Science 101 Cold fusion = Misbehaved Science

  • I've been thinking about the SURGES in LENRF site hits. They might originate from colleges.


    In several universities and colleges cold fusion is cited as an example of " poor " science.


    1. 1989 is a long enough time ago and educationalist are comfortable with fossilised topics.

    2, The sociopoliticalethical issues are accessible for students/educationalists alike

    3. A human story is so much more debatable than an electrochemical formula.


    https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/cold_fusion_01


    "Homework: "Using the internet (search engine) research another controversy in science and compare it with the cold fusion story.

    Why was it a controversy? How was Methodology involved? Define one word in the article that you did not know the definition

    – and had to look up in a dictionary."




    Perhaps there is opportunity for LENRF in the market for ideas?

    • Official Post

    RB,


    Is there a date on that? Interesting read. I picked up on a few new tidbits about the early FP's days. Well researched. The authors are the teachers, and here they establish the premise for their students, that a good example of "scientific misbehavior" were FP's. The students are then tasked to find another example of this misbehavior, and then write about it for their classroom assignment.


    Or at least that is how I read it. No matter, because I am only interested in what they say about FP's. Overall, fairly accurate as to how that whole nasty episode played out with the science, but when it comes to interpreting FP's actions, I think they miss the mark. Had they factored into the timeline, the political firestorm that quickly (within weeks) engulfed FP's, I think they would have concluded many of the actions they attribute to misbehavior, would be better explained by the pressure they were under from their colleagues, the media, and also the the Univ of Utah.


    Too bad they did not get that extra 18 months they wanted for extra experiments, before this broke. Unfortunately they did not, things got out of their control, and a lot of bad decisions followed.

  • The EAR #0624436 grant for the science education website started 2006

    https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0624436


    Start DateJune 1, 2006
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    End Date: May 31, 2011 (Estimated)
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    Awarded Amount to Date: $521,943.00

    Twenty-seven teachers from the Pikes Peak region of Colorado took part in a 2-semester-long evaluation study of the Understanding Science (US) project tools and approaches in the 2009–2010 school year. Of the original 27 teachers who volunteered to take part in the evaluation study (18 middle and 9 high school), 25 completed two-thirds of the required evaluation benchmarks, while 23 teachers completed all of the requirements. Teachers used the US materials with 1,287 students (804 middle school and 483 high school). "

    I suspect that the cold fusion pages followed the evolution pages after 2010 ...perhaps around 2012


    Tney may need an update .to their simplified narrative

    ... perhaps they have some of that $521,943.00 left over?

    The narrative is being rewritten in the laboratory now..but older educationalists are uncomfortable with unfossilised narratives.

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