Posts by Louis Reed

Quote from JedRothwell

Louis Reed wrote: You haven't cited any specific examples

If you do not believe Schwinger and Fleischmann, I do not think you will believe any of the others.

You haven't quoted either Schwinger or Fleischmann in the 5 weeks after the press conference.

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In any case, you can find them yourself easily enough. I do not need to spoon-feed you this information.

I knew this was coming. This spoon-feeding line is your last refuge when you can't back up what you say. But I do need to be spoon-fed, because I've looked, and the quotations from Fleischmann on March 23 that I found demonstrate confidence, not certainty that his work would be dismissed. And I suspect you'd like nothing better than to spoon-feed me, if only you had something to feed.

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Louis Reed wrote: Finally, Schwinger's first paper was submitted in August 1989, well after the honeymoon period I'm talking about.

Are you suggesting that Schwinger should have written a paper during this imaginary "Honeymoon" period?

No. How do you get that from what I wrote?? I'm saying that the reception his papers got in August say nothing about the reception cold fusion got in the first 5 weeks after the press conference.

Quote from JedRothwell

I met him [Fleischmann] many times, and worked with him for years. I have many letters from him, and I just uploaded 470 pages of them.

I know all that. But the question is *when*. We're talking about his confidence on March 23.

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So, what are you going to believe? A press release written by someone at the university who never heard of cold fusion until a few days earlier, or dozens of comments in writing by Fleischmann himself? Which do you consider a more reliable source of information?

I do not believe the university press release would misquote Fleischmann, and I do not think the video of the news conference on-line has been faked. I transcribed the part I quoted yesterday. In any case, you haven't shown me any of his writings that contradict what I quoted.

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Louis Reed wrote [quoting Fleischmann]: "It does seem that there is here a possibility of realizing sustained fusion with a relatively inexpensive device, which could be brought to some sort of successful conclusion fairly early on."

Definitely true. Especially compared to plasma fusion. They have been working on that for 60 years, and spending billions, without much progress. If cold fusion had gotten 1% that money, it might have succeeded by now.

But he said "fairly early on" without qualifications. The experiment is at least 10,000 smaller in scale, so why would they need 1% of the money. Fleischmann talked about a few million and got tens of millions in France, and according to Storms about $500M had been spent on cold fusion research by 2012, which is not that far from 1% of what has been spent on hot fusion. It seems like about 100 times more than should be needed to get proof-of-principle accepted by the mainstream.

Quote from JedRothwell

Instinctive or political, there was tremendous opposition from the first day. Any cold fusion researcher can give you example after example of the opposition he or she met, right from the start. If you have not seen this, it is because you refuse to look. I have uploaded many examples.

You haven't cited any specific examples, let alone any evidence that such opposition went beyond isolated cases. You haven't cited an account of those weeks that suggest scientists interested in trying cold fusion in general faced opposition. The 7000 cheering scientists, the frantic and excited activity described by Storms and others indicates the opposite is the case.

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Why do you think Schwinger quit the APS and said this would be the death of science? Are you really willing to second guess him, or to tell us that he was delusional and no one was actually rejecting his manuscripts or attacking him?

Yes, I'm prepared to suggest he was delusional. It's certainly easier to believe that one bitter scientist is delusional, whose particular flavor of QM had been superseded by Feynman's, and who hadn't really made a significant contribution to science for some time, than to consider a much longer list of Nobel laureates including Gell-Mann, Glashow, Weinberg, Lederman, Seaborg, Mather, Riess, and Schmidt delusional, not to mention prominent scientists who studied it closely and wrote extensively about it like Close, Huizenga, Morrison and Park.

Lots of manuscripts get rejected. Rejection alone does not indicate unfair rejection. Anyway, I submit science did not die as a result of cold fusion's treatment.

Finally, Schwinger's first paper was submitted in August 1989, well after the honeymoon period I'm talking about.

Quote from JedRothwell

Louis Reed wrote: My purpose was not to resolve the issue, which has no value 30 years later.

So, the truth has an expiration date. Facts don't matter 30 years later. A mistaken judgement based on a stupid mistake by Lewis should be accepted because time has passed. Is that what you mean?

No. Pay attention. Resolving the issue of cold fusion has value. But after 30 years of arguing about the correctness of Lewis's 1989 papers or that of P&F's 1989 papers, more argument about those experiments will not advance the issue. That's what labs are for. When scientific questions are unresolved, in spite of much argument, the best route to resolution is more and improved experiments, more and improved evidence, not endless argument. Recall Francis Bacon and Horse's Teeth:

"In the year of our Lord 1432, there arose a grievous quarrel among the brethren over the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse. For thirteen days the disputation raged without ceasing. All the ancient books and chronicles were fetched out, and wonderful and ponderous erudition such as was never before heard of in this region was made manifest. At the beginning of the fourteenth day, a youthful friar of goodly bearing asked his learned superiors for permission to add a word, and straightway, to the wonderment of the disputants, whose deep wisdom he sore vexed, he beseeched them to unbend in a manner coarse and unheard-of and to look in the open mouth of a horse and find answer to their questionings. At this, their dignity being grievously hurt, they waxed exceeding wroth; and, joining in a mighty uproar, they flew upon him and smote him, hip and thigh, and cast him out forthwith. For, said they, surely Satan hath tempted this bold neophyte to declare unholy and unheard-of ways of finding truth, contrary to all the teachings of the fathers. After many days more of grievous strife, the dove of peace sat on the assembly, and they as one man declaring the problem to be an everlasting mystery because of a grievous dearth of historical and theological evidence thereof, so ordered the same writ down."

Quote from JedRothwell

And my point is that if this examination is in error, then it makes no sense to say it resolved the issue or that the conclusion is valid. It is, in fact, lunacy to suggest this is how a scientific dispute should be settled.

No one has suggested that. I said there was no value to rehashing a 30 year-old paper, that has been hashed by people far more capable than I. The best way to prove Lewis was wrong is to design an experiment that proves unequivocally that cold fusion is right. That's MFMP's goal.

I was and am not trying to resolve the question of mistakes in Lewis's papers or in P&F's papers. I cited history to show that if there was bias regarding the cold fusion claims, it was in cold fusion's favor. I know that's hard for you to accept, because it pulls your only rationalization for the nearly complete rejection of the evidence out from under you, but that's what the events immediately after the press conference show.

Quote from JedRothwell

He most emphatically did not expect a practical application to be easy! He said "relatively easy" compared to Tokamak plasma fusion. One of the first things he told me when we met was that it would take billions of dollars to make a practical device.

I don't know when he met you, but the press release said relatively easy, and did not say compared to a tokamak. But even if it were easy compared to hot fusion, it would be difficult to dismiss. Anyway, in the Q and A he said:

"It does seem that there is here a possibility of realizing sustained fusion with a relatively inexpensive device, which could be brought to some sort of successful conclusion fairly early on."

It is difficult to see how something like that could be dismissed.

Then, when asked how he feels duplicating in a kitchen what physicists spend $.5B, he replies:

"...we financed it ourselves, and I think it would be fair to say that we burnt up about $100K in the process, so it's not that cheap, and this is a kitchen experiment, so if you scale it up, we could burn up a few million fairly quickly."

A few million is less than billions.

As for those letters, the earliest one is 1992, after cold fusion had already been dismissed.

Quote from JedRothwell

The account was given by Caldwell to Beaudette years later, but it was correct.

Well, it was an account given from memory, and Beaudette admits there were differing accounts. Moreover, it conflicts with the quotation that shows he expected a practical application to be easy.

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Plus I have many letters and other comments from him that confirm he did not want to do the press conference. He wanted to keep the research secret.

That's a different matter. He may have wanted to avoid competing development. If the reason he didn't want to go public was fear of dismissal, then as I said before, that represents a lack of confidence in the results. A practical application could not be dismissed.

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Unless you attended the press conference and physics conference, and unless you subscribed to a clipping service, all of the information that you have about cold fusion was also given years later.

What are you talking about? The press conference was recorded. I can watch it on youtube. There are records more credible than remembering a conversation, and there are also multiple independent accounts that coincide...

Quote from JedRothwell

If the consideration you describe was mistaken, then of course this mistake affects the point!

Not if the point is that the world was initially enthusiastic about cold fusion and became negative as a result of the examination of the evidence. My purpose was not to resolve the issue, which has no value 30 years later. The point was to show there was no prevailing instinctive opposition to the idea.

Quote from JedRothwell

Louis Reed wrote: "Yea, well, not that it matters for this point, but your count is wrong. They were unanimous in recommending no special funding for the field,"

That is incorrect. First because 6 panel members did recommend funding, as you see in their papers. The recommendations were not unanimous. Second, the DoE itself recommended funding, but then it reneged. It did not call it "special funding" but it did recommended funding.

And now you've completed the deflection into quibbling about a contrived score sheet, by not even addressing the reason the panel I cited the panel, which was to show that there was doubt about cold fusion.

But I'll play along, or what's an internet forum for?

The summary statement, which would have been signed off by all the members states:

"No reviewer recommended a focused federally funded program for low energy nuclear reactions."

The original ERAB panel contained:

"The Panel recommends against any special funding for the investigation of phenomena attributed to cold fusion. Hence, we recommend against the establishment of special programs or research centers to develop cold fusion."

So, when I said "special funding", I referred to a special allocation of funds for the field. As I said, no one recommended such special funding.

As for recommending support based on what was before them, by my reading, only one explicitly recommended funding (R9: further work should be funded by US funding agencies). Three others gave sort of implicit recommendations (R4: unless effort is made in a funded lab, there will be only conference reports; R6: better experiments could be done; R17: Is there a case for continued efforts? Weak Yes.)

The summary statement also contains,

"The nearly unanimous opinion of the reviewers was that funding agencies should entertain individual, well-designed proposals for experiments that address specific scientific issues..."

That however, is not a pledge of funds. Rather it is a statement of the obvious, given that that is the role of funding agencies. If the DOE did not fund proposals subsequent to this, it is presumably because they were not competitive, or were not considered well-designed proposals to address specific issues.

Quote from JedRothwell

You are not familiar with the detailed history of those weeks. [...] I know a more about this than you do. I say you are wrong. You are no position to dispute what I say.

This is your argument? "I know more than you, and you're wrong, so shut up!"

I have read many accounts of the first few weeks after the press conference, including the detailed one from Storms, who is as informed as you, and every account is consistent in describing the prevailing sentiment as enthusiastically positive. Storms called it a "huge bubble of enthusiasm" and described frantic activity all over the world. Seven thousand cheering scientists at what some called the "woodstock of chemistry" (the ACS meeting) 3 weeks after the press conference is an indication of optimism, not pessimism. The glowing words used at congress, where "anything less than enthusiasm would have seemed almost unpatriotic", clearly support this picture.

And the thing is that *nothing* you have cited or quoted contradicts this picture.

I know that some were skeptical from the start, and some may have been vocal, but they were drowned out by the huge bubble of enthusiasm.

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Many of your statements and timelines are factually wrong. For example, you say that Mallove's collection of nasty quotes were made long after cold fusion began.

That's not an example of a factually wrong statement. I said the quotes post-dated the honeymoon period, which was until the evidence was examined, something like the first 3 - 5 weeks after the press conference. The quotations you cited were dated, and the earliest one was April 30, 5 weeks after the press conference. And it was in an editorial that criticized the process (Utah Fusion Circus) while admitting "the claims of cold fusion could still turn out to be right."

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Some were, but many were within days or weeks of the press conference.

Well, I guess 5 weeks is 35 days... That does not contradict what I said.

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So was the MIT poster celebrating the Death of Cold Fusion.

The MIT poster I've seen announces a wake on June 26, 3 months after the press conference.

So, far your examples of errors in fact are zero for three.

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You also think that Fleischmann was pleased with the press conference. Apparently you base that on what you take as his facial expression. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a great deal of original source material -- such as letters and comments by Fleischmann in the files at the U. Utah library special collection -- showing that he was dreading the outcome.

Well, this is kind of peripheral to my claim, and doesn't contradict it either way, but I'd be interested in seeing a specific quotation from Fleischmann recorded at the time that supports this. So far, the only thing you've actually cited was an account given years later. And there's a quotation from New Energy Times of Fleischmann at the time where he says: "What we have done is to open the door of a new research area, our indications are that the discovery will be relatively easy to make into a usable technology for generating heat and power..." That sounds optimistic. If he really thought it would be easy to make it practical, then he could not have also thought it would be dismissed.

Zero for four.

Quote from Ahlfors

... "and the last report I've seen is from 1998 ..."

Report is 2017

[Believers & Unbelievers are prone cherry picking or negleting a bit too much. Ever.]

Whatever this was, it was not cherry picking, because I hadn't seen that report, and I included the catch-all disclaimer.

More importantly, the full sentence provides the context of the LANL tritium project, treating the 1998 paper as a kind of last word on *that* project. (And there may be later ones, but I haven't seen them.)

I am aware that Claytor continued to do some work with tritium after his retirement in 2012, some in connection with Brillouin, and this latest work with IH funding. He does acknowledge LANL in the slides, presumably for infrastructure support as an alumnus, but I don't think it's a LANL project as such. (Moreover, notwithstanding your previous link, which I did not find on the http://www.LANL.gov site, a search at that site for LENR or cold fusion comes up empty.)

Quote from Shane D.

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

Going on right now.

I looked briefly at some of the accompanying material, and I'm confused. Maybe someone who has followed it closely can clear it up.

The "Kilopower project" mentions NASA and DOE's NNSA, but not GEC. The description of the prototype mentions highly enriched fuel, and nothing about sub-critical fission induced by neutrons. A fusion/fission hybrid does not need highly enriched fuel. It sounds more like conventional fission.

Could the GEC agreement be some kind of peripheral project associated with this?

Quote from JedRothwell

It is ironic that the "big three" negative experiments in 1989 that supposedly disproved cold fusion were actually some of the best proof that it is real.

This is an excellent encapsulation of the pathetic and delusional state of cold fusion advocacy.

That your best defense of the reality of cold fusion is an attack on three 30-year-old negative claims, rather than a promotion of positive claims demonstrates the weakness in the positive claims. No one would care about those negative claims if you could cite a killer experiment that any qualified scientist could perform to prove cold fusion unambiguously. The two DOE panels did not rely only on those 3 negative claims, but considered all the evidence. The 2004 reviews in fact make no reference (that I found) to the 3 negative claims. They considered the best evidence presented to them by advocates, and still found it unpersuasive. Maybe they should have given them the 3 negative papers instead.

The Nature editor said as much in his letter at the time: you will never convince the world with contrived re-analyses of Lewis's experiment. The best way to get attention is to design a better experiment. But 30 years later, you're still trying to convince the world with re-analyses of Lewis's results. What better indication that there has been essentially no progress in the field?

One of the arguments often made against the early negative claims is that they didn't leave enough time to get the necessary deuterium loading. I guess your statement renders such arguments completely irrelevant.

Of course, the only reason there could be controversy about these experiments, where advocates argue Lewis actually saw excess heat, and Lewis argues P&F actually didn't (in a paper in Science) is because the amount of claimed excess power just happens to fall right in the range of possible artifacts or calibration shifts and so on. The excess power from the MIT experiment, based on the unadjusted data, is only about 30 mW, essentially in the noise according to Storms. As you said in 2001, "calorimetric errors and artifacts are more common than researchers realize". In fact, you yourself said of the MIT results in 2011 in vortex: "I doubt the original was a genuine positive, so who cares if they lied about it?" And now you say it's among the best proof its real. With advocates like you....

That the results never stand out (or that input energy is always required) is an implausible coincidence. Whether it's D-Pd or Ni-H, whether it's electrolysis or gas loading, whether it's tritium at million times lower rate, or neutrons at a billion times lower, the results are never definitive. It screams pathological science, and has done for 30 years.

Quote from JedRothwell

1. Does he say this was not a mistake, and it is the proper technique to set the calibration constant after excess heat begins?

OR

2. Does he say even though this was a mistake, and even though Lewis actually observed excess heat, his results still cast doubt on the work of Fleischmann, Pons, Bockris, Storms and the 92 institutions the replicated by mid-1990? That would be a strange thing to say!

Again, the historical reference was only to show that mainstream science demonstrated enthusiastic willingness to consider the possibility of cold fusion, and only became negative towards it after the evidence had been examined, and the question of the mistake doesn't affect that point.

But for what it's worth, the question of the anomalous heat in Lewis's experiment was reconsidered by the editor, a reviewer, and Lewis, in response to the objections you have raised, and they were not persuaded.

I consider the likelihood that they are wrong extremely remote, and the likelihood that they were deliberately suppressing knowledge of an effect remoter still. There is no conceivable motive for such a suppression. If they had thought cold fusion real, they would have known with near certainty that it could not be suppressed indefinitely. And, under those circumstance, whatever they might have stood to lose by the success of cold fusion (if anything), it would have paled in comparison to the destruction of their careers that would have resulted if such suppression were exposed following the inevitable vindication of cold fusion. So they must have had utmost confidence that cold fusion was not real.

Quote from JedRothwell

If Lewis's result is incorrect, any conclusions based upon it are invalid, no matter how many people go along with those conclusions, or how much they shaped public opinion in 1989.

Unless the only conclusion is that they shaped public opinion.

You're still not catching on. I cited the "huge bubble of enthusiasm" to show that mainstream science welcomed the possibility of cold fusion with enthusiasm. The sentiment changed when the evidence was examined, so it is most plausible that the change in sentiment is due to the examination of the evidence.

So yes, even if Lewis had been wrong, if that helped shape mainstream opinion, it is still consistent with mainstream judging the claims on evidence, and not being seduced by corrupt self-interest.

Quote from JedRothwell

How about you?

I already said, I see no value in rehashing 30 year-old papers. The failure of advocates to improve the evidence in 30 years, the erratic and marginal claims, the failure to find any correlations (as McKubre laments), the decrease in the size of the effect as experiments improve, the abandonment of experiments without any progress, the absence of a single experiment that anyone can use to prove the effect etc etc are all characteristic of pathological science, and highly uncharacteristic of legitimate science. So, whether Lewis made a mistake or not, his skepticism has been vindicated.

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Perhaps you have made consensus fallacy ("appeal to popularity").

Considering the consensus of experts to be more reliable than the consensus of people who got sucked in by Rossi is not a fallacy. Indeed, one's entire undergraduate education in science is a case of appealing to expert consensus. I consider the expert consensus that our solar system is Copernican to be reliable even though I have not myself examined the necessary data to reach that conclusion.

Obviously it's better to examine the evidence oneself, if one is qualified, and if the results or claimed results are still relevant. But as I've argued at length, at this point, what has happened since is more relevant. And what has happened since is to me far more consistent with artifacts and confirmation bias than unprecedented nuclear reactions. Rossi showed how artifact (or deception) and confirmation bias can sway pretty much the entire cold fusion community.

Quote from JedRothwell

I do not know of any group of scientists who have examined the data, found errors, and published them. Do you know of any such publication? (I have asked you several times before but you have not responded.) If you will not tell me what report you have in mind, I have no way of evaluating your statements.

Actually, you mean found what *you* consider to be errors, because I know you're familiar with papers that claim to have found errors. But as I said, I don't see value in rehashing 30 year old papers. What's happened since is completely consistent with cold fusion being pathological science.

Anyway, I have addressed the question, but I gather you didn't read the response, or you didn't like the response. Here's a cut and paste response from another post:

I don't agree that a skeptic must explain every observation in experiments that claim cold fusion to remain skeptical, any more than a believer needs to explain the mechanism for cold fusion to believe it is cold fusion. This is a matter of judgement, and if one judges artifacts, errors, deceptions, or bias to be more likely explanations than unprecedented, unidentified radiationless nuclear reactions, particularly with the absence of commensurate reaction products, then one remains skeptical.

Finding errors or artifacts or alternative explanations in others' experiments from the written report alone is mug's game. What would be needed is to go into the lab, but this is time-consuming, and if the skeptics are satisfied (based on the wildly erratic and marginal results reported from different groups, and the examinations of the evidence by expert panels) that the likelihood of a nuclear explanation is vanishingly small, then they would regard it as a waste of time. If the effect is real, skeptics are prepared to wait for MFMP (or someone) to identify a killer experiment. We're not holding our breath.

Quote from JedRothwell

Louis Reed wrote: "You said there was no doubt. Doubt is in one's mind. And scientists enlisted to examine the evidence expressed doubt."

Which scientists? Where? Do you refer to the 2004 DoE review? There were 6 supporters, 10 opponents and 2 undecided (my count). The opponents did not examine the data. Their doubts were based on theory and ignorance. They made only a few statements about the experiments and these statements were wrong. So they don't count. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?page_id=455

I do not know of any group of scientists who have examined the data, found errors, and published them. Do you know of any such publication? (I have asked you several times before but you have not responded.) If you will not tell me what report you have in mind, I have no way of evaluating your statements.

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Just go back one post in this exchange where I wrote: "Certainly, the DOE panel reported having doubts. They concluded “that the present evidence for the discovery of a new nuclear process termed cold fusion is not persuasive.”"

But since you said there was no doubt by the end of 1989, I was referring to the first DOE panel. But yes, the 2004 one also expressed doubt.

> There were 6 supporters, 10 opponents and 2 undecided (my count).

Yea, well, not that it matters for this point, but your count is wrong. They were unanimous in recommending no special funding for the field, which can only mean they did not consider the field to have sufficient merit. Only one person said the evidence for nuclear reactions was conclusive. All the others expressed some qualifications (if real) on the question of nuclear reactions.

But even your count proves there was doubt, and that's contrary to there not being doubt.

There are others who wrote books about their doubt, like Close, Huizenga, Taubes, and Park, and those who wrote skeptical newsletters for a decade while attending all the meetings (Morrison). Doubt was and is everywhere. It is dishonest to say there is no doubt.

You yourself said in 2001 that there was "room for honest skeptical doubt that the effect is real".

> The opponents did not examine the data. Their doubts were based on theory and ignorance. They made only a few statements about the experiments and these statements were wrong. So they don't count.

If you had said there was no doubt among those who agree with you, or there is no doubt among those who have no doubt, or even there is no doubt among those who count by your criteria, I would not have objected.

But you said without qualification that by the end of 1989 there was no doubt whatever.

And that's just wrong.

Quote from JulianBianchi

Still today only a few physicists are openminded enough to accept the latter with the majority hiding behind their prejudices.

Actually, I think most advocates do not keep an open mind to the possibility that they may be wrong about cold fusion. Skeptics on the other hand, while nearly certain it is bogus, would change their mind in a heartbeat if the right evidence came along.

Quote from JulianBianchi

Either all these labs completely screwed up their analyses (I call this Shanahan's law, a nasty version of Murphy's law), or the underlying phenomenon is nuclear and different from D-D fusion.

The notion that all the scientists who claims cold fusion are mistaken in their interpretation (not completely screwed up) is not at all implausible to me. As described above, the complete tritium picture is entirely consistent with artifacts or experimental errors. Just the scarcity of current research on tritium suggests that.

And I would say the same for the excess power measurements. Considering one trajectory: P&F claimed tens of watts with a COP of 4 or so in the very early papers. Then McKubre came along and in one of Rothwell's favorite papers, claims about a half a watt with a COP of about 1.1. That suggests nearly all of P&F heat was artifact, but still McKubre claimed a positive result, and that it was easily achieved. Then in his 1998 report he said "With hindsight, we may now conclude that the presumption of repeatable excess heat was premature, and that has limited progress achieved....". McKubre kind of abandoned that line of research, saying at one point he got tired of trying to "science cold fusion". In the mean time Toyota shut down the P&F lab in France, and Pons abandoned the field.

And after this, the number of people doing electrolysis experiments seemed to decline rapidly. The number of experimental claims of excess heat in such experiments reported in refereed mainstream literature dwindled to next to nothing. I think the last paper is almost a decade ago.

Like tritium, there is no progress in understanding or characterizing excess power. There are more kinds of experiments that claim it, but there is no systematic scaling determined, no commensurate reaction products measured. The situation has led to laments from several prominent names:

Rothwell in 2001: "Why haven’t researchers learned to make the results stand out? After twelve years of painstaking replication attempts, most experiments produce a fraction of a watt of heat, when they work at all. Such low heat is difficult to measure. It leaves room for honest skeptical doubt that the effect is real."

Hagelstein in 2012?: "aside from the existence of an excess heat effect, there is very little that our community agrees on"

McKubre 2018: "Nearly 30-year old anomalies should have grown to adult maturity and self-sustainability or been buried and forgotten. By various factors we have been heavily constrained from pursuing and accomplishing the one thing that would make anomalies go away: correlation, preferably multi-correlation"

Saalfeld 2003 quoted in Newscientist: “For close to two years, we tried to create one definitive experiment that produced a result in one lab that you could reproduce in another,” Saalfeld says. “We never could. What China Lake did, NRL couldn't reproduce. What NRL did, San Diego couldn't reproduce. We took very great care to do everything right. We tried and tried, but it never worked.”

So, I see it like other pathological sciences, where many scientists can get it wrong. In the case of polywater, according to Diamond (in Scrutinizing Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2855-8_9) there were over 400 publications on polywater before the Deryagin admitted the phenomena were probably due to impurities. And many of these were in the best journals: Nature, Science, JACS etc. Of course, polywater was debunked, and cold fusion probably never will be because of the wide gamut of conditions and phenomena claimed. In that sense it's more like homeopathy or dowsing or perpetual motion, which will likely never die either.