Re: solution to the world's energy needs

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, Robert A Cohen wrote:

> > Yet CF certainly is suppressed.  If it is unreal, then it is rightly
> > suppressed.  If it "just might be" real, then something is terribly
> > terribly wrong with modern science.  Until recently, US patents in CF
> > technology were automatically rejected.  Funding requests draw laughter,
> > and research must be performed on the sly, or at home.  No reputable
> > journal will publish any CF papers (and so several "disreputable" CF-only
> > journals have sprung up, but nobody outside the CF arena knows that they
> > exist.)  If CF just might be real, then it shows that science as a whole
> > is profoundly sick all the way to its core.  (Or if CF is a delusion, then
> > it shows that science performs efficient "triage" on crackpottery.)  Only
> > time will tell, but even time cannot supply the answer, should CF be real
> > yet all research is permanently abandoned.
>
> Hmmm...you seem to be saying that if CF is never found to be "real" then
> it will be because all research is permanently abandoned.  While I agree
> that the scientific establishment tends to be skeptical of new findings, I
> am uncomfortable with removing falsifiability.

Another thought occurs...

Have you read "The Golem" by Collins/Pinch?  They make the point that
Science does not work as everyone imagines.  For the predicted phenomena
and for the very blatent phenomena, things work OK.  Troubles arise when a
phenomenon is weak and hard to tease out to display itself.  The problem
is amplified a million fold if the phenomenon contradicts widely-believed
theories, and the theories are at fault.  Under these conditions,
disbelief can make the phenomenon vanish in the eyes of any disbeliever
(the inverse of 'pathological science').  Cold Fusion might be
patholociacl science... or it might have been "made invisible" because
contemporary fusion theory has some unnoticed flaws, and because
disbelievers are in the majority.

Collins & Pinch note the existence of the following problem.  Suppose that
a new advancement in science develops like so:

     Theory says that a phenomenon is impossible, yet we observe it.

     We are confident that theory is right.  Therefor our observations
     must be faulty, and we can ignore them as mistakes/artifacts, and
     go on to other things.

     But what if our observations are correct?  But they can't be!  How
     can we dare to even question, much less modify, such solid theory?

     The phenomenon is difficult to produce.  Anyone with the slightest
     emotional bias against it will invariably make a mistake in attempted
     replications, or will give up prematurely before attaining success.

     Nobody else believes our reports.  We barely believe them ourselves.
     Until somebody figures out the location of the "hole" in current
     theories which allows such phenomena to exist, Science as a whole
     continues to insist that they are just errors in observation (or
     maybe hoaxes!)

Therefor theory determines observation, and not the reverse?!!!

Well, not quite.  Over a long period, other researchers might replicate
the observation.  These people become "believers", even if their remaining
colleagues insist that the phenomenon is all a mistake, and even if their
remaining colleagues disparage the "believers" as having fallen into
error.

After the "believers" beat their heads upon theory for a time, they might
make headway, and they might fix a flaw or discover an aspect of
contemporary theory which predicts the existence of the phenomena in
question.  They present their modified theory.  Everyone goes "OH, WHY
DIDN'T YOU JUST *SAY* SO!", and like magic the phenomenon suddenly becomes
"real" to everyone.

In this way progress is slooooowly made as evidence dances with theory,
and occasional phase-changes (paradigm shifts) are triggered.

And then finially, the entire above scenario is forgotten, and everyone
pretends that they supported the discovery right from the start, and that
universal skepticism was never a factor in slowing the development of (or
almost suppressing entirely) the discovery.  If this occurs often enough,
then history books will not examine the huge barriers that many new
discoveries must cross, and scientists will have no idea that new
discoveries are in great danger of being suppressed.  And then Thomas
Kuhn's ideas will appear shocking and heretical.

The history of powered flight followed the above timeline in part.  The
crackpots went against "common sense", and also against the great Simon
Newcomb, who had mistakenly proved powered flight to be impossible.  Even
with their blatent evidence, it was very rough going.  Imagine how hard it
would be for "cold fusion"  to become "real", since it requires a
fundamental re-thinking of well-explored particle physics.  It's easier to
assume that Cold Fusion is bogus, and that contemporary Fusion theory
cannot possibly have flaws so big that Pons and Fleichman could pass
through.  Maybe it doesn't, and maybe CF truely is bogus.  But maybe
theory does have holes, and CF is being suppressed by disbelief and
closed-mindedness.  And then finally, if scientists as a whole do not
believe that disbelief and closed-mindedness are ever a significant force
in science, then the status of Cold Fusion will be obvious:  since it has
not been accepted, it must be a mistake, and there can be no other
explanation.


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