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User:Enric Naval/pathological science

< User:Enric Naval

Extracted from an old discussion at CF's talk page.

polywater comparison, sources, when, how and why edit

(Original context.)

Multiple sources comparing polywater to cold fusion:

  • 2002 "Critical Issues in Biomedical Science: A Guide for Biochemistry and Molecular & Cell Biology Graduate", 2002, Leland L. Smith [1]
  • 2002 Henry H. Bauer, Hyle journal, [2], which gives another source:
  • 1992 Rousseau, D.L., ‘Cases studies in pathological science’, American Scientist, 80 (January-February), 54-63.
  • 2005 Deconstruction and research, Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion, [3] also puts the two on the same article
  • 1989, a Seattle newspaper [4]
  • 1998, David Goodman, on a mailing list [5]
  • book that cites Taubes and adds some analysis of its own "Commercializing new technologies", 1997, Harvard Bussiness Press, [6]
  • 1989 NY Times? [7], April
  • 2000 The Undergrowth of Science: Deception, Self-Deception and Human Frailty by Walter Gratzer. Oxford University Press, review
  • 2006 David Ellyard (2006), Who Discovered What When (illustrated ed.), New Holland, p. 412, ISBN 9781877069222, Compared with polywater, 'cold fusion' was a nine-day wonder. It was discredited within months, denounced in the press as quackery. Pons and Fleischman were driven by the bad publicity from their jobs at the University of Utah
  • 2008 Resonance journal?[8]


pathological science sources edit

Letter exchange between Edmund Storms, Jed Rothwell, and two editors-in-chief of Scientific American, John Rennie and Jonathan Piel, in 1991 and 2003 respectively
http://lenr-canr.org/AppealandSciAm.pdf

"'even though its precise physical mechanism is not fully understood at present' such characteristic is typical of another kind of event in science, one which Irving Langmuir accurately described in a classic paper in the 1950's [in reference to the paper coining the term 'pathological science'"

(Letter from Piel to Rothwell, page 8 of PDF, 3 December 1991)

"As you suggested, I did look over a number of the offerings at www.lenr-canr.org. Unfortunately, I still don't see evidence in those papers, or in the mainstream physics literature, that LENR-CANR has achieved any significantly new level of credibility in the eyes of the general physics community. The site does point to a large number of publications that ostensibly offer evidence of the phenomenon, but sheer numbers of papers is not sufficiently compelling-- as I'm sure you know, even the creationists can point to thousands of "publications" and "scientists" seemingly supporting their position."

(letter from Rennie to Storms, page 4 of pdf, 25 April 2003)

"I notice that although you called Jonathan Piel's decision 'a catastrophic misjudgment' almost a dozen [years] ago, the scientific mainstream would still side with him. Not bad as catastrophes go. (...) it does you no good to curse Scientific American because the people you need to convince about the scientific credibility of cold fusion aren't journalists. They're professional physicists who review submissions for respectable technical journals. If you can convince mainstream scientists that LENR-CANR is real and significant, magazines like Scientific American will drop into line."

(letter from Rennie to Storms, page 10 of pdf, 21 May 2003)

"If so much of the scientific community outside the U.S. and U.K. is supportive of LENR-CANR, it hardly seems necessary for you to try so hard to enlist Scientific American to publicize your cause. It is odd, though, that although we have editions and well-respected scientific contacts all around the world, I have never heard any of them request an article making the case for the phenomenon."

"(...) The editors of Scientific American were right to be skeptical about such poorly documented claims at the time [the distances covered by Wright brothers in their flights, not about whether they actually flew!], just as its editors today are right to be skeptical of mountains of cold fusion "evidence" that somehow fail to convince most physicists that the phenomenon is real and significant."

(letter from Renie to Rothwell, page 13 of pdf, undated, probably 21-22 May 2003)

"The first one is apparently a misconception about how scientific method works. You are claiming that unless we (or, more properly, mainstream physicists) establish a technical basis for disbelieving claims of LENR-CANR, we have no basis for dismissing it. But it is not up to mainstream physicists to disprove LENR-CANR; it is up to LENR-CANR's physicists to come up with convincing proofs. The burden of evidence is on those who wish to establish a new proposition."

"(...) We don't claim to be authorities on physics or any other discipline (for all that there is quite a lot of real expertise built into our staff). For that reason, the scientific points of view we choose to publish are ones that have already been vetted in the technical, peer-reviewed literature and that generally seem to represent a consensus within the scientific community. (...) "

"(As for whether we're entitled to mock cold fusion...well, sorry if you disagree, but that opinion reflects the consensus of most scientists, too.)"

"So it really doesn't make a difference to me if LENR-CANR advocates petition me for articles on the subject; I'll put them on the stack of similar requests from the scientific creationists, the global warming deniers the face-on-Mars people, the crypto-archaeologists, and all the others who want publicity and scientific respectability but can't make their case convincingly to the community of scientists. But I'll say this again, too: if LENR-CANR's physicists can convince the mainstream physics community that they've got a credible case and articles to that effect start appearing in major peer-reviewed journals, Scientific American would be glad to write about it."

(letter for Renie to Rothwell, pages 17-19 of pdf, 22 May 2003)


So, what the reliable sources say is that cold fusion is discredited, that the controversy is over (was over already in late 1990!), that the attempts to compare it to polywater/N-rays/ESP/etc. were sucessfull and killed the reputation of cold fusion (in about six months?), etc.

Mind you, this is not a description of the field itself, it's a description how it was painted by some and how the idea caught, and how it's still considered by scientists the same thing as back then in 1989 after the dust settled (a discredited science).

is the controvesy really over? sources edit

(original context)

[13] It explains how Lewis and Koonin used humour on their presentation to sway the audience on their side and accuse P. and F. of breaking scientific rules (see start of page 173, and pages 170-174). This doesn't change the fact that the audience was swayed, that's it, that the controversy is over and that cold fusion now stands as pathological science. See:


I think this is enough material to write up something on the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:25, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

DOE 2004 says nothing about the field being accepted or about any controversys existing or not. Use sources that actually deal with the topic:

  • "Seventeen years after the announcement [of cold fusion] the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." Biberian 2007
  • "Most chemists would rather forget all about cold fusion. (...), only a small core of researchers has kept the idea from fading away entirely. (...) Acceptance by the scientific community is still the main target for cold fusion advocates [success in publishing in peer reviewed journals seems imminent, but not in replication or appearing at major conferences] (...) But will the flare-up of cold fusion excitement last?" Van Noorden 2007
  • "Nonetheless, a network of dedicated cold-fusionists still toils away in a vineyard that looks pretty barren to almost everyone else" Wired March 2009 [15]
  • "Nobody [proved it correct]. The laws of physics left cold fusion dead in the water. Nearly. A hardy band of believers refuses to let the dream die and, two decades on, continues to work on the phenomenon, now renamed as low-energy nuclear reactions." The Guardian, March 2009 [16]
  • "So far it hasn't been replicated to satisfy either the scientific community or the Department of Energy, leaving this type of fusion's future out in the cold for now." Scientific American, March 2009 [17]
  • "Attempts to replicate their experiments failed, but a number of researchers insist that cold fusion is possible. (...) The American Chemical Society has organised sessions surrounding the research at its meetings before, suggesting that the field would otherwise have no suitable forum for debate. (...) In a bid to avoid the negative connotations of a largely discredited approach [researchers now use the term LENR" BBC, March 2009 [18]
  • "But other scientists could not reproduce their results, and the whole field of research declined. A stalwart cadre of scientists persisted, however (...)'" American Chemical Society, March 2009 [19]
  • it seems that the CR-39 experiment is taken more seriously, according to the New Scientist [20]

It's still not accepted, it's discredited, there is a small resurgence of interest on the topic, it's not clear if it's a real revival or just a perceived flare up or a temporal thing, and there is only a die-hard core of scientists still pursuing it.

These secondary sources leave clear that the CF field was discredited and only a few scientists remained in it.

sources added later edit

  • 1996 Christopher P. Toumey (1996), Conjuring science: scientific symbols and cultural meanings in American life, Rutgers University Press, pp. 98–108, 152, 161, ISBN 9780813522852, [page 108] A subculture with a future. Faith in cold fusion is much diminished, but it has not died. On the contrary, it is murtured by the belief that investments now will yield great returns in the future. "A small but vociferous band of believers," (google preview cuts here) [page 152] People project their own extrinsic cultural meanings onto science, and they seem to appreciate science to the degree that it confirms their own values. (...) They are only extrascientific in the sense that they do not answer to such formal scientific values as rationalism, naturalism, secularism, or science for the sake of science. We can see this projection happening repeatedly, as when (...) or when a little faith in cold fusion sustains a lot of faith in simplistic solutions to our energy problems.
  • 2000, "Surviving closure: post-rejectism adaptation and plurality in science", Collins, American Sociological Review, Vol. 65, No. 6, Dec., 2000 [21]. It is cited in a 2006 book[22] (page 46) for "advocates of cold fusion and other communities of scientists who persisted in following lines of research that their larger disciplines consider discredited; and so on (Collins, 2000; Simon, 2002)"
  • 2000 R.K. Adair "Static and Low-Frequency Magnetic Fields: Health Risks and Therapies" Reports on Progress in Physics 63 (2000):415-454. "Is the rejection of so large a set of results - albeit none that are definitive - quite unusual? No! Other areas of science have experienced the phenomenon of having large sets of invalid results purpoting to establish pathological science. Recently, there have been several hundred reports of experiments that demonstrated 'cold fusion', but there is no cold fusion (p.437)"
  • 2003 David N. Livingstone (2003), Putting science in its place: geographies of scientific knowledge (Hardcover), Science.culture (illustrated ed.), University of Chicago Press, pp. 2, 188, ISBN 9780226487229, [page 2] (...) put it, "It was the end for cold fusion when people decided that it only happened in Salt Lake City." Genuine science, after all, is carried on in much the same way everywhere from Boston to Beijing: experimentalists replicate each (google preview cuts here) {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help) quoting from Robert E. Kohler, "Place and Practice in Field Biology", History of Science 40 (2002): 189-210.
  • 2004, David L. Goodstein, republished in 2010 book On fact and fraud: cautionary tales from the front lines of science. "The essential key to returning cold fusion to scientific respectability is to find the missing ingredient that would make the recipe work every time. Remarkably, very little has changed in the years since these events unfolded. Koonin, Barnes, and Lewis are still resolute in thinking they have cast cold fusion firmly out of the house of science, and most scientists agree with them. Nevertheless, a few scientists continue to pursue it, and international meetings in the subject are held every two years or so. No one has succeeded in making cold fusion occur dependably all the time, but there continue to be enough suggestive results to keep people interested. (...) Unfortunately, in this area, science is not functioning normally. There is nobody out there listening." quoted from a 2007 book [23]
  • 2004 Andrew Ede, Lesley B. Cormack (2004), A history of science in society: from philosophy to utility (illustrated ed.), University of Toronto Press, pp. 407, 408, ISBN 1551113325, 9781551113326, [page 407] Claims for cold fusion turned out to be completely unfounded, and there was no challenge to our understanding of physics, but the event highlights some of the problems of informed choice about science. (...) The problem is that for every dismissed idea that triumps, there are dozens of crazy ideas that turn out to be complete hogwash and deserve to be struck down. (...) While it is not clear how much money and time has been spent on the chimera of cold fusion, it is in the millions of dollars and thousands of laboratory hours that could have supported some other research effort. There is a dictum in both science and law that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the case of cold fusion, the claims were indeed extraordinary while the evidence was not available. Most comentators have attributed the "discovery" to wishful thinking and poor experimental procedures rather than malfeasance. Science does not have a method of self-regulation, designed to squeeze unsound science out of the range of topics considered by scientists as legitimate or worthwhile. {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • 2005 G. M. McCracken, Peter E. Stott (2005), Fusion: the energy of the universe, Complementary science series (illustrated ed.), Academic Press, ISBN 9780124818514, Nobel Prize winner Irving Langmuir, an early pioneer in the area of plasma physics, had studied the effect and classified it as one of the hallmarks of what he called "pathological science". (...) In some cases high-energy outputs were recorded, but the necessary criteria for the occurrence of fusion were never properñy fullfilled. More than 15 years later there are still a few passionate devotees who continue to believe in cold fusion, but convincing evidence is lacking. One must conclude that this was a sad episode in science. Two reputable scientists allowed themselves to be pressured into presenting their results prematurely by the desire to get patents filed and to claim the credit for making a momentous discovery.
  • 2005 Eric Gottfrid Swedin (2005), Science in the contemporary world: an encyclopedia, History of Science Series (illustrated ed.), ABC-CLIO, p. 58, ISBN 9781851095247, Scientists at the United States Office of Naval Research conducted over two hundred experiments in cold fusion during the 1990s and achieved inconsistent results. They did find hints that the composition of trace elements in the palladium electrode was very important and that microscopic cracks stopped the experiment from producing excess energy. When they published their results, their work was ignored. (...) Nevertheless, research on cold fusion has become pariah science, conducted on the fringes of respectable science.
  • 2006, "(...) eventually the cold fusion claims were disproven to the satisfaction of most scientists (a small group of scientists continue to pursue this effect to this day). In the aftermath, the great majority of scientists felt the original scientists had engaged in unethical, or "pathological", science. What made it pathological was not that they were wrong all the time. But, these scientists bypassed the normal scientific avenues of fact checking and went stright to the public with their claims." page 99 "A Biblical Case for an Old Earth" David Snoke physicist fellow of APS, quoted in a 2010 geology book "Time Matters: Geology's Legacy to Scientific Thought"
  • 2006 unknown author (2006), "unknown title", The Economist, vol. 378, no. 8467–8470, p. 72, Their work, however, was discredited and the field is now a no-go area for most physicists. {{citation}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • 2006 Evan Selinger, Robert P. Crease (2006), The philosophy of expertise (illustrated ed.), Columbia University Press, pp. 63–64, ISBN 9780231136440, [page 63] To know how this works consider cold fusion. Most reasonably literate members of this society 'know' that cold fusion has been tried and found wanting: though there was a time when cold fusion was contiguous with science as we know it, its cognitive and social networks no longer overlap. This knowledge has nothing to do with scientific competence. On the contrary, it is vital to ignore scientific credentials. Thus Martin Fleischmann, the co-founder of the cold fusion field, is inmmensely well-qualified and has both interactional and contributory expertise in cold fusion, yet still believes in it. What people in Western populations have in common is what they have heard about cold fusion in the broadcast media. Their consensual view emerges from the making of social judgements about who ought to be agreed with, not scientific judgements about what ought to be believed. The crucial judgement is to 'know' when the mainstream community of scientists has reached a level of socila consensus that, for all practical purposes, cannot be gainsaid, in spite of the determined opposition of a group of experienced scientists who know far more about the science than the person making the judgement. This ability is gained through [page 64] membership of the Guardian newspaper calls the 'chattering classes' (...) What the members of the chattering classes have is what we might call 'discrimination'.
  • 2006 Lee C. McIntyre (2006), Dark ages: the case for a science of human behavior, A Bradford book, MIT Press, pp. 19–20, 24–25, 32, 60, ISBN 9780262134699, [page 19] Ironically, one of the best demonstrations of scientists' reliance on the power of evidence can be seen in what some commentators have called the worst example of scientific bungling in the twentieth century: the search for "cold fusion". (...) If true, this result would have vast scientific and technological (and financial) implications (...) In short order, it was revealed that Pons and Fleischmann's results were unreproducible and that their procedures had been methodoligically flawed. (...) Yet, in the end the [page 20] appeal to empirical evidence was all that mattered. Although many scientists were profoundly embarrassed by the whole episode, and many of the books that have been written about it have titles such as Bad Science or Cold fusion; The Scientific Fiasco of the Century', one might argue that rather than revealing science at its worst, the cold fusion episode was science at its finest! Indeed, in testament to the power of science, despite all the politics, money, and prestige involved, in a relatively short time the dispute had been settle based on only the appeal to enpirical evidence. Although ine particular theory had seen its demise, a victory had been won for the method of science. [page 32] As we saw in the example on cold fusion, natural science too has individuals who prefer their own theories, are inclined to ignore evidence, and seek the spotlight. {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  • 2007 "Chemists had earlier on been swept into brief stampedes, such as the polywater 1972 episode (Franks 1981) or the cold fusion 1989 foray into pathological science (Langmuir & Hall 1989)," "The public image of chemistry", Joachim Schummer, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Brigitte van Tiggelen
  • 2007 National Science Foundation (U.S.), National Science and Technology Council (U.S.) Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology Subcommittee, National Science and Technology Council (U.S.). Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology, World Technology Evaluation Center (2007), "Historical comparisons for anticipating public reactions to nanotechnology (Christopher Toumey)", in Mihail C Roco, William Sims Bainbridge (ed.), Nanotechnology: societal implications, vol. 2, Springer, p. 287, ISBN 9781402046582, And, when the Pons-Fleischmann hypothesis was discredited, it embarrassed some people and ruined the careers of a few, but it did not give any particular class of people great power over another class. Cold fusion was a fascinating story about science and technology, but it was no great rearrangement of our society, our economy, or our values.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • 2007 Theo A. F. Kuipers (2007), General philosophy of science: focal issues, Handbook of the philosophy of science, vol. 1 (illustrated ed.), Elsevier, p. 552, ISBN 9780444515483, Pathological science concerns pockets of pseudoscience still located within the sphere of science (...) Classic examples are the N-rays and polywater affairs. More recently cold fusion has been added to the list.
  • 2008 James A. Holstein, Jaber F. Gubrium (2008), Handbook of constructionist research (illustrated ed.), Guilford Press, p. 46, ISBN 9781593853051, (..) sociologists of science tended to study instances in which scientific practice seemed to fall short of the scientific ideal (...) tended to emphasize episodes in the history of science that could be read as parables of scientific fallibility (...) advocates of cold fusion and other communities of scientists who persisted in following lines of research that their larger disciplines consider discredited (...)
  • 2009 Lawrence F. Locke, Stephen J. Silverman, Waneen Wyrick Spirduso (2009), Reading and Understanding Research (3, illustrated, annotated ed.), SAGE, p. 46, ISBN 9781412975742, Several years ago, a study of the process called cold fusion caused a great controversy in the scientific community (...) There was a problem, however, with the results. No one could replicate them. The failure to replicate observations from the original experiment left only one conclusion: The initial study was flawed. if the first study had undergone the usual process of peer review for publication or presentation, it is possible (although not certain) that the fatal problem would have been identified and a great deal of wated time and unfortunate publicity avoided. Whatever the case, replication provided the final court of appeal, and cold fusion remains an unrealized dream.{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • 2009 Chemistry: Principles and Practice (3, revised ed.), Cengage Learning, 2009, pp. 814–815, ISBN 9780534420123, After several years and multiple experiments by numerous investigators, most of the scientific community now considers the original claims unsupported by the evidence. [from image caption] Virtually every experiment that tried to replicate their claims failed. Electrochemical cold fusion is widely considered to be discredited. {{citation}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
  • 2009 Josh Dean (January 2009), "Without fusion, Michael laberge believes, our energy situation is dire. 'It's going to be ugly'", Popular Science, vol. 274, no. 1, p. 71, To the great frustration of people like Laberge and Richardson, fusion's good name has been besmirched by a handful of highly publicized failures, most prominently the cold-fusion experiments of Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann and the "bubble fusion" experiments Rusi Taleyarkhan conducted at Purdue University. (...) The U.S. Department of Energy all but called them frauds.
  • 2009 Karl Sabbagh (2009), Remembering our childhood: how memory betrays us, Oxford University Press, p. 93, ISBN 9780199218400, Is repression an idea that sounds interesting but turns out to be something that nobody can find any evidence for - like, say, cold fusion= Yes. That's more like what repression is: cold fusion. Repression has become the clinician's cold fusion, at once obvious and problematic.
  • 2009 Eric Scerri (2009), "Finding francium", Nature Chemistry, In Your Element, vol. 1, no. 670, doi:10.1038/nchem.430, Dozens of papers were published on this effect, including a number of studies arguing that it was spurious. These days the Allison effect is often featured in accounts of pathological science, alongside the claims for N-rays and cold fusion
  • 2009 Charles Petit (14 March 2009), "Cold panacea", Science News, vol. 175, no. 6, pp. 20–24, doi:10.1002/scin.2009.5591750622, Two researchers proclaimed 20 years ago that they'd achieved cold fusion, the ultimate energy solution. The work went nowhere, but the hope remains. (...) Cold fusion's balloon began leaking quickly as the great majority of independent groups found nothing to report, and could poke holes in the claims of others who did. (...) Some influential scientists labeled the whole thing as voodoo physics and as self-deluded, pathological science.
  • 2010, "Classic cases of pathological science, such as the alleged "discovery" of canals on Mars, N-rays, polywater, cold fusion, and so on are all testament to the fact that dozens of papers can appear in the scientific literature attesting to the reality of the phenomena, which turn out to be entirely illusory. The reasons such claims were ultimately rejected by the wider scientific community was due to the fact that the evidence put forward in support of them was simply too weak. Other propositions, such as the claim that meteorites were stones that fell from the sky and that the continents were originally joined together in a single land mass, were originally rejected by the wider community but ultimately accepted because the evidence in favor of them accumulated and got stronger. (...) Contrary to Carter's mantra, the skeptical point focuses in evidence." page 151 "Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential Or Human Illusion?", Stanley Krippner, Harris L. Friedman (both professors of psychology)
  • 2010 Scott L. Montgomery (2010), The powers that be: global energy for the twenty-first century and beyond (illustrated ed.), University of Chicago Press, pp. 209–210, 320, ISBN 9780226535005, (...) cold fusion has become more synonymous with tabletop experiments using electrolytic cells, and also with discredited science. (...) The great majority of physicists and chemists appear to think of cold fusion as "pathological science"—a type of intellectual infection that just won't die. They attribute positive results to poor experimental design, bad measurement, or some type of contamination effect, and discount the involvement of true nuclear reactions. (...) Thus far, cold fusion lacks dependability (...) Until this can be achieved, cold fusion will remain a prospect without portfolio. (...) For an early favorable report on cold fusion, see Eugene J. Mallove, Fire from Ice (Chicago: Wiley, 1991). The mainstream scientific view, meanwhile, is in John Hiuzenga, Cold fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century (New york: Oxford, 1992) Huizenga was cochair of a panel set
  • 2010 Frank R. Spellman, Joni Price-Bayer (2010), In Defense of Science: Why Scientific Literacy Matters, Science for Nonscientists, Government Institutes, p. 77, ISBN 9781605907109, Two panels convened by the U.S. Department of Energy did not recommend a dedicated federal program for cold fusion research, and cold fusion is now considered to be an example of pathological science (Labinger and Weininger, 2005; U.S. Department of Energy, 2004)
  • 2010 Kyle Kirkland (2010), Physical Sciences: Notable Research and Discoveries, Frontiers of Science (illustrated ed.), Infobase Publishing, ISBN 9780816074440, Most physicists came to believe that the extra energy Pons and Fleischmann observed had nothing to do with fusion.(...) But a few dogged researchers have continued this line of research. One of the most active is Peter Hagelstein at MIT. Hagelstein's persistence induced DOE to take another look at the topic, which they did in 2004. The opinion had not changed - the experimental results remained unconvincing.
  • 2010 Frank R. Spellman, Joni Price-Bayer (2010), In Defense of Science: Why Scientific Literacy Matters, Science for Nonscientists Series, Government Institutes, pp. 72, 82, ISBN 9781605907109, [page 77] and cold fusion is now considered to be an example of pathological science (Labinger and Weininger, 2005; U.S. Department of Energy, 2004) [page 82] Press-conference science. (...) Their story was widely reported in the press but was later debunked. Unfortunately, the later debunking does little to erase the damage done; it causes the credibility of scientists and science in general to suffer - science and its practitioners get a bad name.
  • 2010 Frank R. Spellman, Joni Price-Bayer (2010), In Defense of Science: Why Scientific Literacy Matters, Science for Nonscientists Series, Government Institutes, p. 77, ISBN 9781605907109, Two panels convened by the US Department of Energy did not recommend a dedicated federal program for cold fusion research, and cold fusion is now considered to be an example of pathological science (Labinger and Weininger, 2005; US Department of Energy, 2004).
  • 2011 Sergio Sismondo (2011), An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies (2 ed.), John Wiley & Sons, pp. unmarked pages, ISBN 9781444358889, Negatives results appeared more slowly, but the tide turned against cold fusion in the months that followed. Meanwhile, theoretical arguments were created to show how cold fusion could have ocurred, while other arguments were marshaled for the impossibility of cold fusion. Again, the tide turned against cold fusion. Disciplinary divisions were important, because fusion had been the preserve of physicists until that point, and many of them were quick to dismiss the two chemists who were cold fusion's primary discoverers. In a matter of months the skeptics had prevailed, and consensus was rapidly forming that cold fusion was the erroneus product of incompetent experimenters. (...) Finally, while consensus did quickly form against cold fusion, that consensus did not stop research (Simon 1999). The controversy, as a result cold fusion science, was officially dead within a year, but many otherwise reputable researchers kept on doing experiments - hidden from mainstream science, being performed after normal working hours or in garages.
  • 2011 Dustin Mulvaney (2011), Paul Robbins (ed.), Green Energy: An A-to-Z Guide, The SAGE Reference Series on Green Society: Toward a Sustainable Future-Series, SAGE, p. 188, ISBN 9781412996778, Another approach that has received wide public attention but remains highly speculative is cold fusion. (...) Their findings have been discredited by the majority of experts and are now widely viewed as a case study in scientific error. (...) nevertheless, some researchers continue to explore the possibilities for room-temperature fusion with modest amounts of private and government funding under a new and less-controversial name, condensed matter nuclear science (...) Meanwhile, most scientists remain highly skeptical of the prospects for cold fusion. {{citation}}: Text "volume 1" ignored (help)
  • 2011 Igor Novak (2011), Science: A Many-Splendored Thing, World Scientific, p. 162, ISBN 9789814304740, However, nuclear reactiions are accompanied by neutron emissions and other forms of radioactibity which were not detected in these experiments. This prompted further research which disproved the theory of cold fusion in the end.
  • 2011 Francis F. Chen (2011), An Indispensable Truth: How Fusion Power Can Save the Planet (illustrated ed.), Springer, p. 410, ISBN 9781441978196, There was energy balance for several weeks, but then they found that the output was a few watts larger. Since then, the experiment has been repeated hundreds of times by reputed scientits without similar success. There ahve also been many believers in cold fusion who accuse the scientific community of snobbish exclusivity, and who occasionally report observations of excess energy generataion. (...) However, cold fusion power is so minuscule that it would not pay for the palladium, much less a whole power plant. And it is only thermal power, not direct electrical power. Cold fusion may have some interesting scientific aspects, but it has no relation to power production. (...) The uproar over cold fusion has had one benefit, however. It shows that the public is not disinterested in controlled fusion power, as long as it is cheap. It simply does not understand why it is so hard to achieve and why there are no shortcuts leading to the gold at the end of the rainbow. (...) It appears that this [bubble fusion] that this is an even more extreme farce than cold fusion.
  • 2011 Richard DeWitt (2011), Worldviews: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science (2 ed.), John Wiley & Sons, pp. 39, 44, 49, 50, 68, 355–356, ISBN 9781444392753, (...) [page 68] on the other hand, for some theories there comes a time when the evidence against the theory reaches the point where it would be unreasonable to continue to hold the theory. The cold fusion example from Chapter 4 provides a good illustration of this. (...) As the years went on, disconfirming evidence continued to pile up. In addition, plausible alternative explanations of the initially interesting results were offered. By the end of the 1990s, (...) the dwindling number of cold fusion supporters were forced to appeal to increasingly complicated auxiliary hypotheses. Such auxiliary hypotheses included, for at least some defenders of the theory, that the problems for cold fusion were the result of a conspiracy by large oil companies to suppress new energy sources. The point is that continuing to believe the cold fusion theory by rejecting various auxiliary hypotheses was a reasonable thing to do initially. But by the time one is appealing to conspiracy theories to save one's theory, one has crossed the line from reason to unreason. [page 44] The proponents of the theory had the option and indeed, they took this option - of retaining their belief in cold fusion and instead rejecting the auxiliary hypothesis that cold fusion is like usual fusion. In the case of cold fusion theory, eventually the quantity of disconfiming evidence increased to the point where there are now relatively few who still accept cold fusion theory (though, notably, there are still those who continue to adhere to cold fusion theory and reject the ever available auxiliary hypothesis).
  • 2011 Clifton F. Conrad, Ronald C. Serlin (2011), The SAGE Handbook for Research in Education: Pursuing Ideas as the Keystone of Exemplary Inquiry (2 ed.), SAGE, p. 21, ISBN 9781412980005, As on example, cold fusion, which is claimed to be a process in which atomic fusion occurs (and releases energy) in a cheap apparatus in simply equipped laboratories, was first discovered in a lab in Utah, but generally the effect has not been replicated. (There were at one time a small number of supposed positive replications, but these were later explained in terms of other mechanisms).
  • 2011 Britannica Educational Publishing (2011), The Britannica Guide to the Atom, Physics explained, The Rosen Publishing Group, p. 235, ISBN 9781615303847, Efforts to give a theoretical explanation of the results failed, as did worldwide efforts to reproduce the claimed cold fusion. (...) As with cold fusion, attempts to replicate their [bubble fusion] results have failed.
  • 2011 James Lawrence Powell (2011), The Inquisition of Climate Science (illustrated ed.), Columbia University Press, p. 26, ISBN 9780231157186, No sooner had the utah press conference ended than scientists around the world began to try to replicate cold fusion. A few said they had, but most failed. As time went by, scientists began to retract the positive claims. Only two months after the original announcement, the American Physical Society convened a session on cold fusion at which eight speakers pronounced it dead on arrical and the ninth abstained. More than tweenty years later, no one has yet replicated cold fusion.
  • 2011 Nadya Reingand (2011), Intellectual Property in Academia: A Practical Guide for Scientists and Engineers (illustrated ed.), CRC Press, p. 78, ISBN 9781439837009, One of the best fiasco examples is cold fusion that in 1989 offered a promise to solve all energy demands but ended up being a scientific mistake. (...) In the year of their false discovery [1989] the publication volume jumped up to 10 times, but then rapidly declined, and then dropped again after the 2004 review, and finally by 2009 reached practically the same relatively low interest level as 20 years ago (Figure 3.1.2)
  • 2011 Michael Mansfield, Colm O'Sullivan (2011), Understanding Physics (2, illustrated ed.), John Wiley and Sons, p. 338,608-609, ISBN 9780470746387, Finally we consider briefly the possibility of achieving cold fusion (...) Many attempts to produce fusion reactions at room temperature have been, and continue to be, made but the viability of cold fusion as a process for energy production or a commercial scale has yet to be deomnstrated. (gives less than one page to cold fusion)
  • 2011 Nicola Armaroli, Vincenzo Balzani (2011), "8.3.4. Whisful Thinking", Energy for a Sustainable World: From the Oil Age to a Sun-Powered Future (illustrated ed.), John Wiley & Sons, p. no page numbers, ISBN 9783527325405, a couple of issues which will likely remain in the category of wishful thinking should be briefly recalled (...) Mainstream science does not believe in cold fusion [530] also because of a lack of an accepted explanation using conventional physics. However, since cold fusion would be such an extraordinary process from both a theoretical and a practical viewpoint, sessions on this field are regularly organized, under the umbrella name "low-energy nuclear reactions", at American Chemical Society meetings.
  • 2011 William C. Robertson (2011), "What Writing Represents What Scientists Actually Do?", Science the "Write" Way, NSTA Press (National Science Teachers Association), p. 82, ISBN 9781936137404, [p. 82] A good example of this was the "discovery" of cold fusion a number of years ago. The original research publication on cold fusion sparked a whole bunch of articles in which scientists mostly refuted the original results. Without this written criticism, we would not now know that cold fusion was an unfulfilled dream.
  • 2011 David Hambling (06 October 11), "Cold fusion rears its head as 'E-Cat' research promises to change the world", Wired, The E-Cat is the latest incarnation of cold fusion, an area long shunned by respectable scientists. In 1989, researchers Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann claimed to have produced a small amount of energy by nuclear fusion on a lab bench via electrolysis. This was unprecedented and appeared to contradict accepted science, as fusion only occurs at temperatures of millions of degrees in the Sun and stars. Other scientists failed to replicate this cold fusion, and the whole field was soon labelled bad science at best. Few journals will cover it these days. In science terms, an interest cold fusion is up there with astrology and alchemy. A few scientists do still work in this field, notably at the US Naval Research Laboratory. Occasional papers are published claiming positive results in the area of "Low Energy Nuclear Reactions" and "excess heat generation". Nobody calls it cold fusion, and this is an area led by experiment rather than theory. But some scientists are breaking cover. {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • 2012 Efstathios E. Michaelides (2012), ""Cold Fusion", Other Myths and Scientific Ethics. 6.5.4 Ethical Lessons from the "Cold Fusion" Debacle", Green Energy and Technology (illustrated ed.), Springer, p. 189-192, ISBN 9783642209505, [page 192] When it comes to energy, there have been several recorded claims that have proven to be mere exaggerations or even patently false. A search in the popular press or the internet will prove that, even today, there are several devices, engines and processes whose claims villate the laws of thermodynamics. Behind each one of these engines or processes is usually a greedy "scientist", a gullible "company executive" or a misinformed and poorly educated "engineer." The popular press adores and strives on sensational news, such a "cold fusion," "cars running on water," or "an engine that defies gravity." However, the popular press and the internet are not subjected to any rigurous peer review processes. They are not scientific fora, and not everything that is reported in them is necessarily correct or true. [page 194] 13. What are the ethical lessons for an engineer from the several false claims on the achievement of "cold fusion"?
  • 2012 Robert M. Metzger (2012), The Physical Chemist's Toolbox (2 ed.), John Wiley & Sons, pp. 572, 581, ISBN 9780470889251, [p. 572] (A longer lasting and publicity-driven excitement followed the erroneous announcement in 1989 of cold fusion by electrochemists Pons and Fleischmann.) [p. 581] Except for a short and ludicrous interlude in 1989, when some thought that "cold fusion" was possible, the long decades of effort have focused on two promising ways of producing power: (a) confining of hot plasmas in large Tokamaks and (b) laser fusion of small pellets.
  • 2012 Lesley B. Cormack, Andrew Ede (2012), A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility, Second Edition (2 ed.), University of Toronto Press, pp. 303, 382–384, ISBN 9781442604469, [p. 303] It is false logic to conclude that politically motivated support for weak science was confined to totalitarian states, as the cases of cold fusion and missile defence research would later show. [p. 383] Claims for cold fusion turned out to be completely unfounded, and there was no challenge to our understanding of physics (...) While it is not clear how much money and time has been spent on the chimera of cold fusion (...) Most commentators have attributed the "discovery" to wishful thinking and poor expderimental procedures rather than malfeasance. [footnote 3 in page 89] A modern example of this type of wishful thinking can be seen in the attempt by pons and Fleischmann to create cold fusion.
  • 2012 Wendy Saul (2012), Front-Page Science: Engaging Teens in Science Literacy, NSTA Press (National Science Teachers Association), pp. 47, 121, ISBN 781936137145, [p. 47] In the long run, the new discovery of technology may be incorrect or fail (e.g., cold fusion) (...) [p. 121] Other scientific theories have lost credibility, such as "cold fusion in a jar" (...) {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  • 2012 James Kakalios (1 November 2011). The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science That Made Our World. Penguin Group US. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-101-56551-3. For cold fusion to be a real phenomenon, it would require a suspension or violation of the principles of quantum mechanics, which underlies our understanding of solid-state physics, lasers, transistors, and all of the personal electronic devices they enable. Nevertheless, one might be tempted to give these up, if we could make could fusion a physical reality. After all, a small cylinder capable of generating the power of the sun would make an awesome power supply for a jet pack!
  • 2013 Neil F. Comins (13 August 2013). Heavenly Errors: Misconceptions About the Real Nature of the Universe. Columbia University Press. p. 201. ISBN 978-0-231-50252-8. Subsequent attempts by independent researchers to repeat the experiments all failed, although new chemical properties of matter were observed that could explain the initial experimental results. To this day, some people still believe that cold fusion is possible. This leads them to advertise cold fusion-related books, magazines, equipment, and memorabilia. Nevertheless, cold fusion has never created any energy, and I believe it never will.
  • 2013 Bucchi, Massimiano (22 March 2013). Science and the Media: Alternative Routes to Scientific Communications. Routledge. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-415-51051-6. (...) a theory or a result may enjoy different statuses at different levels of scientific communication. For instance, cold fusion may be currently denied at the specialist level moderately taken into account at the interspecialist level, neglected at the pedagogical level and occasionally mentioned as a 'curious' story at the public level. (...) Even if the subculture of cold fusion is much more modest than that of sceptics, who have conquered most of mainstream science, it still posseses enough resources to nurture hope for those who want hope nurtured.
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