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Re: COLD FUSION



Today, 7/21/03, is the last day to register for the ICCF10
(The 10th International Conference on Cold Fusion at
MIT, August 24 to 29) at a reduced price. Go to the
http://www.lenr-canr.org site, if you are interested.
The list of submitted papers can also be seen there.
Fleischmann himself is making two presentations.
I am going because I want to meet him and others who
contributed to an important scientific controversy. I also
want to see cold fusion demonstrations; unfortunately,
the list of demos has not yet been posted.

Contrary to what the leaders of our scientific
establishment claim I no longer think that qualified cold
fusion researchers are practicing voodoo science. Nor
have I definitely concluded that chemically induced
nuclear proceses are real. That is why I am going to the
conference. Perhaps I will have something new to share
after my return. But in September my priorities will shift
back to teaching.

The phenomenon of pseudoscience is very real and
society should be protected from those who exploit
ignorance in order to benefit from unscientific claims
and manipulations. Making money on therapeutic
magnets, for example, is a scam; the healing effects
of such gadgets have not been validated, as far as I
know. The same applies to devices delivering electric
energy from a so-called “vacuum.” How can society
be protected from con artists without confusing
charlatans with honest scientists addressing non-
conventional topics? I hope this difficult issue will
be addressed at the conference.

In my opinion cold fusion researchers should be as
active in exposing pseudoscience as those who do
so under the banner of mainstream science. How
actively have they done this? How often do cold
fusion researchers criticize each other? I suspect
that this does not happen too often. I noticed, for
example, that journals publishing cold fusion papers
also publish papers devoted to topics of more
questionable validity, such as perpetual motion
devices, antigravity or hydrinos. Many cold fusion
researchers probably disagree with such articles.
But how often do they express this openly?
Ludwik Kowalski