. Only a fanatic would call what they did 'answering' my crticisms. Most people get the fact that they completely avoided doing so, and are quite proud of it.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I agree with Kirk. That is, I think his points have not been answered. I also think his points have not been proven (he'd probably agree) the issue is that between his unproven and speculative ideas and LENR as an unproven and speculative idea there is little to choose except that LENR is more surprising. If you like surprise you go for it.

In that situation, were I using these experiments as the main reason to look at LENR, I'd want to spend a lot of time looking at Shanahan's ideas, not dismissing them.

Pathoskeptics dismiss LENR, well some people here are dismissing CCS/ATER in exactly the same way.

Thanks for agreeing. And I agree with you. My ATER proposal is a suggestion at this point. Or a hypothesis if you like. It needs to be confirmed. The fact that a minor (~2%) CCS zeros out a 780 mW CF signal is a fact though.

I also agree that if the signals reported to date as 'excess heat' can be confirmed as real, then their integrated value implies nuclear reactions.

'Pathoskeptic' is a cutesy contraction of 'pathological skeptic'. There can also be pathological believers. In the CF field they are often referred to as 'true believers', which is another term primarily designed to insult and denigrate as does pathoskeptic. It is possible to be a rational believer and a rational skeptic. The word pathological gets applied when people start ignoring information that contradicts their favored viewpoint. Examples of this are Jed and Zephir_AWT, among others.

If someone wishes to label me a 'pathoskeptic', they should substantiate their action. Typically they don't though, which is a dead giveaway they are a pathological believer in a position that my efforts have ended up challenging.

Quote from JedRothwell

They are not obligated to answer your answer, in an endless loop. One response is enough.

This is an anti-scientific position. Every scientist *supposedly* should hold all beliefs and ideas as modifiable. as needed whenever new and/or better information is discovered. That process often involves multiple 'go-rounds' between proponents and critics.

Of course, scientists are just people, so they often don't conform fully to the above ideal. When the nonconformance becomes egregious, the adjective 'pathological' can be applied.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

If you don't believe in cold fusion, why to visit its forum?

Answered many times Zeph. But to do so once more...

A.) 'Belief' is irrelevant. There are enough partial replications of the FPHE to suspect something real is going on, especially when my reanalysis of Storms' CF data uncovered a systematic trend.

1.) You will recall I have rarely said anything about Rossi as I claim one can't do science on anecdotal information.

B.) If the proposed hypothesis of LENR is correct, there is a derived safety issue for any use of metal hydrides. which threatens my safety and the safety of my coworkers directly. I am ethically bound to investigate that. Can you understand the ramifications of not doing so? "Well, Shanahan knew it might 'go nuclear' but he didn't like that idea and never told anyone. If he had though we might have prevented that explosion and radioactive material release..."

C.) I currently find no compelling evidence for LENRs, but pursuant to my desire to be a 'good' scientist (as per the post above answering Jed), I keep an eye on things.

D.) I also try to help when I can as I also believe in the concept expressed in the Feynman quote, extended to cover other things in addition to just your own ideas when relevant:

"I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, [an integrity] that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."

Quote from JedRothwell

The problem is that Shanahan's arguments have no merit. They are not worth addressing, and there is no end to them.

Anyone who actually has considered what I say instead of what they want me to have said disagrees with you. See reasons #2, 4, and 14 of Charlie Munger's 18 biases especially (others may also apply).

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Quote from JedRothwell

I do not mean that McKubre and others are obligated to address a crackpot theory offered by one scientist

Interesting case...In his monster 450+ page 1998 EPRI report, McK describes a whole series of calorimeters he built and examined. One of them was a kind of Seebeck calorimeter. He surrounded a CF cell with Al plates and placed one thermocouple (maybe thermistor or such, details are fading...) in each plate (i.e. for a total of 6 T sensors). He stated that the best calibration equation multiplied the bottom (or maybe it was the top...) plate's value by 3 and then added that to the other 5 signals (whereas 'normal' Seebeck calorimetry just adds the signals with equal weighting). This directly implies an inhomogeneous temperature distribution that had to be taken into account for the 'best' results. That's just another version of what I am proposing. I offered up a reason why this had to be done. As I recall McK did too, but he offered no data to support his reasoning. Is McK's 'theory' a crackpot one? Does it 'defy' natural laws? No? Neither does mine.

Quote from JedRothwell

Anyone who? Name three people who agree with you. Has anyone published a paper or letter in a journal supporting your work?

Well, to start with here, THH and Eric seems to have grasped it. Might be others. Back on sci.physics.fusion there were a couple, but I don't recall their names off the top of my head. Could probably track them down if it was worth it, but I doubt it is because you will find reasons to reject them (bias #2 and #4). Several Wikipedia editors 'seemed' to have grasped the ideas, but there wasn't enough back-and-forth to strongly support that assertion.

Do you recall the 2004 DOE re-review of CF? One of the 9 professors responding via the written review specifically called out my work as something to be considered. I know who it was but I don't recall today if that review was anonymous or not, so I'll withhold the name. But you can still read the comment (if you dare...).

Published a paper...no. No one else in the 'mainstream' thinks CF is legitimate, so why would you expect there to be one? Of course you don't, which is why you phrased your challenge that way. But you challenge is empty because of the well-known viewpoint of the mainstream on CF. This is just a subtle way to present another strawman argument ("If he really had anything, there would be scads of papers on it."). But like all strawman arguments, the premise is false. You bias is showing again...

Quote from interested observer

The common thread that unites nearly everyone here is the heartfelt conviction that everyone who holds an opposing view is either an ignoramus, a paid shill, or a crackpot. It's a hoot!

Glad we are so entertaining??

You are basically correct. It also points out the non-scientific viewpoints most people you refer to hold. As I said before, a scientist is supposed to be ready at any time to change his/her views on a subject when new/better info is presented. In my case, I tried to do that via my 2002 publication. If you've followed my posts here you will see that didn't work too well. Instead of technical discussion I got fallacious strawman arguments and deliberate obfuscation. I've given up on the primaries (such as Storms, Miles, McKubre, Fleischmann when he was alive, etc.) ever coming to grips with my work. What I am primarily doing these days is trying to stifle the unethical behavior of pundits like Krivit and Rothwell, who amazingly enough to me (although I guess not so amazing if you consider Munger's 18 biases) seem to have people who think they are presenting good information. They basically are 'doing a Rossi' on you folks...