Respectfully disagree. Skeptics potentially weed out scum like Rossi. If Tom Darden had enlisted skeptics to recommend ways to test Rossi's claims properly before he was given $11+ million, that money would most likely still be available for legitimate research like that performed by Drs. McKubre and Storms and others. Instead, it has gone to pay for a crook's condominium investments, as proven by property records.
It does not take a skeptic to weed out bad data or lairs. Any good scientist, especially one who knows something about LENR and how it is known to behave would have done a good job of advising IH. What is worse, the skeptic tends to overlook supporting information while focusing on the claim not being real. For example, the initial Rossi tests clearly showed excess power. But then he did a bait and switch by changing the material and the way it was treated. No one seemed to notice. Then he lied big time. The people who ran Defkalion, who tried to rip off Rossi, also lied. Being a skeptic was not required to know this. But people were so intent on proving the skeptics wrong, they were willing to overlook the obvious flaws in the claims. The skeptics did nothing useful. In fact, the skeptics have been nothing but a distraction to advancing our understanding of LENR. I expect being called a skeptic of LENR will eventually be used as a form of insult, like being called a flatearther or a global-warming-denier.
