3) The Loch Ness photographs, or many bad results do not a good result make
Like positive cold fusion claims, there are thousands of photographs that are claimed to be of the Loch Ness monster, and hundreds of thousands of claimed alien sightings. Admittedly, they are not often published in scientific journals, but the phenomenon is the same; the difference is that cold fusion is more obscure or sophisticated and therefore not as easy to dismiss by scientists -- except in the major nuclear physics journals, which do not publish cold fusion results.
The idea that many marginal results represent stronger evidence than a few marginal results is typical of pathological science, and is expressed frequently by advocates like Rothwell or Krivit. It just doesn't seem likely to advocates that so many scientists could be wrong. But when the results are as weak as cold fusion results, in fact it *is* likely. What is not likely is that so many photographs, from so many angles, with so many different cameras, could *all* be blurry. The only reasonable explanation is that when the pictures are clear, it becomes obvious that the image is something other than a monster. Of course the clear photos don't dissuade the believers; they just mean the monster ducked under water at the right moment, and those photos are not shown.
4) argument from authority
The argument that there are a great many claims of cold fusion by scientists is really an argument from authority, which is fine, except that it ignores most of the authority. Advocates find it hard to believe that so many scientists can be wrong, but the alternative is that a great many more scientists (i.e. mainstream science) are wrong. In fact, isn't the bread and butter of the advocates' argument for cold fusion that a large number of scientists *can* be wrong, and have been wrong in the past? What do you think makes the cold fusion scientists immune?
It's true that most scientists are not even aware of research in cold fusion after the early 90s, but everyone was aware of it back in the day, and for recent work, we have valid samples. First, the two DOE panels were nearly unanimous in judging that nuclear effects were not proven. Second, the failure of LENR researchers to get published in major journals means that referees are rejecting the work. Recently, the entire proceedings of a cold fusion conference was rejected by the ACS. And similarly, most funding agencies that use peer review do not fund cold fusion research. So, most scientists who look at the work, do not agree that cold fusion is real.
There are not very many new recruits to cold fusion, suggesting the the growing body of evidence is not persuading many scientists, even though it appears to persuade internet forum commenters quite easily. There is Duncan as an example of a scientist who examined the work and allows the possibility of fusion, as the exception to prove the rule.
But there are also scientists associated with positive claims who have moved on to other fields, which would be inexplicable if they believed in a phenomenon with such potential for good. I don't know of any that admit disbelief in cold fusion, but I suspect they feel that it will never be *proven* wrong, so they will never have to admit gullibility. Scientists who have moved on include Fritz G Will, director of the National Cold Fusion Inst. in Utah, who went on to study conventional battery technology; D Gozzi, who did some of the most careful work on helium and x-rays and concluded in a 1998 refereed paper that the production of helium was not definitive; and Pons himself, who would undoubtedly still advocate for cold fusion, but inexplicably disappeared from the scene when the lab in France closed down, at what is often a productive age for scientists.
Of course, the argument against the mainstream's rejection of cold fusion is that it's a big conspiracy to suppress cold fusion to preserve the status quo or their grant funding or their peace of mind. Leaving aside the fact that this would almost certainly be impossible if the effect were real, the advocates can't have it both ways. If they are going to distrust the authorities because they are selfish, then why should we trust the cold fusion authorities? They may be selfish too, hoping to secure their own funding, fame, glory or what have you.
5) Show me your best results
Finally, if the best results are analyzed and found wanting, then any lesser results are wanting even more, and it shouldn't matter how many there are. The claim of cold fusion, to be taken seriously, needs at least one result that is unequivocal. Surely, if there are so many, one of them should be unimpeachable.
So, the question is: what are the best results? Most people tend to be evasive when this question is asked, preferring to refer to the totality of the work. Jed Rothwell said several times than Rossi's are the best results in cold fusion, making the whole field vulnerable in the event Rossi flames out… to the extent that Rothwell is taken seriously in the field.
In 2009, the newsmagazine 60 minutes featured the results of Dardik et al. at Energetics. Those results were not even published under peer-review, and if you look at the conference proceedings, it's not hard to see why. The results were all over the map -- no two experiments give the same results -- and yet they claim 70% reproducibility. The experiments have electrical input with superpositions of waves, and acoustic input, so from the conference proceedings, it's hard to figure out what they did, but based on the claims, it's not hard to think of ways to make it more convincing. For example, they claim heat without input for several days from a tiny Pd foil. If that were true, why wouldn't they put the foil in an isolated thermos, and watch the temperature climb?
For heat-helium correlation experiments, you have to go to the mid-nineties for the last peer-reviewed results, and those were crude and preliminary. It's a good experiment, but no one seems to have been able to publish results since. McKubre's results weren't published, and it's not clear he can be trusted anyway after his results were eviscerated by Krivit.
In the Ni-H area, I think most people regard the Piantelli results among the best, but they are largely anecdotal, and used questionable calorimetry that was challenged experimentally by CERN, and have only a few publications in an Italian journal.
And so on. I haven't read every cold fusion paper ever written, but I've read the ones people cite as the best, and none are high quality and fully forthcoming. And it's not just my opinion. That's the opinion of the DOE panels, and even of Nagel -- an advocate -- who expressed it in his scientific review of ICCF2009.
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That was written in 2012 (I made a few edits), but things have not changed appreciably since. Energetics has morphed into SKINR, but still haven't published. Marwan, who was very active in the ACS symposia series seems to have disappeared from the scene. MFMP was born to identify proof of LENR (conceding it's absence at present), but is struggling to get a positive result. Rothwell no longer thinks Rossi has proved his case, and his favorite paper has fallen back to the McKubre 1994 paper, just emphasizing the total lack of progress in the field. And the publication rate remains a tiny trickle, many times smaller than even the late 90s. What will happen when attrition takes the remaining credentialed academics from the field?