Ed Storms Pre-print on Cold Fusion, Materials and Gaps. Comments Please!

    Thanks for the support, Shane. Being the old guard has very few advantages in this field because the subject has become the Rorschach test of science. Everyone views it in their own image. Also, science has been taken over by the precision of math as applied by physics. Chemistry is based on a more intuitive kind of understanding. The understanding of LENR has to start as a chemical process.


    In chemistry, we look for relationships rather than mathematical precision and certainity. The understanding of LENR is still at the intuitive level. We do not yet have the precision demanded by physics. If we were hunting for gold, we would be still exploring the landscape while looking for nuggets. We need to use the nuggets and their location to determine where to dig. Demanding that nothing can be believed without the gold being actually in hand does no good. We now have many nuggets. We have to use them to determine where to dig.


    Also, the process has four separate but related events.


    First, the atoms have to assemble. The discussion is still at this stage.
    Second, the Coulomb barrier has to be overcome. This is where the discussion will get difficult.

    Third, the fusion process has to occur. This process is expected to produce unexpected products.

    And finally, the energy has to be dissipated. This will be a difficult part of the discussion even though many observations are available as a guide.


    Each part of this process is unique and not like any other nuclear process. This means each stage has to be discussed and understood separately, with progress being limited by how fast agreement about each stage can be achieved. Only then can the other secondary nuclear processes be understood.


    I'm hoping this discussion will result in a useful guide for future researchers even though it will be largely ignored at the present time.


    Quote from Shane D.

    After all these years going back to the ECN's days you still don't get it. Even after being told repeatedly by the likes of Storms, Rothwell, and others that they know what they are doing, you continue on as if they are novices who need to be walked through the scientific method.

    I'm not telling them to do anything. If you think my replies here are not respecting Ed Storms then may I suggest you are seriously misunderstanding the word respect. Respect is not the same as agreement, it is about listening to what people say and trying to understand it, whilst not making assumptions or generalisations.


    They (in this case Ed and Jed) can, and do, and should, make their own judgements.


    I'm interested in making my judgements, which may or may not be different. And there is no disagreement or even discussion here about scientific method, it is about what specific comments mean. (I guess I laid into Jed a bit - as I should - and have every right to do - when he made an unwise sweeping statement about scientific theory). Should I defer to Jed on this because he is old guard? (I don't think he is by the way!). I also am sure that abstract arguments about theory will not be of interest to Jed - but they are to me, and may be so to some others here. I am on very strong ground when I assert that science is always a combination of theory and experiment - each not possible without the other.


    No-one on this thread is required to be interested in my views. Why should they be? You will see that whenever Ed wishes to move on I agree - merely putting on the record my reservations when he asks me to accept things which are if viewed precisely from my POV clearly false. I fully accept that Ed may be using terminology different from me that I do not understand - I guess my most relevant background here is solid state physics not chemistry or material science and there must be a fair difference! But you can be pretty sure that if I don't understand there will be some others with similar problems. Ed does not have to agree with my reservations. I don't insist that others agree with me about what is incorrect, but if I did not qualify what I am being asked to accept as obviously true then I am on record here as agreeing it is that, which would be me being dishonest. Shane, you know me well enough to see I could not do that whatever the inducement.


    You seem to think that I should bow down to people as experts and accept everything they say. Why? That is not how science works. Nor is it what the LENR research community does in its holding a minority view on many matters. In this thread I am merely critiquing what is said here - as I have as much right as anyone to do. When phenomena are not understood and have stayed not understood for a long time the utility of expertise - having looked at things for that long time and got fixed views - is less. So although they are of course more knowledgeable then me, and will often be in a position to correct me, it does not mean it would be wise for me to defer to them.


    No-one requires scientists to be interested in what others say - and I agree with you - I think it unlikely they will be interested in what I say - they will have heard it all before. Although it is not impossible I might say something that had not heard before that was of interest - you never know. I listen to what others say with more respect than most and therefore am more likely to say helpful things than somone who does not do that.


    My contribution to this thread can also be useful because not everyone reading it is old guard with the same well-rehearsed assumptions and certainties. Making explicit what those are will help other newcomers to understand their views.


    As a moderator - you are absolutely free to ban me from the thread or site.

    Why do you continue to replay to hux. I can't believe you have yet to figure out his motive. In my opinion hux is only here to play phycological games with you and the experimenters by introducing doubt so the people in the cheap seats begin to ask the same questions. The exact same concerns answered over and over again going back years. Artifact,foam and leaky reactors. Don't play his game anymore and he will go away. Now please get back to talking micro cracks and active lenr enviroments

    THH, you need to stop thinking in terms of electrolysis. LENR does not need electrolysis to occur. Electrolysis is ONLY a method to apply the hydrogen isotopes at high chemical activity. While the method has some unique behaviors, none of them are unique in causing LENR. We need only to understand how two or more D can leave locations where fusion cannot happen and assemble at locations where fusion can happen. This is a very simple requirement. This involves a chemical process that must be consistent with the rules of chemistry and with the energy conditions present in a crystal structure. Because we can not "see" where the atoms assemble, we must use logic to discover a location that is consistent with all observed behavior. That is what my paper has attempted to do.


    I explain why vacancies and dislocations are not the locations in my book "The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction" (page 160), so I will not waste time here. Let's go on to discuss the Coulomb Barrier.

    By the way, I welcome the comments made by THH. I agree, with his approach. The discussion has to address the issues most people will raise. As he says, I'm free to ignore the comments that do not move the discussion forward. I realize that I live in a bubble. I'm trying to see the world outside the bubble. You all are making this possible.

    Quote from Shane D.

    ... give the old timers the respect they deserve.

    TTH is being respectful. He listens and then gives his own views. This is respect.


    What you can't know, Shane, because of your background, is that many of TTH's posts sound just like the sort off thing one gets back from referees in peer reviews of submitted manuscripts. Such reviews are closely attentive, precise, usually well written, sometimes pointing at general flaws and sometimes at teensy particular ones ... but always direct. It is how the academic world works. The process is sometimes painful but can also be unexpectedly productive. The point is that someone smart is listening closely and replying as best they can. And that is what TTH is doing.


    .

    Quote from JedRothwell

    That is utterly incorrect. Until 1952, genetics has no theoretical basis. It was entirely predicated on observations and statistics. The nascent theories -- that the genome is stored in proteins -- turned out be incorrect. Yet genetics was a highly developed science. It was very useful. See, for example, Castle, W.E., Genetics and Eugenics (1921).

    Jed, it seems to me sometimes you live in a different world from me. So i don't expect you to be interested in what I say below, but others might be...


    Genetics pre-1952 had a well-developed theoretical basis - the concept of the gene. That (as the slightly ambiguous but nevertheless formalised "unit of inheritance") dates back to Gregor Mendel.


    Gregor's work qualifies as theoretical science because:

    • It was based on empirical data about the real world which could be replicated
    • It resulted in a theory, which accurately predicted existing data and generalised to predicting completely new data as well
    • And anyway everyone else calls his work a theory - although he was also a supremely good experimentalist he would not have been able to do his work without an interest in forming and testing theoretical hypotheses.

    We certainly now have a completely different and better understanding of what genes are and how they operate than we had pre-1952. And, the theories of all that means that the science of genetics is now underpinned by molecular biology, and enormous amounts of data from DNA sequencing, and much stronger.


    Saying that Gregor's work and what went after it is not theoretical is like saying that atomistic models of chemistry are not theoretical just because they are not as accurate or complete as full QM models. Or that the Galilean model of celestial mechanics was not theoretical because it incorrectly described planets as having circular orbits. Kepler's theory was much, much stronger in its economical explanation of the evidence, and it led to a deeper theory (Newton). However an incomplete partial theory is still a theory, and still useful.

    Quote from Storms

    THH, you need to stop thinking in terms of electrolysis. LENR does not need electrolysis to occur. Electrolysis is ONLY a method to apply the hydrogen isotopes at high chemical activity. While the method has some unique behaviors, none of them are unique in causing LENR. We need only to understand how two or more D can leave locations where fusion cannot happen and assemble at locations where fusion can happen. This is a very simple requirement. This involves a chemical process that must be consistent with the rules of chemistry and with the energy conditions present in a crystal structure. Because we can not "see" where the atoms assemble, we must use logic to discover a location that is consistent with all observed behavior. That is what my paper has attempted to do.


    I explain why vacancies and dislocations are not the locations in my book "The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction" (page 160), so I will not waste time here. Let's go on to discuss the Coulomb Barrier.

    I apologise that this thread is getting a bit derailed. Thanks for the reference (is it online :) ?). I am happy to move on.

    Quote from Bruce__H

    TTH is being respectful. He listens and then gives his own views. This is respect.

    Yes, THH is respectful to everyone, and always has been. Best skeptic LENR has probably ever had because of that, and his background. His contribution to this thread has made it popular. A popular thread attracts the attention of those who really need to hear what Storms has to say, and also those in need of understanding what THH has to add.


    So there is a certain synergy taking place that is beneficial to both. Storms has his audience of new researchers to pass on his knowledge, and THH...being the teacher he is, has his students to teach. I meant no disrespect for THH.


    Now carry on everyone. Ed has a 4 step discovery process that he is taking you through. I find this whole thing very interesting. It is what this forum is all about.

    Quote from Storms

    First, the atoms have to assemble. The discussion is still at this stage.
    Second, the Coulomb barrier has to be overcome. This is where the discussion will get difficult.

    Third, the fusion process has to occur. This process is expected to produce unexpected products.

    And finally, the energy has to be dissipated. This will be a difficult part of the discussion even though many observations are available as a guide.

    And to help the moving on.


    This is a very fair description of what is needed. I'd just add FYI that for me (and I think Hagelstein is on record as having this view) no. 4 is the most difficult of these steps (more so than 2 - although that is also challenging).

    THH, sorry my book is not online. It can be purchased for a small fee from Amazon or Infinite Energy.


    Let's discuss the Coulomb barrier. I will assume that you agree that such a barrier exists and it must be overcome for any nuclear process to happen. The barrier involves a force. Therefore, energy must be expended to counter the force. Hot fusion uses kinetic energy to do the job. Kinetic energy is not available in a chemical system at modest temperatures. Therefore, a different mechanism must be used.


    The Barrier also involves a charge, in this case, a positive charge. We know from experience that a positive change can be neutralized by an equal negative charge. This happens all the time in chemical molecules. When electrons assemble in a molecule or to form a crystal, they occupy certain well-defined energy states with respect to the positive charge. These states are imagined as orbits of electrons surrounding the positive charge such as planets around the Sun. This visual distorts what is actually happening. In fact, the electrons interact with each other as well as with the positive change. The electron interaction process is critical to understanding how the Coulomb barrier can be "neutralized".


    When electrons assemble to form atoms, they cause nuclei to become separated, with the electron cloud occupying the space between the nuclei. In the case of LENR, the electron cloud must bring the nuclei closer together. This would require a different kind of electron interaction. The need for this new kind of interaction is one of the important consequences resulting from this discovery. This is where the Nobel Prize is located.


    I suggest this kind of interaction causes the formation of the EVO (Shoulders) and Ball lightning (Lewis). I suggest it occurs in ordinary materials but is revealed only when it initiates a nuclear process. This can only happen when isotopes of hydrogen are present at the same location. So, we are required to have an act of faith. We must assume that electrons can interact in a previously unknown way. A detailed understanding is not possible or necessary at this time. We only need to explore the general requirements.


    In order for fusion to occur, the nuclear energy states of the two nuclei must get close enough to interact. Said another way, the strong force must interact. This means the electrons must also get close enough to interact with the nuclear energy states. Randy Mills and Andrew Meulenberg have suggested theories based on how one electron might achieve this close interaction. However, I do not believe their theories go far enough. I suggest the process must involve many additional electrons that achieve the required energy through their interaction with each other.


    I will stop here to see where the confusion lies before going on. Some references are below, many of which can be found as full text at http://www.LENR.org.

    Ed



    [1] K. Shoulders, S. Shoulders, Observations on the Role of Charge Clusters in Nuclear Cluster Reactions, J. New Energy 1 (1996) 111-21.


    [2] K. Shoulders, J. Sarfatti, SUPERLUMINAL PARTICLE MEASUREMENTS,


    [3] K. Shoulders, Detecting Fundamental Wave Action in Elementary Particles by Using an EVO, 2010.


    [4] K. Shoulders, An EVO scope for electrolysis projectile measurement, 2009.


    [5] K. Shoulders, Transmission of EVOs Through Metal, 2006.


    [6] K. Shoulders, EV, A Tale of Discovery, www.LENR.org, 1987.


    [7] M. Rambaut, Electrons clusters and magnetic monopoles, in: J.-P. Biberian (Ed) 11th International Conference on Cold Fusion, World Scientific Co., Marseilles, France, 2004, pp. 798-805.


    [8] G. Mesyats, Ectons and their Role in Electrical Discharges in Vacuum and Gases, HAL jpa-00255563 (1997) 93-112.


    [9] T. Matsumoto, Cold fusion like phenomena in natural fields., in: X.Z. Li (Ed) The 9th International Conference on Cold Fusion, Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, Tsinghua Univ. Press, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing, China, 2002, pp. 233.


    [10] M.B. King, Charge clusters: The basis of zero-point energy inventions, J. New Energy 2 (1997) 18.


    [11] S.-X. Jin, H. Fox, Characteristics of high-density charge clusters: A theoretical model, J. New Energy 1 (1996) 5-20.


    [12] G.K. Hubler, A Possible Heuristic Explanation of Exotic Vacuum Objects (EVO’s, Charge Clusters), JCMNS 36 (2022) 30-7.


    [13] A.I. Goncharov, V.A. Kirkinskii, Research Article Formation of Hydrogen Miniatoms in the Medium of Free Electrons–the Key to the Mechanism of Low-energy Nuclear Reactions, JCMNS 36 (2022) 203-9.


    [14] J. Garai, The electronic structures of the atoms, Phys. Essays 30 (2017) 455-60.


    [15] H. Fox, J.S. X., Low-energy nuclear reactions and high-density charge clusters, Infinite Energy 4 (1998) 26-30.


    [16] H. Fox, S.X. Jin, Low-energy nuclear reactions and high-density charge clusters, J. New Energy 3 (1998) 56.


    [17] H. Fox, Charge clusters in operation, Infinite Energy 2 (1997) 62.


    [18] J.R. Roth, Ball lightning: What nature is trying to tell the plasma research community, Fusion Technol. 27 (1995) 255-70.


    [19] T. Matsumoto, Artificial ball-lightning. Photographs of cold fusion, 1995.


    [20] E. Lewis, The ball lightning state In cold fusion, in: P.L. Hagelstein, S.R. Chubb (Eds), Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion, World Scientific Publishing Co., Cambridge, MA, 2003, pp. 973-81.


    [21] A. Klimov , A. Grigorenko, A. Efimov, N. Evstigneev, O. Ryabkov, M. Sidorenko, A. Soloviev, B. Tolkunov, High-energetic Nano-cluster Plasmoid and its Soft X-ray Radiation, JCMNS 19 (2016) 145-54.


    [22] J.R. Dwyer, D.M. Smith, S.A. Cummer, High-Energy Atmospheric Physics: Terrestrial Gamma-Ray Flashes and Related Phenomena, Space Sci. Rev. (2012).


    [23] W.J. Broad, New class of lightning found high above clouds, N.Y. Times, New York, 1995, pp. 9.







    I

    Quote from Shane D.

    and THH...being the teacher he is, has his students to teach. I meant no disrespect for THH

    No offence taken: true teaching is indeed a noble and exciting calling. As a matter of accuracy, I'd point out the my interest in research is accompanied by a small number of peer-reviewed publications in decent journals, so although I claim no specific expertise I am qualified (as are many others here) to opine about the nature of science.


    THH

    Quote from orsova

    Storms  Alan Smith


    Ed,


    Please find attached some notes on the paper. I am far from qualified to make substantive comments about your theory, however, I think I have a decent grasp of language, and hopefully something of what I've suggested is of use.

    Thanks for these suggestions. Eventually, I will create a better version based on your and comments here.


    By the way, this paper is not intended as a review of the literature. I'm only trying to show that gaps, as the location of LENR, are consistent with all reported behavior, with the references added only to allow the reader to obtain more information. A review would have to go into much more detail. In addition, I have not provided all of the papers describing the various methods. That would require a much longer paper with a lesser chance of being accepted for publication.

    Quote from Storms

    The Barrier also involves a charge, in this case, a positive charge. We know from experience that a positive change can be neutralized by an equal negative charge. This happens all the time in chemical molecules. When electrons assemble in a molecule or to form a crystal, they occupy certain well-defined energy states with respect to the positive charge. These states are imagined as orbits of electrons surrounding the positive charge such as planets around the Sun. This visual distorts what is actually happening. In fact, the electrons interact with each other as well as with the positive change. The electron interaction process is critical to understanding how the Coulomb barrier can be "neutralized".


    When electrons assemble to form atoms, they cause nuclei to become separated, with the electron cloud occupying the space between the nuclei. In the case of LENR, the electron cloud must bring the nuclei closer together. This would require a different kind of electron interaction. The need for this new kind of interaction is one of the important consequences resulting from this discovery. This is where the Nobel Prize is located.


    I suggest this kind of interaction causes the formation of the EVO (Shoulders) and Ball lightning (Lewis). I suggest it occurs in ordinary materials but is revealed only when it initiates a nuclear process. This can only happen when isotopes of hydrogen are present at the same location. So, we are required to have an act of faith. We must assume that electrons can interact in a previously unknown way. A detailed understanding is not possible or necessary at this time. We only need to explore the general requirements.

    I can see that this is one route to dealing with the coulomb barrier, and welcome hearing more details. I'd make two observations.


    (1) There is another route, possible without requiring new and indeed Nobel prize worthy electron interactions, for dealing with the CB.

    (2) QED is a very precise and experimentally well verified (complete) theory of electronic interaction. That means any additional electron interactions must change electron behaviour - as observed by all those 1000s of observations that align with QED, in a manner that makes the same predictions as QED. That is a strong constraint.


    To expand on (2) - one might hypothesise some electron interaction that only occurred within (or close to) a nucleus. Since any computational theory of nuclei requires quarks and gluons, and the relevant simulations are for computational reasons not strongly predictive, there is maybe room for an additional interaction that changes nuclear behaviour. But if it is mediated by electrons then it will affect them, as well as the nucleus, and that effect must be invisible as far as all those very precise electron measurements go. In physics there are strong reasons (conservation laws) to think that all interactions are two-way. So that remains a very strong constraint of the "here be sea-serpents" variety. To use a nautical analogy.

    Quote from Fm1

    Why do you continue to replay to hux. I can't believe you have yet to figure out his motive.

    I am not really talking to him. I am rehearsing presentations for other audiences. Plus there may be readers here unfamiliar with the topics I discuss.



    . . . I have been reading a lot about genetics from before 1952. I find it interesting to see what people knew, and what they did not know. This should tell us how to proceed with incomplete knowledge of cold fusion, and a dearth of theory. Or theory that is flat out wrong, such as the genome being in protein instead of acid.


    I am interested partly because I grew up with this. My mother went to ag school in 1939 and had a degree in plant genetics and statistics. We had textbooks like this lying around. She knew the names of the plants in the woods, and what kinds of fertilizer to use with different crops. Of course she knew about DNA, but mostly she knew about dominant or regressive genes and so on, all pre-1952 knowledge.


    There is an interesting cycle of simplification followed by complexity, and then simplification again. Like F&P's paper, "Calorimetry of the Pd-D2O System: from Simplicity via Complications to Simplicity."


    People knew a lot about chromosomes. They knew that some genes were one chromosome, and others on another. They built up a complex structure of knowledge and rules. All of them correct, and still in use. The discovery of DNA explained how all of this worked at a deeper level. It was a grand simplification. But it did not nullify any previous knowledge; it only explained it. In the 1960s, Crick established what is known as the Standard Dogma explaining how DNA works. Another grand simplification. It wasn't simple for long. DNA studies became more and more complex. I think the Standard Dogma predicted that retroviruses cannot exist. It had to be tweaked, I think. This is reminiscent of how jet engines first simplified aircraft and them made them more complex decades later.



    Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:

    God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.


    - Alexander Pope


    It did not last: the Devil howling “Ho! Let Einstein be!”, restored the status quo.


    - J. C. Squire

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Gregor's work qualifies as theoretical science because:

    It was based on empirical data about the real world which could be replicated
    It resulted in a theory, which accurately predicted existing data and generalised to predicting completely new data as well

    Well, if Gregor's work is a theory, then so is McKubre's equation for cold fusion. So, we have a theory after all! I don't know anyone who disputes McKubre, except to say it is limited to the bulk-Pd electrochemical method. Which is like saying Gregor's work applies directly to plants, not so much to other species. You have to interpolate for bacteria. No sex.


    I would call Gregor's work a model. He established "laws" rather than theory. A "law" meaning something with no underlying explanation, such as Ohm's law (when it was introduced), or Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Kepler's laws had no underlying, broader theoretical explanation until Newton. Newton's laws made Kepler's a subset. A special case for elliptical orbits.


    A scientific "law" sounds important, as if it should trump a mere theory. Most laws are important, but in a sense they are weaker, because they have no deeper explanation. Ohm's law says things work that way because they do. No one knew why back when it was established. Actually, scientists being the way they are, most of them did not believe it, and they attacked and ridiculed Ohm. Some things never change.

    Yes, QED is the conventional explanation. However, it is based on a single kind of electron interaction, i.e. the planet-Sun model. Mills has proposed a different model that has better predictive power. His model is rejected by conventional science for the same reason LENR is rejected.


    Cold fusion has revealed that something is missing from present understanding. The problem is very simple. When hand waving is avoided, LENR is impossible based on the present understanding. The only question is "What is missing"? I prefer to take the most direct and least complex path to this answer. Therefore, I prefer to focus on electron interaction as the source of the required energy. After all, this is the source of all chemical energy. We only need to understand a new kind of interaction to explain LENR.


    As for the energy dissipation part, I believe Hagelstein's explanation is wrong. The correct explanation would logically follow from the mechanism that overcomes the Coulomb barrier. But, that discussion must wait its turn.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    People knew a lot about chromosomes. They knew that some genes were one chromosome, and others on another. They built up a complex structure of knowledge and rules. All of them correct, and still in use.

    Some of the rules (like dominant and recessive genetic inheritance) were beautifully simple.


    That looks to me like a theory? And genetics would have been in a poor state pre-1952 without the various post-Mendelian theories that informed it.



    Quote from JedRothwell

    I would call Gregor's work a model. He established "laws" rather than theory. A "law" meaning something with no underlying explanation, such as Ohm's law (when it was introduced), or Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Kepler's laws had no underlying, broader theoretical explanation until Newton. Newton's laws made Kepler's a subset. A special case for elliptical orbits.

    So: often scientific theories will make way to deeper theories that explain things in more fundamental terms:


    Kepler -> Newton -> Einstein -> (? quantum spacetime ? quantum loop gravity?) (to take one example).


    Or


    Protons and neutrons as phenomenological particles -> standard model and QCD with protons + neutrons as composite particles made out of quarks and gluons -> ??


    That does not make the less fundamental theories less historically important, or less real theories.


    Newton, as you say, generalised Kepler's theory to construct Newtonian gravity. The point is that each step in understanding enables the next one and we can never know when we have reached the end Scientists don't see our current best theory - the standard model - as being fundamental - although no-one can prove there will ever be anything better until something better (which will have standard model as a special or approximate case) emerges.


    Therefore you cannot consistently say that only a "true" fundamental model is a theory - and everything else is just experiment - because you never know when the rules you have are fundamental.


    Kepler's Laws - although not fundamental - made testable predictions of things not previously so accurately predicted.


    My point: science requires experiment and theory.

    THH tells us that Gregor Mendel established a theory. Not laws or rules or thumb, but a theory, which is a step above what cold fusion researchers have done. It is somehow more believable than, say, 10E16 atoms of tritium measured by the Reactor Safety experts at BARC. For reasons known only to THH. Okay! Let's have a look at Mendelian theory as it stood in 1920. Quoting Castle, p. 154:



    Unit-Characters of Insects


    THE so-called ''silkworm'' is the larva of an Asiatic moth which feeds principally on the leaves of the mulberry tree.

    The ''worms'' when full grown spin a silken cocoon (which furnishes the silk of commerce) within which they complete their metamorphosis into the moth stage. As moths they mate and the females lay eggs. In some races there is only one generation a year, the eggs laid one summer hatching the next spring. These are said to be univoltine, having one flight or mating period annually. In other races there are two or more broods a year depending on temperature conditions. These are said to be bivoltine or multivoltine. In crosses between bivoltine and multivoltine races the eggs laid have the character of the mother's race, being purely ma­ternal structures. Thus, eggs laid by a univoltine mother refuse to hatch before the following season, whatever the racial character of the male that fertilized the eggs. And eggs laid by a bivoltine mother are regularly bivoltine regard­less ol the father's racial character. But the females which hatch from cross-bred eggs are really heterozygous as regards voltinism. Their eggs show the dominant (univoltine) char­acter but their daughters, the F2 females, are some univol­tine, others bivoltine, in the ratio, 3:1.


    Races of silkmoths differ by numerous characters, many of which are Mendelian. Toyama has enumerated more than a dozen such Mendelizing characters found in the larva alone. . . .



    Does this sound like theory-based science? To me, that sounds like a pile of disparate observations confirmed by replication and statistics. This is in contrast to evolution. Evolution was a theory because you could test it, and if you found "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian" you knew it was wrong. Whereas if you found Toyama was wrong about one his characters in the larva, that would not invalidate genetics. It just meant he was wrong. Castle says "many of the characters are Mendelian." Not all. Some came about because of some other mechanism or aspect of biology. Whereas every single aspect of biology follows evolutionary theory, or evolution is wrong. Mendel's laws seem more like rules of thumb. More to the point, no one knew what fundamental principles underlaid Mendelian laws. Whereas everyone knew what caused evolution a week after Darwin published.


    This paragraph looks like cold fusion to me. Rather than, say, semiconductor science, or combustion engineering. Genetics in 1920 was pre-theory stage empirical science. So is cold fusion.


    That does not mean cold fusion is vague, unproven, or somehow less believable than post-theory semiconductor science. On the contrary, right from the introduction it has been one of the clearest and most convincing results in the history of experimental science. Just as everyone should have understood what causes evolution a week after Darwin published, everyone should have known what caused cold fusion the first time they read F&P's 1989 paper. You could be sure that -- assuming the results were not in error, and they were replicated -- this was a nuclear reaction. Because:


    "Enthalpy generation can exceed 10 W cm^-3 of the palladium electrode; this is maintained for experiment times in excess of 120 h, during which typically heat in excess of 4 MJ cm^-3 of electrode volume was liberated. It is inconceivable that this could be due to anything but nuclear processes."

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Some of the rules (like dominant and recessive genetic inheritance) were beautifully simple.


    That looks to me like a theory?

    Nope. A law. A theory has a unifying, underlying principle to it, such as evolution being caused by natural selection. Whereas before 1952, people knew there were dominant and recessive genes, and they even knew which chromosome the genes were located on, but they had no deeper knowledge of what the genes were physically, or what caused a gene to be dominant or recessive.


    That is not to say their knowledge was incomplete or useless.


    The Wright brothers had no idea what caused wing lift. They measured it six ways from seven with their wind tunnel, to 3 significant digits. They characterized it. They included it in complex equations that allowed them to predict the performance of their propeller to within a few percent. But they had no knowledge of the fluid dynamics that cause lift. That was not discovered until the 1920s. Plus, they were doing engineering science, where you measure things and plug in the numbers, and you don't care about the physics.

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