Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 16

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Summary of the Biberian and Hubler reviews

Here is my attempt at paraphrasing the abstracts:

Cold fusion has been controversial, but it has been demonstrated by experiments resulting in excess heat production in electrolytic cells and nuclear ashes such as helium-4. The lack of the usual particle emissions observed in nuclear science and high-energy physics make the phenomenon difficult to accept. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.[1]

More than ten groups have reported excess heat in a third of their experiments with a solid palladium cathode and an electrolyte with deuterium or D₂ gas loading of palladium powders. Most of those groups have sometimes seen 50-200% excess heat for hours to days. The groups' observed excess heat events have not diminished in frequency or magnitude, and they have improved their methods.[2]

Combined:

Cold fusion has been controversial, but it has been demonstrated by experiments resulting in excess heat production in electrolytic cells and nuclear ashes such as helium-4. More than ten groups have reported excess heat in a third of their experiments with a solid palladium cathode and an electrolyte with deuterium or D₂ gas loading of palladium powders.[3] Most of those groups have sometimes seen 50-200% excess heat for hours to days. The groups' observed excess heat events have not diminished in frequency or magnitude, and they have improved their methods.[4]

The lack of the usual particle emissions observed in nuclear science and high-energy physics make the phenomenon difficult to accept. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.[5]

Ok? 76.246.148.242 (talk) 05:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I quickly scanned your new article. You are stating things in the intro that I would not have thought possible to put in wikipedia yet: "[cold fusion] has been demonstrated by experiments resulting in excess heat production in electrolytic cells and nuclear ashes such as helium-4". If I have been POV-pushing, what are you doing ? It would be terrific if it would hold. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Why do you think it might not hold? I guess I should have used "reaction products" for "ashes". But isn't my paraphrase of the review's abstracts correct? Bill O.R.G. (talk) 08:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've now read the new version of the article in details, and I like it. A couple of months ago, the sentence I quoted above would have infuriated the skeptical editors, and would have been deleted immediately. We went to the arbitration committee and the mediation process because of disagreement on statements saying that cold fusion is a still ongoing controversy, instead of closed episode of pathological science: I cannot think of what would have happened if a sentence said that it had been demostrated. If I have been uncivil recently (and I apologize if I have), you should have seen what I had to endure (you may want to read my account of the mediation in New Energy Times).

If we can now write that cold fusion has been demonstrated, this would be a major step forward, and I would be delighted by it, because there is plenty of evidence from reliable sources that this is correct, despite the deep skepticism of "most scientists" and of some skeptical editors. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "I've now read the new version of the article in details, and I like it": I will email Pierre privately and try to figure out where things went wrong. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, I'm not sure why you say that things went wrong. If I have not proposed to state that "cold fusion has been demonstrated", it's because I was afraid of the reaction of skeptical editors: I have already gone through a lot of battle, and I did not feel ready for this one yet. I do believe that it is justified, and I'm happy that Bill is taking the challenge. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Pierre, the world needs people who are advocates for progress in science, and if you feel that the number of chemists and physicists who are paying attention to cold fusion needs to grow, then I'm very happy that you would be willing to fight for what you believe to be true. The world certainly could use some help with energy problems. The world also needs people who fight to maintain the quality of Wikipedia articles, especially on contentious subjects, because Wikipedia is IMO the best source of information on many of these subjects. You can't be both; you'll have to choose which is more important to you. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see the need to choose, because I don't see how they could be incompatible. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding last night's changes

There are many ways to address this problem; I'd like for people to figure out the best way. I'm thinking of making a post on WP:VPP for the purpose of addressing the top-down issue: what is Wikipedia good for? What do we want to be known for? Wikipedia will always be a fantastic place to get high-quality information on military history, roads, national parks, and many other subjects where the wikiprojects have a history of cranking out high-quality information and successfully dealing with vandalism. The question is, will Wikipedia ever be a good place for people to come for information on Cold fusion? Until today, I was hopeful that the answer was "yes", but I don't know the answer now. Pierre/Pcarbonn and I were the only two editors who were looking at this article very carefully, sentence by sentence and ref by ref, during the WP:GAN, and now he's saying that he's fine with shifting the lead from saying that cold fusion is undecided to saying it's been decided.

I haven't been willing to keep up with the cold fusion debate since the early 90s, and I'm still not; it should be obvious to anyone reading this article that scientists appear not to have been in a hurry to decide the issue over the last 19 years, and that almost certainly implies disinformation as well as neglect, and there is not the slightest sign of consensus among scientists as to which information is disinformation and which is real. Wikipedia is not going to magically generate a solution that has escaped chemists and physicists. It's true that there is movement recently; it's not out of the question that at least some questions will be answered to everyone's satisfaction some time this year, but we'll have to wait until that happens before we can write about it in Wikipedia.

In the meantime, what's the goal for this article? Since cold fusion continues to occasionally be a news story (some people were replying to the Arata story at physorg.com this week implying they were getting their information about cold fusion from Wikipedia), how this article reads will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the world. Do we want people reading this article to read whatever the latest anonymous edit says is true about the cold fusion controversy? The most contentious issue in all of Wikipedia is: stability or change? Open or closed? It's possible that the appropriate answer to these questions for Cold fusion is different than for many other articles. I'd like to hear your thoughts. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, you raise good questions, and I'll be listening to what people have to say. Please note however that it's not an anonymous user that says CF has been demonstrated, but many reliable sources (Storms, Hubler, Biberian, Srinivasan, ...). As I have said before, the question is "when will cold fusion skeptics provide reliable sources in support of their views ?" How long will we tolerate them to say things without proper sources ? How long will we accept the argument that "it has not been published in Nature, so it cannot be serious" ? I don't think we need to change the wikipedia policies for cold fusion : we just need to apply them, and we'll be fine. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've also said earlier that we need to distinguish between the "uninformed consensus of scientists" and the true "scientific consensus". The scientific consensus of the experts in the field is certainly that the effect is real. One way to ask your question is : "do we want to mirror the view of the uninformed majority", or the view of the somewhat-informed DOE, or the view of the experts in the field ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is what Edmund Storms said (Storms 2007, p187): "If many trained scientists are deceived by such simple experiments, how can we trust anything claimed by science ? If so many errors are made using conventional methods, how can similar measurements be trusted when applied to other behavior ? [...] These are basic questions that go to the heart of the scientific method and the integrity of the scientific profession." Pcarbonn (talk) 16:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Pierre, let's narrow it down to this: you were part of the mediation that ended in mid-April where all parties agreed that the issue of whether cold fusion exists was not settled, and you just participated, strenously, in the WP:GAN review in which you supported the same conclusion (and thanks for your participation). Now you're saying that we should keep last night's edit: "Cold fusion has been controversial, but it has been demonstrated by experiments in electrolytic cells resulting in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics." So, it's all settled then? Not only excess heat, but also helium, neutrons, X-rays, and transmutation? And it's supported by textbook physics? So, let me get this straight. You believe that the 9999 out of 10000 chemists and physicists who believe, as represented in the sources for this article, that millions of atoms at room temperature don't exhibit spontaneous, coherent behavior are all wrong. The century-long history of articles in journals supporting this position are all wrong. Furthermore, you believe that NPOV doesn't apply to this article...that is, even though there are significant numbers of proponents of both sides, we should represent the issue as being settled, right up front in the lead...why exactly? Because you're right? And this is an idea that just occurred to you this morning, so you didn't have a chance to bring it up during the mediation or the article review? You can see how I'm straining to AGF here. When you say above that you can't see any conflict between working to support a cause and working to follow Wikipedia guidelines, that tells me that either you don't get it, or else you're saying that you don't get it. It's not for me to say which; I have not had any heavy involvement with issues of disruptive behavior, I try to focus on article-building. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. If you do wind up getting in trouble for this, I'll be happy to testify that this is not at all a matter of a Wikipedian being very difficult; it's a matter of scientists and the governments funding them behaving very badly, and of that conflict getting transferred to Wikipedia. Nevertheless, there are rules to follow, and I'll get in trouble myself if I don't make sure that they are followed. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not propose this change. I just said that I support it, once it was proposed. Whether I should regret for not doing it earlier is not important. Thank you for your assistance if I get in trouble somehow.

What is NPOV ? Which consensus do we have to represent ? This is a hard question. I just said what I would answer, i.e. the "scientific consensus of the community of scientists in a particular field of science". I also said that I'm open to other's view. This is for the purpose of writing a good article with the correct information from reliable sources. Please assume good faith.

To defend the view that CF should not be presented as 'demonstrated', according to wikipedia policies, we would need to find a recent reliable source from a peer-reviewed journal that says that cold fusion is not real, to counterbalance the existing recent reliable sources from peer-reviewed journals that say the contrary. Can someone find one ? PhysicsOrg was only able to find an obscure retired physicist to critique Arata's demonstration. Why isn't there any big wig to take a clear position against cold fusion, while some are taking a clear position for it (e.g. srinivasan) ? Why should we give a voice to the silents, against all wikipedia policies ? That is the question that the wikipedia community should answer. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

If the recent reported effects are real, they will be confirmed sooner rather than later. Wikipedia is not going away; we can wait a while. Until then, the introduction should not say that cold fusion has been confirmed.

This may be none of my business, I'm not involved in this page but I do watch what you folks are doing here when I have a chance.

Let me butt my head here if I may. I am the author of a 2004 book called "The Rebirth of Cold Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, Real Energy." I've learned a lot since I wrote it five years ago. If you look closely at my more recent writings you will no longer find me saying things like "cold fusion has been confirmed." You will, however find me saying things like excess heat and anomalous nuclear evidence have been confirmed.

It's not a trivial matter of semantics; I'm not avoiding the term "cold fusion" because of the stigma. I have my reasons, and they are expressed in my recent writings. Look them up if you want to know more, or you can shoot an email with your contact information and I'll send you copies of non-selfpub'd articles I've written lately. Best regards,

StevenBKrivit (talk) 05:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course, people may have different views on the word "confirmed." As I have stated before, cold fusion is extremely unlikely based on existing physics (coulomb potential, strong force, etc.), so extremely convincing evidence of confirmation should be required. Two good indicators of that evidence would be endorsement by established fusion experts, and publication in the top journals in the field, which are Physical Review Letters, Science, and Nature. These journals have excellent reputations for fairness, so the lack of articles there supporting cold fusion is strong evidence that the data supporting cold fusion is weak. Keep in mind that PRL, at least, can operate very quickly. One shocking, almost revolutionary, paper was accepted within a few days of being submitted (Wu et al., March 2, 1987).209.253.120.198 (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I follow and agree up to the point where you say "...so the lack of articles there supporting cold fusion is strong evidence that the data supporting cold fusion is weak." The conjunction "so" implies a logical relationship, but the conclusion you offered does not logically follow from the premises you offered. The from of your logic looks to me like "if a, then b. not a, so not b.", which is incorrect. Again, everything else I agree with. Kevin Baas^talk 13:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Another thing to recognize is that the threshold for confirmation should be higher for a field like cold fusion which has had confirmation problems in the past. Many groups reported "confirmation" of some type in 1989, but as far as I can tell none of them has stood the test of time. If there are any, I would like to know about them. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 21:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the Biberian and Huebler reviews in the previous talk page section? 76.240.228.188 (talk) 07:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I made some changes to the lead. As noted in my edit summary, I think that changes to the lead on the 29th were not in line with the results of the recent mediation, or the WP:GAN review, or NPOV, or scientific consensus; I'm attempting to fix that. One change that proponents will like comes from WP:LEAD; if alternate names for the subject of the article appear in the lead section, then they're supposed to be in the first sentence in bold, and I don't think we can argue that "low energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" are not alternate terms for "cold fusion"; they are. But the main problem that needed fixing was the assertion that there are explanations of "cold fusion" that use "textbook physics"; this completely and thoroughly misrepresented the position of the vast majority of physicists and chemists.

The recent mediation suggested that the issue has not been settled, that is, most scientists believe that cold fusion is a series of experimental errors and/or invalid conclusions (although to be fair, most of them simply haven't paid much attention), but a significant number believe that it's a demonstration of fusion at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and others say they don't know. Given that the current consensus on Wikipedia is that the matter hasn't been settled, NPOV requires that we not "get in the way" of letting both sides tell their story, even though this will annoy the heck out of some proponents and some skeptics. Here's the point that some of the proponents are missing: you don't get to decide which experiments are relevant to cold fusion and which aren't. I know that some of you much prefer to look at recent experiments instead of the whole body of experiments in quantum physics; I know that some of you claim that if someone doesn't succeed in getting 95% loading of deuterium into their cathode, that means that nothing they have to say has any relevance to cold fusion. You make some good points, and we sketch the arguments in this article and point to very good references so that people can follow up these threads. But the fact that you think you know what's relevant and what's not doesn't end the argument. NPOV on Wikipedia requires that, if a significant number of people think that little green men have invaded, we have to let them tell their story; we can rebut, but we can't undercut; so NPOV sure as heck means that if 9999 out of 10000 scientists believe something, we have to let them tell their story, and their story is that millions of atoms don't spontaneously interact coherently at room temperature. They believe this is established by a century of experimentation and theory. They also believe in conservation of energy and momentum, and given those beliefs, they don't see a way to get fusion creating helium without energetic particles...at any temperature, much less ordinary temperatures. I know that some of you believe that none of their experiments and nothing they say is relevant to the current controversy, but NPOV requires us to represent their position, anyway.

As long as we clearly represent the position of both sides, I'm fine with tweaks to the lead; I gave it a shot. I don't expect everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia to know all the Wikipedia policies and guidelines; in fact, if you have something to contribute, I'd prefer you not worry too much about it, as long as you are willing to collaborate with experienced and trusted Wikipedians. It basically just comes down to: help Wikipedia, good; hurt Wikipedia, bad. The changes to the lead on the 29th that said that cold fusion was settled and established and followed "textbook physics" hurt Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's not pretend that we are smarter than the reviewers of the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology. The widon-larsen theory does not require new physics, according to its authors and some of their reviewers. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more; let's not pretend. As I mention below, you have opened the door to a discussion among experts of what is and isn't accepted physics, so let's make sure that a full and representative discussion, respecting UNDUE, gets into this article. I'm encouraging participation by experts. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Scientific community position (was References)

I'm concerned that the last paragraph of the intro seems to imply that proof of cold fusion is widely accepted by experts in the field. However, that would contradict the very first sentence of the reference that seems to be the source for that paragraph:

Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme.

For comparison, here is the current version of that paragraph:

Since then, several reviews of the field published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments which result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.

Specifically, my concern is that a reader would interpret "several reviews... published..." to mean that those reviews are representative of the scientific community, in contradiction of the above quote.

Can we find a way to rephrase things so we won't risk misleading our readers? Also, I think it's important that we include plenty of citations in this article, including (especially?) in the intro. Finally, I'd recommend that we try to focus these discussions on how best to represent the literature, rather than trying to determine whether cold fusion is true/false, good/bad science, etc. Just my 2 cents, Gnixon (talk) 05:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"The entire scientific comunity does not accept cold fusion as genuine." ? That's no good, because it's ambigious: the entire community says no and the entire community does not say yes are two very diffierent propsitions. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 07:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"As of 2006, some in the scientific community do not accept cold fusion or CMNS as genunie." is what I added to the intro and will to the supporting mention. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 07:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I think your suggestion contradicts "the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." It is clear from the DOE report that researchers who are convinced by the cold fusion experiments are in the minority. Gnixon (talk) 08:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Good point! I will adjust to state that. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 09:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Preparing for WP:FAC

I know everyone is a bit tired out. I'm going to make some minor style fixes today...we forgot to italicize journal names for instance...but I'll leave the fixes that will be needed for WP:FAC until we seem to have renewed interest from a number of editors. I suggest we just add anything that doesn't need to be fixed right away to this list. We can start with this feedback from G-Guy's talk page:

• As for for the current article, I find the ordering of the sections a bit odd. It seems as if it fails WP:LEAD by starting with ongoing controversy, rather than history, or the original experiment. Geometry guy 20:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I have supported several times during mediation the idea that the article should start with experiments, then present the controversy, then history. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The former featured version did have history first, as Geometry Guy suggests, and the article stayed that way until mediation. I would certainly support placing history first. That would be more standard and straightforward. I can't imagine the article in this state would be considered featured, but then again I'm surprised it's considered 'good'.--Noren (talk) 04:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't follow why you didn't say something between May 18 and now, Noren; you spoke up during the mediation, and I have asked for your feedback. I'm hoping the reason wasn't that I came across as unsympathetic. As I said above, I wouldn't take this article to WP:FAC unless it's clear we have representation from a wider range of views, especially skeptical views. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's remember why we decided to put the "ongoing controversy" section first during the mediation. We said that, if we start with history, we give the impression to the reader that cold fusion is known only for the 1989 episode and is now part of history. Also, the history section is so long that many would stop reading before reaching the other sections. Some people were opposed to the idea of starting with experimental data, as we do for example in superconductivity. There is plenty of evidence that cold fusion is an unresolved scientific controversy, and readers can be expected to want to read about the pro and con arguments: hence, we decided to start with the controversy section. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you actually mean FAC? WP:FAR is a strange place to go. Ruslik (talk) 13:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up my confusion. I had seen articles at WP:FAR which had talked about being at FAR before, and I thought that meant all articles that had been at FAR once would be welcome there again...not so, those were articles that never really left FAR. I should be talking about WP:FAC. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Note:I just went through substituting "WP:FAC" as appropriate for "WP:FAR" so people will know what I'm talking about. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, you say "I wouldn't take this article to WP:FAC unless it's clear we have representation from a wider range of views". What evidence do you have that some views are insufficiently represented ? Pcarbonn (talk) 15:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The post-2004 reviews were missing. I added them. 76.246.148.242 (talk) 05:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Pierre, I'm not saying that there is some kind of iron rule that we have to wait for X different opinions before we can proceed. I'm saying that the spirit of WP:CONSENSUS is that, when this article has been the subject of a lot of trips to WP:ANI, and when it largely represented the position of the skeptics back when it was a featured article two years ago, we can't rush to WP:FAC. We have to acknowledge that sometimes people who cared in the past might care again in the future, and give them a chance to have their input. I know that you feel that there are serious deficiencies with the input of some of the skeptics, but that doesn't change the fact that we are required to be patient and give everyone lots of time. Besides, if we don't, that will just land us at WP:FAR later on, even if the article does pass WP:FAC. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

When I was a featured article reviewer, I would need a really good reason to even consider passing something with an open {{todo}} list. That's the first and best place to start right now.. 76.246.148.242 (talk) 04:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I think Mr. to do list is old and has lost its relevancy. I say it should be scrapped. Kevin Baas^talk 15:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; done. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 06:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Organization

This is what the contents was when I started:

   * 1 Ongoing controversy
         o 1.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result
         o 1.2 Missing nuclear products
         o 1.3 Lack of theoretical explanations
   * 2 Experimental reports
         o 2.1 Excess heat
         o 2.2 Nuclear products
         o 2.3 Nuclear transmutations
         o 2.4 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment
   * 3 History
         o 3.1 Early work
         o 3.2 Pre-announcement and announcement
         o 3.3 Post-announcement
         o 3.4 Moving beyond the initial controversy
   * 4 Notes
   * 5 References
   * 6 Bibliography
   * 7 Further reading

That seemed absurdly anti-chronological to me. This is what the contents is now:

   * 1 Experimental reports
         o 1.1 Excess heat
         o 1.2 Nuclear products
         o 1.3 Nuclear transmutations
   * 2 History
         o 2.1 Early work
         o 2.2 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment
               + 2.2.1 Pre-announcement and announcement
               + 2.2.2 Post-announcement
         o 2.3 Controversy
               + 2.3.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result
               + 2.3.2 Missing nuclear products
               + 2.3.3 Lack of theoretical explanations
         o 2.4 Beyond the controversy
   * 3 Notes
   * 4 References
   * 5 Bibliography
   * 6 Further reading

That, as I understand it, may be how Pcarbonn wants it. This is, I believe, how Noren wants it:

   * 1 Early work
   * 2 The original Fleischmann and Pons experiment
         o 2.1 Pre-announcement and announcement
         o 2.2 Post-announcement
   * 3 Controversy
         o 3.1 Lack of reproducibility of the result
         o 3.2 Missing nuclear products
         o 3.3 Lack of theoretical explanations
   * 4 Beyond the controversy
   * 5 Experimental reports
         o 5.1 Excess heat
         o 5.2 Nuclear products
         o 5.3 Nuclear transmutations
   * 6 Notes
   * 7 References
   * 8 Bibliography
   * 9 Further reading

I have to go with Noren on this one. What do other people think? 76.246.148.242 (talk) 06:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to go with Noren's arrangement, too. Both sides have valid arguments, but when you just cancel them out and just look at it without reasoning -- i.e. what feels "right" -- the most natural -- it's to tell the story first, then give the details. Kevin Baas^talk 15:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I really think the article would be easier to read if it were more chronological and less disjointed. I strongly dislike using the phrase "beyond the controversy" because the controversy has not gone away at all. Placing a "Beyond the controversy" section just after a "Controversy" section as in the current article strongly suggests that the controversy in the past, which is simply not true. Here is my proposal which incorporates these ideas:

   * 1 History 
         1.1 Early work 
         1.2 Fleischmann-Pons announcement 
         1.3 Reaction to the announcement
         1.4 Developments after 1989 
         1.5 2004 DOE panel 
         1.6 Recent developments 
   * 2 Evidence for cold fusion
         2.1 Excess heat 
         2.2 Nuclear products 
         2.3 Nuclear transmutations 
   * 3 Incompatibilities with established physics

The basic cell description would be in section 1.2, near the top of the page as it should be. Criticism of experiments (reproducibility, contamination, etc.) would be placed just after the results are presented in sections 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. The current "lack of theoretical explanations" section would be moved and become section 3. Any thoughts? 209.253.120.198 (talk) 12:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I would name section 3 as "criticism" and include the 3 subsections (reproducibility, ...). Doing that, I'm not sure what would be left to say for 1.5 2004 DOE panel. If you want to keep it, you would also need a section on the 1989 DOE panel, for good balance. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding last night's changes

There are many ways to address this problem; I'd like for people to figure out the best way. I'm thinking of making a post on WP:VPP for the purpose of addressing the top-down issue: what is Wikipedia good for? What do we want to be known for? Wikipedia will always be a fantastic place to get high-quality information on military history, roads, national parks, and many other subjects where the wikiprojects have a history of cranking out high-quality information and successfully dealing with vandalism. The question is, will Wikipedia ever be a good place for people to come for information on Cold fusion? Until today, I was hopeful that the answer was "yes", but I don't know the answer now. Pierre/Pcarbonn and I were the only two editors who were looking at this article very carefully, sentence by sentence and ref by ref, during the WP:GAN, and now he's saying that he's fine with shifting the lead from saying that cold fusion is undecided to saying it's been decided.

I haven't been willing to keep up with the cold fusion debate since the early 90s, and I'm still not; it should be obvious to anyone reading this article that scientists appear not to have been in a hurry to decide the issue over the last 19 years, and that almost certainly implies disinformation as well as neglect, and there is not the slightest sign of consensus among scientists as to which information is disinformation and which is real. Wikipedia is not going to magically generate a solution that has escaped chemists and physicists. It's true that there is movement recently; it's not out of the question that at least some questions will be answered to everyone's satisfaction some time this year, but we'll have to wait until that happens before we can write about it in Wikipedia.

In the meantime, what's the goal for this article? Since cold fusion continues to occasionally be a news story (some people were replying to the Arata story at physorg.com this week implying they were getting their information about cold fusion from Wikipedia), how this article reads will affect Wikipedia's reputation in the world. Do we want people reading this article to read whatever the latest anonymous edit says is true about the cold fusion controversy? The most contentious issue in all of Wikipedia is: stability or change? Open or closed? It's possible that the appropriate answer to these questions for Cold fusion is different than for many other articles. I'd like to hear your thoughts. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, you raise good questions, and I'll be listening to what people have to say. Please note however that it's not an anonymous user that says CF has been demonstrated, but many reliable sources (Storms, Hubler, Biberian, Srinivasan, ...). As I have said before, the question is "when will cold fusion skeptics provide reliable sources in support of their views ?" How long will we tolerate them to say things without proper sources ? How long will we accept the argument that "it has not been published in Nature, so it cannot be serious" ? I don't think we need to change the wikipedia policies for cold fusion : we just need to apply them, and we'll be fine. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've also said earlier that we need to distinguish between the "uninformed consensus of scientists" and the true "scientific consensus". The scientific consensus of the experts in the field is certainly that the effect is real. One way to ask your question is : "do we want to mirror the view of the uninformed majority", or the view of the somewhat-informed DOE, or the view of the experts in the field ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is what Edmund Storms said (Storms 2007, p187): "If many trained scientists are deceived by such simple experiments, how can we trust anything claimed by science ? If so many errors are made using conventional methods, how can similar measurements be trusted when applied to other behavior ? [...] These are basic questions that go to the heart of the scientific method and the integrity of the scientific profession." Pcarbonn (talk) 16:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Pierre, let's narrow it down to this: you were part of the mediation that ended in mid-April where all parties agreed that the issue of whether cold fusion exists was not settled, and you just participated, strenously, in the WP:GAN review in which you supported the same conclusion (and thanks for your participation). Now you're saying that we should keep last night's edit: "Cold fusion has been controversial, but it has been demonstrated by experiments in electrolytic cells resulting in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics." So, it's all settled then? Not only excess heat, but also helium, neutrons, X-rays, and transmutation? And it's supported by textbook physics? So, let me get this straight. You believe that the 9999 out of 10000 chemists and physicists who believe, as represented in the sources for this article, that millions of atoms at room temperature don't exhibit spontaneous, coherent behavior are all wrong. The century-long history of articles in journals supporting this position are all wrong. Furthermore, you believe that NPOV doesn't apply to this article...that is, even though there are significant numbers of proponents of both sides, we should represent the issue as being settled, right up front in the lead...why exactly? Because you're right? And this is an idea that just occurred to you this morning, so you didn't have a chance to bring it up during the mediation or the article review? You can see how I'm straining to AGF here. When you say above that you can't see any conflict between working to support a cause and working to follow Wikipedia guidelines, that tells me that either you don't get it, or else you're saying that you don't get it. It's not for me to say which; I have not had any heavy involvement with issues of disruptive behavior, I try to focus on article-building. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. If you do wind up getting in trouble for this, I'll be happy to testify that this is not at all a matter of a Wikipedian being very difficult; it's a matter of scientists and the governments funding them behaving very badly, and of that conflict getting transferred to Wikipedia. Nevertheless, there are rules to follow, and I'll get in trouble myself if I don't make sure that they are followed. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not propose this change. I just said that I support it, once it was proposed. Whether I should regret for not doing it earlier is not important. Thank you for your assistance if I get in trouble somehow.

What is NPOV ? Which consensus do we have to represent ? This is a hard question. I just said what I would answer, i.e. the "scientific consensus of the community of scientists in a particular field of science". I also said that I'm open to other's view. This is for the purpose of writing a good article with the correct information from reliable sources. Please assume good faith.

To defend the view that CF should not be presented as 'demonstrated', according to wikipedia policies, we would need to find a recent reliable source from a peer-reviewed journal that says that cold fusion is not real, to counterbalance the existing recent reliable sources from peer-reviewed journals that say the contrary. Can someone find one ? PhysicsOrg was only able to find an obscure retired physicist to critique Arata's demonstration. Why isn't there any big wig to take a clear position against cold fusion, while some are taking a clear position for it (e.g. srinivasan) ? Why should we give a voice to the silents, against all wikipedia policies ? That is the question that the wikipedia community should answer. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

If the recent reported effects are real, they will be confirmed sooner rather than later. Wikipedia is not going away; we can wait a while. Until then, the introduction should not say that cold fusion has been confirmed.

This may be none of my business, I'm not involved in this page but I do watch what you folks are doing here when I have a chance.

Let me butt my head here if I may. I am the author of a 2004 book called "The Rebirth of Cold Fusion: Real Science, Real Hope, Real Energy." I've learned a lot since I wrote it five years ago. If you look closely at my more recent writings you will no longer find me saying things like "cold fusion has been confirmed." You will, however find me saying things like excess heat and anomalous nuclear evidence have been confirmed.

It's not a trivial matter of semantics; I'm not avoiding the term "cold fusion" because of the stigma. I have my reasons, and they are expressed in my recent writings. Look them up if you want to know more, or you can shoot an email with your contact information and I'll send you copies of non-selfpub'd articles I've written lately. Best regards,

StevenBKrivit (talk) 05:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course, people may have different views on the word "confirmed." As I have stated before, cold fusion is extremely unlikely based on existing physics (coulomb potential, strong force, etc.), so extremely convincing evidence of confirmation should be required. Two good indicators of that evidence would be endorsement by established fusion experts, and publication in the top journals in the field, which are Physical Review Letters, Science, and Nature. These journals have excellent reputations for fairness, so the lack of articles there supporting cold fusion is strong evidence that the data supporting cold fusion is weak. Keep in mind that PRL, at least, can operate very quickly. One shocking, almost revolutionary, paper was accepted within a few days of being submitted (Wu et al., March 2, 1987).209.253.120.198 (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I follow and agree up to the point where you say "...so the lack of articles there supporting cold fusion is strong evidence that the data supporting cold fusion is weak." The conjunction "so" implies a logical relationship, but the conclusion you offered does not logically follow from the premises you offered. The from of your logic looks to me like "if a, then b. not a, so not b.", which is incorrect. Again, everything else I agree with. Kevin Baas^talk 13:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Another thing to recognize is that the threshold for confirmation should be higher for a field like cold fusion which has had confirmation problems in the past. Many groups reported "confirmation" of some type in 1989, but as far as I can tell none of them has stood the test of time. If there are any, I would like to know about them. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 21:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the Biberian and Huebler reviews in the previous talk page section? 76.240.228.188 (talk) 07:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I made some changes to the lead. As noted in my edit summary, I think that changes to the lead on the 29th were not in line with the results of the recent mediation, or the WP:GAN review, or NPOV, or scientific consensus; I'm attempting to fix that. One change that proponents will like comes from WP:LEAD; if alternate names for the subject of the article appear in the lead section, then they're supposed to be in the first sentence in bold, and I don't think we can argue that "low energy nuclear reactions" and "condensed matter nuclear science" are not alternate terms for "cold fusion"; they are. But the main problem that needed fixing was the assertion that there are explanations of "cold fusion" that use "textbook physics"; this completely and thoroughly misrepresented the position of the vast majority of physicists and chemists.

The recent mediation suggested that the issue has not been settled, that is, most scientists believe that cold fusion is a series of experimental errors and/or invalid conclusions (although to be fair, most of them simply haven't paid much attention), but a significant number believe that it's a demonstration of fusion at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and others say they don't know. Given that the current consensus on Wikipedia is that the matter hasn't been settled, NPOV requires that we not "get in the way" of letting both sides tell their story, even though this will annoy the heck out of some proponents and some skeptics. Here's the point that some of the proponents are missing: you don't get to decide which experiments are relevant to cold fusion and which aren't. I know that some of you much prefer to look at recent experiments instead of the whole body of experiments in quantum physics; I know that some of you claim that if someone doesn't succeed in getting 95% loading of deuterium into their cathode, that means that nothing they have to say has any relevance to cold fusion. You make some good points, and we sketch the arguments in this article and point to very good references so that people can follow up these threads. But the fact that you think you know what's relevant and what's not doesn't end the argument. NPOV on Wikipedia requires that, if a significant number of people think that little green men have invaded, we have to let them tell their story; we can rebut, but we can't undercut; so NPOV sure as heck means that if 9999 out of 10000 scientists believe something, we have to let them tell their story, and their story is that millions of atoms don't spontaneously interact coherently at room temperature. They believe this is established by a century of experimentation and theory. They also believe in conservation of energy and momentum, and given those beliefs, they don't see a way to get fusion creating helium without energetic particles...at any temperature, much less ordinary temperatures. I know that some of you believe that none of their experiments and nothing they say is relevant to the current controversy, but NPOV requires us to represent their position, anyway.

As long as we clearly represent the position of both sides, I'm fine with tweaks to the lead; I gave it a shot. I don't expect everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia to know all the Wikipedia policies and guidelines; in fact, if you have something to contribute, I'd prefer you not worry too much about it, as long as you are willing to collaborate with experienced and trusted Wikipedians. It basically just comes down to: help Wikipedia, good; hurt Wikipedia, bad. The changes to the lead on the 29th that said that cold fusion was settled and established and followed "textbook physics" hurt Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's not pretend that we are smarter than the reviewers of the International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology. The widon-larsen theory does not require new physics, according to its authors and some of their reviewers. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more; let's not pretend. As I mention below, you have opened the door to a discussion among experts of what is and isn't accepted physics, so let's make sure that a full and representative discussion, respecting UNDUE, gets into this article. I'm encouraging participation by experts. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Scientific community position (was References)

I'm concerned that the last paragraph of the intro seems to imply that proof of cold fusion is widely accepted by experts in the field. However, that would contradict the very first sentence of the reference that seems to be the source for that paragraph:

Seventeen years after the announcement by Professors Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the discovery of cold fusion in March 1989, the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme.

For comparison, here is the current version of that paragraph:

Since then, several reviews of the field published in peer-reviewed journals have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments which result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Some experiments have shown low-level neutron production, X-ray emission, and transmutation of elements. There is still no satisfactory theory explaining condensed matter nuclear science, but many explanations have been proposed, several with textbook physics.

Specifically, my concern is that a reader would interpret "several reviews... published..." to mean that those reviews are representative of the scientific community, in contradiction of the above quote.

Can we find a way to rephrase things so we won't risk misleading our readers? Also, I think it's important that we include plenty of citations in this article, including (especially?) in the intro. Finally, I'd recommend that we try to focus these discussions on how best to represent the literature, rather than trying to determine whether cold fusion is true/false, good/bad science, etc. Just my 2 cents, Gnixon (talk) 05:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"The entire scientific comunity does not accept cold fusion as genuine." ? That's no good, because it's ambigious: the entire community says no and the entire community does not say yes are two very diffierent propsitions. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 07:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"As of 2006, some in the scientific community do not accept cold fusion or CMNS as genunie." is what I added to the intro and will to the supporting mention. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 07:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I think your suggestion contradicts "the scientific community does not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." It is clear from the DOE report that researchers who are convinced by the cold fusion experiments are in the minority. Gnixon (talk) 08:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Good point! I will adjust to state that. 76.240.228.188 (talk) 09:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking at this

I agree pretty much with Smokefoot. The absence of negative criticism is the later sections is a little much--the An effort should be made to find not just "an overview of current thinking that leaves the door open to the Widon-Larsen theory and any other current CF theories." but also an overview of current thinking that explains why almost no active scientist in the field considers the current theories worth the investigating. If there are none, for whatever reason, then it should be said that no current scientific papers in the major journals of the field (listing them) discuss the subject, if that's the case.

There are peer-reviewed journals of every sort, from excellent to disreputable. The standards of some are to take essentially every paper they can get, or at least any that supports the premise of the editor. If the publishers chooses to say that manuscripts are reviewed independently, it's called a peer reviewed journal. Current Science, for example, has a remarkably flexible policy. That said, a few of the journals using the reference section to report the research are fairly reputable. I'm going to look at this factor in some more detail.

I have changed "Beyond the controversy" to "Further controversy" as being more descriptive. The section talks not about how the dispute has been resolved, but about how it has continued. DGG (talk) 15:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm delighted you've taken an interest, DGG, and feel free to weigh in any time. (DGG is one of the most knowledgeable people around Wikipedia on matters of sourcing, and not just IMO.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Inccuracies in Researcher's Attributions

17:18 2 June. Smokefoot changed Oriani's descriptor from "physcial chemistry" to "materials science." I have a copy of Oriani's CV. It states that he obtained his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1948 from Princeton University.

Also, I knew that Huggins was back at Stanford so I requested a clarification from him today. His reply: "I took early retirement from Stanford in 1991. But after 16 years in Germany, I came back to Stanford in September 2007."

StevenBKrivit (talk) 06:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Dear StevenBKrivit: Google him. I didnt check in the field in which Oriani fot his PhD (few US programs offer PhDs in p-chem per se, the degree would be in chem most likely) but his dept at Minnesota was MatSE, later to be merged with ChemE. It is curious that the main advocates for CF are dead, in military labs, or retired (sometimes on the Riviera). The Intelligent Design group has had a similarly awful time finding supporters at decent universities. They managed to dredge up one dude (Michael Behe) at Lehigh University, not usually considered a major institution.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

This looks like an appeal to authority. They did the same trick to Galileo. Pcarbonn (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, I hate to see the dysfunction among scientists on this issue translating into dysfunction at Wikipedia; none of us are the ones at fault for this mess. Again, unless all the appropriate testing equipment (spectroscopy, etc) in the world has stopped working, it's not difficult to run an experiment and test for energetic particles and the presence of new elements, so the only explanation for why we're not sure after 19 years is some amount of behavior which is "bad" in one or more ways on the part of many people on both sides. If scientists are not willing to come clean, it is definitely not our job to wash them off, only to report what appears in what Wikipedia considers reliable sources, to let both sides tell their stories, and to give readers some pointers and some tools that let them proceed on their own paths. Who knows, maybe what we write here will help someone unravel all this mess...but probably not.

Regarding "appeal to authority", Pierre/Pcarbonn, what a lawyer would say in this situation is, "you opened the door". That is, if you had been content to say merely that there are a number of scientists who have published papers and who claimed something, and if Smokefoot had started a campaign of character assassination on them, then he would have been out of line. But you're the one who brought in the issue of how many, how famous, how important, etc, which would make it perfectly reasonable for an American judge to respond "I'll allow it" when the opposition starts introducing evidence that maybe they're not as central and important as you were representing.

On the subject of "opening the door", I was fine with the article at the time of the first edit on the 29th, but since lots of unpleasant things have creeped in since then, including changing section titles as Smokefoot mentions in the section just above, and inserting and reverting to keep "textbook physics" in the lead section, you have opened the door, wide, to a rebuttal of the "textbook physics" concept. I don't think this is a bad thing; discussion of exactly why cold fusion is so unlikely, from the point of view of quantum physics and chemistry, would probably improve this article. I'll keep working on pulling in experts. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the idea that cold fusion is an area of dysfunction among scientists. In fact, the field in general is a admirable success of establishment scientists' behavior. In 1989, many distinguished scientists conducted experiments and reported their findings. Since then, those who consider it promising have pursued it. The lack of judgements in the press from establishment scientists on recent experiments is simply a product of their waiting for convincing evidence that deuterons are likely to be fusing. Cold fusion research doesn't appear to be harming anyone, so why do they have a responsibility to rain on the CF parade? Dan, I am curious if you have ever performed spectroscopy experiments. I have, and I can tell you that they are not as easy as you imply. That means that for an established scientist to visit a cold fusion lab and perform enough experiments to use spectroscopy data as a strong indicator that fusion is not happening would be a major investment of time, something scientists value very highly. If proponents have produced convincing data of this type, my suggestion to them is to get it published a major physics journal so everyone can see. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 23:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with scientists performing electrochemistry with their own funds in the hope of finding out something interesting; there's nothing wrong with scientists waiting for published research in major scientific journals before they take an interest. There's something wrong with the taxpayer-funded US Department of Energy deciding that it's not worth investing much time or money to determine whether the reported tritium, helium and other elements are or are not being produced in the experiments they were charged with evaluating. That's like issuing a report that there may be a massive oil field in the US that would solve the world's energy problems, and then after 19 years continuing to issue statements like "we tried to find out, but our drilling bit broke". Speaking as a US taxpayer, it's just not acceptable. The US DOE is full of people who either aren't competent to or don't want to help with the science behind energy problems, and the current administration seems to like it that way.

To answer your other question, the only time I've seen spectroscopy and similar equipment used was when I was taking my semiconductor physics course, and I would have stayed away if it hadn't been a requirement, so I'm not competent to say, but I bet we can get input from people who are competent. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the DOE panels, if they believed that deuteron fusion was extremely unlikely in the experiments presented, as I infer they did, it would have been irresponsible to recommend focused federal funding, considering the finite funds available. They did not claim, as you suggest, that their tools were broken at all. They simply advised that taxpayer money should be spent on more promising areas. Speaking as a US taxpayer, that sounds like the right action to me. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 21:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Except, look at the first and last images on the page. The navy's labs in San Diego are providing evidence of energetic particles and transmutations. One way or the other, the US taxpayers are getting a bad deal (but don't we always): either both the Navy and the DOE are taking our money and not doing what they're supposed to be doing (poor experiments in the case of the Navy, lack of appropriate oversight by the DOE), or else the DOE isn't following up on experiments that could provide a new energy source. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

being realistic, the US government often spends a certain amount of money to satisfy public interest as expressed through political processes: consider the much larger amount the NIH devotes to alternative medicine, including some quite unlikely projects. (personal opinion). The result of bartering in Congress does not necessarily reflect the scientific consensus. DGG (talk) 14:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems like the most relevant thing would be to describe Oriani's position at the time he published the result. How about "The first ... was published by Oriani in XXX, while he was a professor of XXX at XXX"? Smoke, can you provide a source indicating that he would have been a professor of materials science? Gnixon (talk) 18:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I fully support that. Do we take the argument that Galileo is dead to show that heliocentrism is wrong ? Pcarbonn (talk) 19:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Re our Orliani, he is listed as emeritus at the "Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science"

http://www.cems.umn.edu/about/people/facdetail.php?cemsid=20161 Two papers say from the 1990's have these addresses "Corrosion Research Center, University of Minnesota, 112 Amundson Hall, 221 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S." "112 Amundson Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A." Unfortunately most of his work is published in Fusion Technology, which I cannot access on-line. Re the Galileo reference: The fact that proponents are dead or retired is not a slap against CF, but it would be helpful to this article to identify distinguished, non-dead, non-retired pro-CF scientists. Something to work on.--Smokefoot (talk) 23:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I wish that distinguished scientists would leave their silence and take a position on CF. As Dank55 says, this discussion only reflects the sorry state of the scientific debate on this matter. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support what both Smokefoot and Pcarbonn just said. We're not here to slap anyone around; we just want to keep working on identifying the most persuasive proponents of cold fusion, rather than mentioning a long list of names, as if the length of the list proves the point. And I am just as frustrated with lack of action as Pcarbonn is. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I would say that the most persuasive proponent at this time is Dr. M. R. Srinivasan, member and former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India: "There is some science here that needs to be understood. We should set some people to investigate these experiments. There is much to be commended for the progress in the work. The neglect should come to an end" Pcarbonn (talk) 20:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

In a letter to Science, Oriani's address was given as "Corrosion Research Center, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences, Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455." Assuming "professor" is accurate, can we agree to call him "professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Sciences at the University of Minnesota," as above? Or, given the unwieldy department name, would it be better to simply call him "professor at the University of Minnesota," and give details in the citation? Gnixon (talk) 05:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I spoke with Richard Oriani today on the phone and discussed the disagreement with him. Initially, he said that neither term was correct; that his extensive training and career in science and technology had enabled him to develop expertise in a multitude of areas. I explained to him that often and unfortunately, in journalism, we are forced to provide some brief, simple term to describe a person's primary attributes or affiliation. His response was, "Well, I did get my degree in physical chemistry."

McKubre's current affiliation is still SRI International. His affiliation there should not be listed in past tense.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Considering all these complications, what about just omitting any in-line description of him? A footnote or the wikilink to his article could suffice. Gnixon (talk) 21:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Steve! - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

To do list

I have reinserted the to do list. Let's discuss what it should contain. Here is my proposal:

• Lewenstein, cited in the bibliography, has a full timeline of events. We should look at it and keep what is relevant to the history section. For example, he says that Utah created a cold fusion institute in 1989 : I would think we should add it to our article.
• He also discusses why things happened the way they did in the early days. For example, he says that the rivalry between F&P and Jones explained a lot of what happens, or that the high uncertainty around the science made a big investment difficult. Our history section would gain from such insights, I would think.

Pcarbonn (talk) 10:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You removed the links. 76.240.228.89 (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Extent of the effect: power ratios

I am adding to the to-do list: describe the typical and best research results reported in the literature reviews as total input-to-output power ratios. 76.240.228.89 (talk) 18:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. If we made the article 50% longer adding details of cold fusion results, then that would be "unbalanced" even if we made it clear that the information is from proponents, just because of the volume of words; so, there's some kind of limit, but 76.240's suggestion is reasonable. Again: let's get everything we want to get into this article, make sure that everyone is satisfied that we've said enough, and then call a halt to more experimental details, until and unless significant new details emerge. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Also...I reverted your (76.240) edit to the first sentence; please see the edit summary. Could you fix "The modern report"? That doesn't sound right. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

First I will admit that I am concerned that the thrust of the article legitimizes pseudoscience. Having described myself as "concerned," I have three areas that might merit revising, editing, or expanding:

• "Beyond the controversy": This subheading implies that the controversy has been settled in favor of CF being a real effect, whereas the track record (physics depts at top universities dont touch this area).
• The emphasis on "peer reviewed" when referring to journal articles and reviews. We certainly dont use these descriptors when referring to publications in articles on more settled science. A practiced eye knows that this descriptor is usually reserved for crud science that managed to get accepted into some journal (e.g., the illustrious New Energy Times) as well as some legitimate journals. The use of this terminology is a shadey (IMHO) effort to confer legitimacy where there is little.
• Although I dont know how to orchestrate this edit, it would be useful to list non-retired famous (NAS, FRS-class) scientists that are active scholars in CF. The article mainly cites on folks in military labs, but these are not the elite. I suspect that the pro-CF people would want to highlight their super-stars so that the article has a timeliness that sizzles, draws readers, and enhances notability.

Otherwise, I am leaving this article alone for a while.--Smokefoot (talk) 02:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The basis of your comment is totally mistaken: this is not pseudoscience. This was heavily discussed during mediation, and yet again at the top of this page: nobody could find any recent, reliable source to support your view. On the contrary, all recent, reliable sources we found showed it as an ongoing scientific controversy or as an established phenomena. Please check also the quote of Srinivasan in the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No, the recent mediation didn't identify cold fusion as established. Nor did the WP:GAN review, nor did any previous consensus on Wikipedia, nor has it been so identified at any of the top 100 physics departments, nor by any governmental agency. You know this, Pcarbonn. You also know that we have to present it as a question that hasn't been settled in this article.

Did I say that cold fusion was established ? No, I didn't. We must say that some sources say it is an ongoing controversy, and some others say it is established. We cannot say that some source say it is pseudoscience, because there aren't any recent ones. The article is in line with this, as far as I'm concerned. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

This is not just some quibble. The Arata story is now making the rounds on even popular non-scientific blogs, such as http://smirkingchimp.com. We'd have to check to make sure, but my guess is the monthly hits on Cold fusion are a lot higher than other Wikipedia physics articles. Pcarbonn, you and I both know that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in this field that bears further investigation, if only to understand what the heck is going on, but most chemists and physicists don't know that. I cringe at what their reaction will be to our unsupported statement that there are textbook-physics explanations of cold fusion. I imagine for some of them, that's the last time they would come to Wikipedia expecting to learn something about physics or chemistry. I don't want to act like I OWN this article, but I at least don't want statements that make me cringe. I also don't want maintenance of this article to be too much of a burden on anyone; I suggest we all continue what we're doing, create the best article we can, then leave it alone, and after we've all got the article we want, we aggressively revert any attempts to shift the tone or revisit the consensus. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You talk about our "unsupported statement that there are textbook-physics explanations of cold fusion". Read again. We say : some reviews say that some explanations are based on textbook physics". This is well supported by sources, and I see no reason to remove it. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this dispute could be solved by more clearly attributing the statement to a specific review, and by more clearly attributing the review to a CF researcher (assuming the latter is correct). Gnixon (talk) 20:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

That reviewer is Biberian. The source is cited elsewhere in the article, and his name is given in the footnote (not in the article). As mentionned earlier, the Widon-Larsen theory is an example of a "textbook physics" explanation. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, but not in everyone's textbook. I've struggled with how to deal with this; I don't want to just pull in some expert on quantum physics who will explain to us how we're all idiots. Perhaps Steve can find someone broad-minded who can give an overview of current thinking that leaves the door open to the Widon-Larsen theory and any other current CF theories. I'll ask him. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how or where this article legitimizes pseudoscience. If you can point out any original research, undue weight, unverifiable, or irrelevant material in the article in that regard (or any for that matter), and point out the specific sentence/para/phrase, and bring it up for discussion, I'm sure any offending material can be removed.

As regards your points:

• "Beyond the controversy": Suggestions for a different title for this section are welcome.
• The emphasis on "peer reviewed": peer reviewed journals are legitimate sources under verifiability on wikipedia. If you have a problem with using them as source, your problem is with wikipedia policy, not this aricle.
• Many scientists working in the field are well known and highly regarded scientists, and they are listed in the article. If I'm not mistaken, some of them are even nobel-prize winners. I don't know how you can get much more "elite" than that. The thing is most people probably don't know the difference. Maybe the presentation can make that a little more clear, but I don't want the article to start appearing like it's using appeal-to-authority or rhetorical wording. Kevin Baas^talk 15:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "If you have a problem with using them as source, your problem is with wikipedia policy", Wikipedia policy requires us to exercise judgment and choose the most relevant and most persuasive sources. It's perfectly okay to toss material and the source it rode in on if we come to the decision that there are more useful sources.

Regarding "many scientists": Arata is one of the fathers of hot fusion in Japan and is not just respected, but revered; Srinivasan is the former chairman of India's Atomic Energy Agency and still works there; Julian Schwinger was "jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics (QED), along with Richard Feynman and Shinichiro Tomonaga", and died in 1994; and Fleischmann was counted in the very top echelon of electrochemists before everything went to hell in 1989. So, it's not like no one important has paid attention to cold fusion; on the other hand, there are no active programs in cold fusion at the moment at any of the top 100 physics schools or institutions in the world, so it's safe to say that it's not front-and-center.

Regarding "If you can point out any ... undue weight", the thing that still troubles me is the absence of anything that represents the other side, which we're required to do, of statements such as "These reviews stated that although many explanations have been proposed, several of which do not use new physics, none is yet satisfactory." I don't think we should take it out, and I don't think the proponents are trying to "get away" with anything; I appreciate the fact that it's been toned down a little. But we can't say that without saying that a large majority of physicists say the opposite, that the problem with cold fusion is that it's incompatable with textbook physics. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

From what I gather, the main arguments of "opponents" (for lack of a better term) of cold fusion are: 1.) current theory predicts that nuclear phenomena cannot occur at such low energies, and 2). it is not highly reproducable, ergo 3.) it must be a measurement error. if there are more sophisticated, notable arguments than that, then by all means. But if this really is all there is, we shouldn't make stuff up to try to hide that fact. That would only serve to mislead the reader. IMO. Kevin Baas^talk 17:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon has proposed a compromise on my talk page: "Having made clear that most don't think cold fusion is real, maybe it's sufficient to be clear that the statement comes from a cold fusion proponent. I think the reader would understand that the mainstream isn't likely to agree with everything the proponent says." Although I think it would be ideal to add a little theory, I haven't had any response to my requests, so I am okay with this compromise if everyone else is; may I add "by proponents" to the last paragraph in the lead? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

My trouble with that is there seems to be a large group of people who simply say "there's something interesting going on here, and we should try to find out what it is.". "proponents" of c.f. makes it sound like they insist that it's a nuclear reaction and they don't need any more science to prove it. but they're not insisting that, so this is a straw-man argument. Kevin Baas^talk 19:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That might be a good point. How about "cold fusion researchers" or something similar? That seems to correctly describe the reviewers, if not all who are interested in the field. I admit "anomalous something-or-other researchers" might be more accurate, but it would seem a little unwieldy for the lead. Gnixon (talk) 19:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That seems fine to me. Kevin Baas^talk 19:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Now we just need someone to do the grunt work of adding citations.... (assuming this version is acceptable) Gnixon (talk) 01:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Citations don't generally go in the lead section except for quotations, at least not in articles of a high "maturity" level, such as WP:FAs. Material in the lead section is generally repeated below, in one form or another, and that's where the citations go. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? I clicked on 5 random articles at WP:FA, and 3 of them have citations in the lead. I would think they'd be particularly useful for an article such as this one. Gnixon (talk) 03:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

From what I understand (and that could just be from this talk page), the lead's not supposed to have citations in it. Theoretically, the source for the material in the lead is the body of the article, and if that's not the case, it should be remedied. But I just looked over at Wikipedia:LEAD#Citations and it uses the phrase "cited where appropriate", and says that redundant citations should be avoided, but quotes and controversial items should be cited, and that the latter is largely a matter of editorial consensus. It doesn't say anything about what to expect from different levels of maturity of articles and the like, but that's no surprise - that's more of an empirical/posteri/de-facto thing. In any case, it seems to conform to what Dank55 says, and the existence of some citations in the majority of your random sample doesn't contradict this. Kevin Baas^talk 14:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon is right; I just looked at 5 of recently promoted FA's, and all 5 had citations in the lead section, not on quotations. At the FA level, since you have a lot of people making suggestions, they will try when possible to move the citations below the lead, but apparently they're being pretty relaxed about it now...if it's a little awkward to move it, they don't move it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

There seems to be some debate over the last paragraph of the lead, which describes recent reviews of cold fusion research. Here I propose a list of tasks that may lead to a resolution, along with some attempts by me to address those tasks (Gnixon (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)):

• First, identify the recent reviews.

I believe these are the 2007 reviews by Biberian and Hubler. Of these, Biberian seems to be a broader review, so perhaps we could concentrate on it. Gnixon (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I would propose that the book by Storms (2007) is another review to consider. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• Second, establish whether the authors of these reviews are themselves cold fusion researchers or whether they are outside, more impartial reviewers.

Biberian has done CF research for 13 years; I'm less sure about Hubler, although he seems to be from the US NRL that did CF research. As an aside, I note that both seem to hold prominent positions at their institutions. Gnixon (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Hubler is also a CF researcher. Please note that, in any other field of science, reviewers are made by researchers in the field. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Graham K. Hubler had not published anything on cold fusion in his 41 journal articles, 39 proceedings articles, and three technical reports prior to his review of the field. See his NRL bio, do a search, or ask him yourself: hubler at ccs dot nrl dot navy dot mil. Zillionical (talk) 04:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out! A Web of Science search on G.K. Hubler turns up no publications related to cold fusion besides the 2007 review. This complicates things.... Can anyone comment on the significance of the review being published in "Surface and Coatings Technology"? Gnixon (talk) 04:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

This might elucidate things. "the increase of the concentration of deuterons and the decrease of their distance cause a higher cold fusion in the surface layer by orders of magnitudes compared with the bulk material." Zillionical (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Gnixon (talk) 04:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

There have been only about a dozen reports suggesting that CF is not a surface effect, and hundreds saying that it is. Someone with Hubler's standing, experience, and publication background would not make such a submission choice if he did not want to introduce a specific set of researchers to his review. Zillionical (talk) 17:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. CF may be somewhat unique in that it's a narrow interdisciplinary field, so it might not fit well within broader reviews, aside from whatever are the effects of the controversy. Gnixon (talk) 21:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

PCarbonn, are you familiar with Hubler's research? You said he's a CF researcher, but I didn't see any CF publications except for the review. Gnixon (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You are right. Hubler did not do any research on CF. I'm sorry for this wrong information. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• Third, establish whether the 2004 DOE report can be considered contemporaneous with those reviews, or whether they depend heavily on subsequent research.

As far as I can tell, Biberian refers only to research prior to 2004; Hubley lists one result from 2006, but doesn't seem to place great weight upon it. Thus I think the DOE and the reviews base their conclusions on the same body of research. Gnixon (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The DOE review did not include transmutation reports, as can be seen by the paper submitted to the DOE. Biberian devotes the section 8 of his paper to this topic. Storms also discusses this topic. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That seems worth mentioning explicitly, e.g., "Two of the three reviews mentioned evidence of transmutation of elements not considered in the 2004 DOE review." Gnixon (talk) 21:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

What is the point of establishing this? I don't think it's anywhere near true. The DOE review didn't consider the Szpak/Boss SPAWAR findings, either. Zillionical (talk) 04:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The point is to know whether the DOE/other reviews are disagreeing with each other or whether the other reviews are leaning on subsequent research. Gnixon (talk) 04:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)\

• Finally, identify the salient points from the review, and quote them. Attribute the quotes to the reviews and identify their authors. Be clear about whether the reviews are based on the same research as the DOE report.

The important points from Biberian seem to be (a) the conclusion that there are unexplained nuclear reactions, (b) the existence of data "proving" the production of excess heat and nuclear decay products. Gnixon (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Given my tentative answers to the above, here's a quick shot at a paragraph:

In contrast to the 2004 DOE report, a 2007 review by Jean-Paul Biberian, a cold fusion researcher, concluded, "After 15 years of intense work by hundreds of scientists in 15 countries, the proof that nuclear reactions not predicted by current theories occur in solids, during electrolysis, gas loading and gas discharge, has been established. [There is] convincing experimental data proving excess heat and helium production, tritium and neutron detection, X-rays and transmutation."

The long quote might be better in a "blockquote" template, or it might be better to use several shorter quotes. Gnixon (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If we cite the author, we should make clear that it has been published in International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, ie. a journal not devoted to cold fusion. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Trying to remain concise, what if we said "In contrast to the 2004 DOE report, several 2007 reviews by leading cold fusion researchers found conclusive evidence of ...."? I assume "leading" is accurate. We could then give a little more detail on each review in the citation. Gnixon (talk) 21:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"Leading" is very subjective, and not supported by sources. So I would avoid it. Again, we should not present these reviews as being done by isolated researchers: they have been reviewed by the reviewers of the journal. We had "published in peer reviewed journals" before. This is still an option. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

What happened to Hubler? His NRL review says much the same thing as Biberian on those points. Zillionical (talk) 04:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I just reverted Zillionical's edits in the lead section. Again, let's make these decisions about balance in the article to everyone's satisfaction, and then aggressively revert any changes designed to tip it one way or the other from the consensus. If we need semi-protection to stop a series of tweaks from IP's and self-described "throwaway accounts" such as Zillionical's, we'll do that, but I hope that the article becomes stable enough that occasional reverts will do the job, over the long run. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait a second, though! Zillionical rightly pointed out that Hubler hasn't published anything else about CF in his long career (>80 journal articles, etc.). I think we need to look more closely at the Hubler review. Gnixon (talk) 15:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Many thanks to Pcarbonn, Gnixon, 209.253 and Krivit for working on this; we're on the right track. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

...and Zillionical, particularly for pointing out my mistaken assumption about Hubler. I agree we're making good progress. Gnixon (talk) 15:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that changing the lead to give the impression that some people used to have a problem with cold fusion, but all the recent reviews now support it, without saying that a large majority of scientists remain skeptical, is an embarrassment to Wikipedia and might be off-putting to the very physicists and chemists we need as content experts. I will continue to revert on sight whenever changes are made to the lead section that might harm Wikipedia. If we want to go into more detail on Hubler's review, then we'll have to have a greater representation of the other side. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I of course agree that we shouldn't imply these recent reviews have convinced everyone (anyone?). However, edit-warring isn't the answer. Wikipedia won't collapse if this article has problems for a few days, and I think we should focus on the big-picture task of resolving this discussion. Gnixon (talk) 16:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

This article has a history of new account edits and IP edits designed to change the lead section to push POV. That caused a lot of trouble, and one of the responses was to have a mediation that settled the issue: this article should not push one POV in the lead section, such as the POV that the cold fusion position has been the increasingly dominant position. Unless someone wants to have another mediation, that's the clear consensus, and if someone contradicts that, I will change it. If they change it back, then we'll consider WP:3RR, WP:ANI, or semi-protection, depending on who's doing it and how persistent they are. It might be helpful to have a notice either on the article page or this talk page concerning the bottom-line results of the mediation; that might mean that people would be less tempted to try it, but this page has a long history of people hiding behind IP edits and new accounts and not caring much what the consensus is, so stronger measures might be necessary. Of course, I don't know if Zillionical is a new account here to push a POV; I'm required to assume good faith towards all new users. And that is exactly what previous POV-pushers counted on, so we have to be a little bit careful here not to reward people with changing the POV, even for a few days. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:52, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you telling me that I have no right to a throw-away account? In any case, as Gnixon pointed out above, my edits are more accurate than yours, and I will try to make them more accurate still.

Also, I have a question: Why did you call my edits "embarrassing" -- isn't that taking a point of view directly contrary to the two most recent peer-reviewed literature reviews? Are we to take the position of or against our best sources? Zillionical (talk) 18:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that; you have a right to edit with no account at all, if you like. I see you reverted. The reason your edits make this article embarrassing in the eyes of maybe 9999 out of 10000 scientists is that the lead now gives the impression that, although mainstream scientists are "skeptical", they're skeptical and wrong, since all of the recent relevant information is against them. This violates the conclusion of the mediation that ended in April...although of course, we can always do another mediation if we're dealing with a different set of people with different opinions, or if the fact "on the ground" (to use military lingo) change. I was on the fence, but this has convinced me that we can't allow the lead section to have a weak hold on NPOV. That is, if deleting or rewording one sentence can easily change the lead to say the opposite of what it said before, that's no good, because it presents too tempting a target to POV-pushers. I'll work harder to bring in experts to write a paragraph explaining why most scientists are still skeptical.

To be clear: no offense is meant to you, Zillionical, you're welcome to edit here, and I hope you enjoy your stay and continue to work on articles. But if we go to all the trouble of a mediation because anonymous and new accounts were constantly pushing a POV that is not in line with consensus, and then the situation after the mediation is no better than before, then people will lose faith in mediation and in the Wikipedia process as a whole, and walk away, and potential new editors will read something that sounds goofy to them, and walk away, and that hurts the encyclopedia.

Everyone, including Zillionical, please note: Zillionical created this account yesterday, and has only edited this article and talk page, and started off with edits that change the POV of the article. This would sometimes be enough to get his account blocked at WP:SOCK. That is, when someone creates a new account and immediately jumps into a heated discussion and makes a POV edit, that's the kind of thing the people at WP:SOCK are looking for to take action. In this case, there is such a long history of this kind of thing on this article, that I think that trying to fix things by blocking one or two accounts is only likely to waste time and not fix the problem, and besides, I don't have any firm evidence that Zillionical is someone trying to harm Wikipedia; cold fusion is a very, very tough issue, and most people are going to make mistakes of one kind or another. As I say, I think we're going to have to make the article "sturdier". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you have a source or anything more than a vague impression for "9999 out of 10000" and correct me if I am wrong. It sure doesn't seem like you are actually welcoming me to edit and stay when you bring out references to sockpuppetry. Zillionical (talk) 19:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I was just joking with GNixon that this article could be a so-called "Assume Good Faith test" all by itself. Here's the bottom line: I have to find some help to add some things to this article in order to end the constant struggle over POV. Telling the difference between POV and NPOV is very difficult in this article, and no one should assume that Zillionical has done anything wrong, because he or she did add useful information to the article. The problem is that, with the shape the article is in now, it's quite easy to make it say the opposite of what we decided we wanted it to say in the mediation, with small and even factual edits. If this was just an honest mistake, then don't worry about it, no harm done. I will give up on trying to revert POV in the lead section until we can insert an appropriate new paragraph stating the extent of and the reasons for disbelief in cold fusion; that will then allow the proponents to be as detailed as they would like to be in support. And the additions on both sides will probably make the article a better article. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Dank55 said: "I'll work harder to bring in experts to write a paragraph explaining why most scientists are still skeptical." Don't. This will be quickly reverted for WP:Original research. Unless they come up with reliable source, of course. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Hubler review

It seems like the Hubler review is confusing the issue (at least it's confusing me). Can we make any progress on understanding it or putting it in context? Gnixon (talk) 19:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I have read it. One of the points he makes is that most researchers couldn't replicate the initial announcements because they didn't know how to achieve high deuterium loadings, and the researchers that did know how to achieve high loadings were able to replicate the results. I suppose people will want a more direct quote. Zillionical (talk) 19:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't that issue considered by the DOE review? Gnixon (talk)

Might be confusing because it doesn't originate from Hubler, but from McKubre. See Krivit, S.B., Current Science, pg. 855, search on "loading."

StevenBKrivit (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the Lead

"Since 2007, literature reviews have concluded that cold fusion has been demonstrated by experiments that result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. The reviews state that although many explanations have been proposed, several of which do not use new physics, none is yet satisfactory. There have been two peer-reviewed literature reviews since 2004 in support of cold fusion"

One of these reviews is mine, (CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 94, NO. 7, 10 APRIL 2008.) And I do *not* say that "cold fusion" has been demonstrated. Rather, I have written that evidence for anomalous nuclear energy and phenomena have been demonstrated, but not "cold fusion," whatever that is.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if you could summarize the differences between your review and the 2004 DOE report. For example, it seems like your review (a) finds reports of excess heat more compelling than the DOE reviewers, and (b) relies on reports of transmutation published after the DOE report. Since the DOE report seems to be the most recent "negative" review, I'm trying to understand whether subsequent reviews have primarily disagreed with it or have relied on new evidence. Gnixon (talk) 21:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gnixon. You ask good questions. I'm happy to point you to data where I am aware it exists, or to published or self-published works of my own. But I'm hesitant to respond directly to your request on the grounds of OR. There are two things, perhaps, that I can point out that may be helpful.

If you look at my citations in Current Science, you'll see that these are from people working in the field, with experience in the subject matter. The DOE reviewers -to my knowledge- had no or little experience in the field.

Generally, the excess heat phenomena (if you accept it) is so profound that early acceptance occurred only by researchers who saw it with their own eyes. Why did they succeed where others failed? Please see pages 61 through 68 in my Princeton University presentation for answers. (http://newenergytimes.com/Library/2006KrivitS-PrincetonTheColdFusionStoryW.pdf)

As far as "reports of transmutation published after the 2004 DOE report," this is not entirely correct. See my references in Current Science as follows: 14(1998), 21(2002) 22(presented 2003, pub 2006), 23(presented 2003, pub 2006),25 22(presented 2003, pub 2006.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 01:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think WP:OR prohibits you from answering my questions directly. I realize that the 2004 DOE panel wasn't composed of "cold fusion" researchers. Your slides (where at Princeton were they presented, btw?) don't seem to address the '04 DOE report, so I'm still confused about whether the important point is disagreement with that report or new research. Could you comment on that directly? Gnixon (talk) 12:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I suspect it's mostly "disagreement with the 2004 DOE report". In general, CF researchers disagree with the conclusion of 2004 DOE. See comments here. They continued research, and additional evidence has accumulated, such as those based on CR-39. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Pierre, that was a helpful link, it led me to http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf, which says on page 1, "Evidence for the reality of LENR and Cold fusion has been accumulating for 16 years, but it has had practically no effect on the attitude of conventional science or U.S. government agencies." Can anyone point me to a similar quote in a book published by a large publishing house or any peer-reviewed journal? (Steve sent me some stuff in his book, but I couldn't find a suitable quote.)

Rothwell also points out that it's obvious that the DOE has contradicted the slightly optimist tone of their 2004 conclusion by failing to fund any related requests since then. That's the point I've been trying to make: this article still dances around the point a bit, the point being that while most scientists avoid saying anything at all about cold fusion, and the DOE was equivocal, it's not hard to figure out from their reluctance to get involved in any way what their actual opinion is. When I say this, I am in no way being "hostile" towards cold fusion; I personally wish the supporters all the luck and financial support they can get. But I'm not saying anything different from Jed Rothwell when I say that the support doesn't seem to be materializing yet, and as long as this article makes that clear, that deals with my concern. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is accurate anymore, since DARPA has reportedly funded some projects. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

That proves my point rather than undercutting it, Pierre. Steve and I have looked for evidence that either DARPA or the scientists they are funding or have been funding are willing to admit it in a reliable source; we're hopeful that we'll have something later this year, but we can't find anything yet. If DARPA isn't even willing to admit it when they do fund someone, then that supports the idea that this is still a subject most scientists aren't even willing to discuss. It's obvious, and it would help the article to state it, we just need to find the statement in something Wikipedia considers a reliable source. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

That would be correct if Darpa was not a defense organisation. It can be secretive for many different reasons, not just because possibly "this is still a subject most scientists aren't even willing to discuss". So, no, it does not support it. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

In any case, our article already says: "As of 2007, the scientific community did not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme", and "Most scientists have met these reports with skepticism.". It would be fine with me to add other sources to the same effect. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(There's no need to revert when someone de-indents, Pierre; not everyone likes to indent 9 times.) I support your logic; and I am just as disappointed as you are that various US government departments aren't willing to admit funding. But what might or might not be in their heads isn't relevant to UNDUE; we can only report on what they are or aren't saying in reliable sources, not why. Are there any government agencies, anywhere, that are currently supporting work in cold fusion, on the record? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait, strike that; I'm thinking we need to go in a new direction, I'll create a new section. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Would someone change "the modern report" in the lead? It's not good English. I'd rather not risk generating friction at the moment. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

"In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported producing cold fusion at the University of Utah."

No they didn't. The press release stated "N-Fusion." Pons' oral statement was "sustained nuclear fusion reaction."

See section 4 http://newenergytimes.com/Reports/Start.htm

StevenBKrivit (talk) 04:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Links to other cold fusion techniques

I see he's a German user; I'll talk with him about how de.WP handles these issues, perhaps I can learn something. I don't think we can have an extra paragraph in the lead discussing 4 or 5 different ideas about tabletop fusion because: 1. That's more paragraphs than usual in a lead section; see WP:LEAD. 2. Adding new links in the lead is an open invitation to what are called "POV-forks"; that is, it's common in contentious articles for people who don't like the result to add a link in the lead section to a brand-new page where they say the things that people didn't want them to say in the contentious article. That won't necessarily happen, and I don't know Edoe2 and of course I AGF, it's just a very bad strategy in contentious articles to have links to miscellaneous "other topics" in the lead. 3. We got consensus to remove the extra section that used to deal with some of these other topics. This article is just about cold fusion, and we're having a hard enough time with just that, without bringing in other topics that don't really enlighten the discussion (such as muon-catalyzed fusion) or might be contentious in their own right.

As always, feel free to revert me if anyone disagrees, but give your reasons here, please. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see your point in stressing that postings were done by users from non-native-english authors. Correct the language if you feel necessary but don't mix it with the real arguments.

The articles I linked here about small-scale fusion - Muon-catalyzed fusion, Fusor and Pyroelectric fusion - are neither "brand new pages" nor do they point to "other topics".

The discussion about Fleischmann-Pons might be fascinating to some readers, but neither did F-P define the term "cold fusion" nor does the term imply only their specific approach - nor does it imply "energy production". Rather, the natural meaning of "cold fusion" does include any technique that produces fusion reactions without handling large scale temperatures.

If you want to reduce the "cold fusion" article to the F-P experiment and discussion then you should coin another term for "non-plasma-fusion" - or wait for the scientific community to do so. Until then, I propose to leave the links here, be it in the introduction or, if the "paragraph count" is a real problem, elsewhere in the article. --Edoe2 (talk) 13:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I just looked at the first 10 hits for "cold fusion" at scholar.google.com, and 4 of them involved experiments producing heavy elements (atomic numbers 104 and greater)...but all four of these were by researchers at German institutions. So it does appear that "cold fusion" is an English phrase sometimes used by Germans to refer to other experiments. All of the other hits concerned the topic of this article.

However, on the English Wikipedia, when someone says "you don't know what the phrase means", the standard reply (not just for this article) is NOTLEX: that is, there are a lot of people who are paid to put dictionaries and encyclopedias together and they generally do an outstanding job, so we have to take their word for it. Websters and AMHER are the two most frequently cited dictionaries by American journalists, but Websters lets us down on this one; they don't have it. AMHER says: "A hypothetical form of nuclear fusion occurring without the use of extreme temperature or pressure." That doesn't include muon-catalyzed fusion or the recent experiment cited in this article that actually did produce tiny amounts of fusion with a tabletop device by particle acceleration, because no one considers either of these reactions "hypothetical". Also, you can see in the references that Steve Jones (muon-catalyzed fusion) and the guy who created the tabletop acceleration device (Seth Putterman) are not at all interested in using the term "cold fusion" to apply to their experiments.

It's true that F-P did not coin the term "cold fusion", but it was coined to apply to their experiments and the attempts to replicate them, and that's still how it's commonly used among native English speakers. Note that there's a link to nuclear fusion in the first paragraph, and that would probably be the right article to fork to discussions of fusion reactions which are not part of the "cold fusion" controversy. I would be happy to add a more prominent link, and I don't have any preference how we do it; it could be in a See also section at the end, or the hatnote (the note right under the title) could link to a disambiguation page that directs people to nuclear fusion. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Scientific discussion: energetic particles

The point is, the physical community is giving the cold fusion enthusiasts the benefit of doubt that some unknown physics might be happening, enabling fusion to happen. But why the hell is there no trace of the products of said fusion?

The 23.8MeV net energy potential of a D + D -> He reaction is very real and it needs to be somehow brought out of the nucleus. This is more energy than actually available in binding energy within the entire nucleus of Helium!

These are staggering amounts of energy excess energy within a nucleus that need to be shed off in some way:
The He nucleus instantly pops apart into He3+n or T+p (each 50% of happening) or in extremely rare cases very hard 23.8MeV gamma radiation (chance at 10^-7 to 10^-8) is released, killing everybody in the lab

Neutrons, Tritium as well as gammas can be measured blindingly easy to insane accuracy. Why isn't this being done? This is the reason why the physics community isn't taking the above "cold fusion" experiments serious. Actually, they are more like ROFL. No matter how the issue is turned and looked at, 23.8MeV of excess nuclear energy cannot be shed off in ways that are undetectable.

Edit:
The tracks of energetic particles within plastic CR-39 plates are without doubt due to micro cracks within the palladium electrodes causing localized extreme EM-fields and hence extremely high localized micro currents. These currents are sufficiently high to cause micro areas within the palladium to be turned into plasma. This is also the origin of the fabled "hot spots". --Dio1982 (talk) 15:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Dio, I don't mean to comment on whether or not your points are valid, but we're trying very hard to keep this discussion restricted to how we should represent the various published responses to cold fusion from the physics community. It's beyond the scope of our task to try and judge the research ourselves. Gnixon (talk) 03:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This is not some kind of new argument. This is part of the standard "where are the neutrons/tritium?" argument. There is no D + D -> He reaction. My above explanation is why this is so, which is usually lost to the cold fusion enthusiasts.--141.31.183.68 (talk) 06:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Your theory about crack formation in CR-39 is original research. You may want to publish it on wikiversity, which accepts original research. See here. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I hope it's okay, I relabeled this section "scientific discussion". Some people will object to discussions about the merits, but for me, it's a hard sell to say that you can't talk about the content of the page on the talk page; that's what the talk page is supposed to be for. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[[Wikipedia:Talk] says that "The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." Let's focus our discussion on the article, not on cold fusion per se.Pcarbonn (talk) 14:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

We're both right. Discussions should be about the content of the page, about whether the content comes from reliable sources, and about whether content from other reliable sources would be an improvement on what we've got. What I'm saying is that some people's eyes will glaze over as soon as we get technical, and we can't reject a discussion just because it bores some people. We can, however, label the section as a "scientific discussion" so that people who will get bored by it don't have to read it.

So: 141.31.183.68, how about it? I asked on your talk page with no response. Would you like to cite a source? Would you like to help us build a stronger "con" position, either on this page or, as I'm proposing, a different page? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: "The tracks of energetic particles within plastic CR-39 plates are without doubt due to micro cracks within the palladium electrodes causing localized extreme EM-fields and hence extremely high localized micro currents. These currents are sufficiently high to cause micro areas within the palladium to be turned into plasma. This is also the origin of the fabled "hot spots"." --Firstly, this isn't "without doubt", this is an untested hypothesis that you proposed. You thought, "hmm... maybe this could happen." and then instantaneously jumped to "that must be what is happening!" To me, that kind of illogical thought process stinks of pathological disbelief. Now if anyone were to actually do an experiment to test that hypothesis, there'd be many things that they'd have to explain. For instance, why doesn't this happen when you use hydrogen instead of deutrium? (or other solutions for that matter) Given that consideration alone, your hypothesis is extremely implausible. Perhaps that's why we haven't seen any citable sources make it (and thus we can't put it in the article.) Kevin Baas^talk 16:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Dio1982: You write "why the hell is there no trace of the products of said fusion?" I think your question deserves more attention than is given here, or is suitable to give here. It's obvious that you are very familiar with the three branches of dd thermonuclear fusion. I have begun to ask the same question recently, and it is a difficult question to answer, and for someone in my position, also a difficult one to ask. I refer you to my Bangalaore, India talk from January this year, and also to my forthcoming talk at ACS on 20 August at ~8a.m. In addition, I welcome your letter to the editor at New Energy Times for our September issue.

StevenBKrivit (talk) 06:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I might add that there seems to be a lot of helium-4 showing up in many experiments, both released as gas and trapped in the cathode. This is quite unusual as the probability of this reaction pathway is extremely low. Traces of other products have been found here - so you argument is flawed by two false premises: 1. there are no traces of tritium - this is not true. 2. tritium is the only possible product of a dd reaction - this is not true. That aside, it is an interesting subject because you are, ofcourse, correct in the more general sense that we are not seeing the kind (and resp. quantity) of products one would expect form a conventional thermo-nuclear fusion process. And in this respect I agree w/Steven -- that this oddity (esp/in light of the unexplained heat) deserves more attention than can be given here. Kevin Baas^talk 15:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I've got some real-life stuff going on and I have to tune out for a while. I'll unwatchlist (is that a word?), but feel free to contact me if I'm needed. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

- Dio says: "Neutrons, Tritium as well as gammas can be measured blindingly easy to insane accuracy. Why isn't this being done?" In fact this has been done many times. If the measured quantities was not consistent with the excess heat, they were still above any level that conventional theory would allow. Jones was the first one to detect neutron in 1989, and it was the basis for the rivalry with F&P. He confirmed his findings in 2003, and they have never been challenged, as far as I know. They are also over 60 reports of tritium, listed in Storms 2007. Storms also cites several anomalous gamma ray production.

Why aren't these measurements done more often ? Because of a lack of funding. Why is there a lack of funding ? I let you answer. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is verging too far away from talk-page principles. We need to get back to discussing the article now. PCarbonn, if there is material from Storms that you can briefly summarise and add then please do so. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

What two peer-reviewed literature reviews?

I would ask that in an article this controversial, could the statements in the introduction please be sourced with footnotes to the citations? I see that DOE 2004 is the only thing cited there. I think I can gather from reading this talk page, but what are the two literature reviews mentioned in the last paragraph of the intro? 75.61.107.67 (talk) 23:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, it used to be that there was usually pressure at WP:FAC to take citations out of the lead except for quotations, but looking at the last few WP:FACs, citations in the lead seem to be fine now. I think on balance pulling in the citations would help, for the reason that 75.61 gives. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:39, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

So now that we're finished with WP:GAN

...you can tell me what you really think :) Feel free to give yourselves a round of applause; I know something about the early years of this controversy, and at that time, it was completely impossible to get supporters and skeptics working together. You guys did a very good job during the mediation, and that carried through into the WP:GAN, although a lot of people didn't speak up, I expect out of exhaustion. Feel free to take a break. After a while, if people seem to be interested in putting more work into the article, we could look at regaining Featured article status. We also might look at separate articles for other takes on the controversy, such as the role of government, or what the 19-year history of this teaches us about science and scientists that we didn't want to know. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Dank55. Your feedback on the article was very valuable. I wish we had found a serious critique of cold fusion. Apparently, there isn't. Except for general statement that "it is impossible". Pcarbonn (talk) 10:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, it was a pleasure. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What I really think is that the article should not have the "Good Article" label because that implies it is one of the best 10 or so physics articles. If the label was "Very Important" or "Recently Evaluated" or something like that then I would vote yes. Maybe if the article had 4 months of stability I would be in favor, but PCarbonn wanted that stamp of approval quickly, so here we are.

Sorry, I have never asked for a quick stamp of approval. I still don't know why Dank55 gave the GA while acknowledging that there were still outstanding issues. ~~

I worry that the article has too many partisans and will not remain stable. I just don't trust the people who have been working on this article to be reasonable and civil, and that includes PCarbonn. He does a lot of good for the article, but his frequent POV-pushing more than cancels it out.

Please no personal, unjustified attacks. I'm ready to amend myself if and when I receive positive suggestions. Thanks. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:15, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Apart from the GA status issue, I am glad that Dan has been working on the article because I think it has improved a lot since he started. I, for one, will keep checking on the article; I don't plan to be "moving beyond the controversy" anytime soon. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Echoing the other comments here, thanks for the great effort Dan! seicer | talk | contribs 03:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

New proposal

Krivit and Pcarbonn and many other well-read people say that people who are not cold fusion proponents have been incredibly reluctant to get involved since 2004, to say anything one way or the other. You would think that, with all the supporters and skeptics over the years who have been angry (respectively, happy) that cold fusion has received so little support from government agencies and schools and scientific institutions, that someone would have been willing to say this in a reliable source since 2004, and back it up by showing that they had done a little investigation. To my surprise, I'm finding that Krivit and Pcarbonn are right: I'm finding absolutely nothing.

Here's the problem: UNDUE won't let us make the statement "Most scientists have met these reports with skepticism", which we all know to be true, and then follow that up with a long article that only gives sources that support exactly the opposite conclusion. We can "rebut, but not undercut". That is, we can't give the impression that we think that lots of scientists think X, but we think they're all idiots, because all the sources say Y. That's a real-world problem; that's not Wikipedia's problem. UNDUE gives us permission to split the article into a "pro" and a "con", which I'm thinking is the only thing left, and it wouldn't be much of a split: virtually the entire article is very useful for the "pro" position. I am personally disappointed in all the physicists who are willing to give negative opinions who aren't even willing to enter a lab with a running experiment and use films to measure for themselves whether energetic particles are being produced or not. How tough could it be to get the last image on the article page for themselves? But that's what we're stuck with; no one is willing to say yes or no, except for the supporters.

I propose that we dump this whole sorry problem of coming up with support for the "con" side on the physicists. Let's explain the problem to Wikipedia people who deal with mediation...maybe Seicer will help out again...and say that we are really having a problem with getting sources for one side of the issue, so we'd like to shift that argument over to nuclear physics or a link from that page. Let the physicists who want to support that side of things find their own sources; they'd be better at finding them, and at interpreting them. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

By "con" side, I mean the side that believes that all of the scientists who are reporting positive results either are lying or aren't competent in the proper disciplines or are using outdated equipment that can't support their conclusions or are just making honest mistakes. Skeptics have made all of these claims, many times. You can see how this is really a very bad fit with the AGF culture at Wikipedia. Even if we don't say these things explicitly, the implication in this article is clear. Now that I'm realizing just how little support there is in reliable sources since 2004 for any or all of these skeptical attitudes, I'm getting uncomfortable with leaving the implications hanging in the air. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Dan, please explain more about what you are proposing. Are you saying that this article, that you labeled as a "good article" a few weeks ago, needs a major change in its approach? One way to improve the balance of the article would be to include these 2006 Discover articles which provide a clear evidence from a reliable source that the field is still not respected by most scientists. [6] [7] Wouldn't that address your concerns? 209.253.120.198 (talk) 20:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The only relevant thing I could find in the first source was "The UCLA team was determined to avoid a repeat of the 1989 'cold fusion' fiasco that promised unlimited energy but delivered little besides unrepeatable results." This is what WP:V refers to as "I heard it somewhere": an author is writing about what he believes was in the minds of UCLA researchers who are frightened about what happened 16 years earlier; it has no reliable information on what's currently happening in the field. I'll repeat the entire second source you're giving, I don't see how it helps, but maybe there's more that I don't know about:

In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made front-page news when they announced that they had fused the nuclei of atoms in a jar of water—a process that normally requires the heat of an H-bomb. In theory, room-temperature, or "cold," fusion could provide cheap, nearly limitless energy. No replication of the experiment could pass muster with critics, and most researchers dismissed the work as bogus.

Still, a few physicists keep the field alive and kicking. "There's something in the neighborhood of 20 basic experiments out there these days that are of interest," says MIT physicist Peter Hagelstein. In 2004 he and a group of fellow die-hard researchers tried to persuade the Department of Energy to reevaluate fusion research. A review panel found the evidence thin but saw some justification for further focused investigation.

The scientists who continue to work in the field claim that their experiments show minute, unexplained outputs of energy. Within the year, Hagelstein says, he plans to begin conducting cold fusion research at MIT, an institution that once held a ceremonial wake in cold fusion's honor. He aims to show that novel physical processes can trigger fusion without a significant input of heat. Hagelstein insists that those beyond the inner circle don't know the whole story. "People working in the field believe cold fusion is real and that the issue is settled," he says.

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how verifiability is an issue at all with those articles. They are articles published in a respected, major magazine (circulation>800000 according to Business Week). The only place on the verifiability page the quote "heard it somewhere" is mentioned is in a quote by Jimmy Wales where he is describing unsourced statements in articles. In contrast, these articles serve as verifiable sources which support the statement ("Most scientists have met these results with skepticism.") which is in the "Recent Developments" section. We should simply add them right there as additional evidence. Look at my recent edit of the article and let me know what you think.

I understand that Dan and Pierre are concerned that giving weight to these two articles may be unwise since researchers and journalists may not be aware of developments in the field, especially developments since 2004. However, we should give the benefit of the doubt to established magazines like Discover and assume that their editors are reasonably aware of such things, and not dismiss them because they don't give evidence (quotes) for the reason for the low status of the cold fusion field. In other words, I disagree with the statement "it has no reliable information about what's currently happening in the field." Discover magazine has the reporter labor available to keep up to date; if they didn't comment on post-1989 cold fusion experiments, it seems most likely that they were simply not impressed. If we can include multiple links to New Energy Times, I certainly think including these links is fair. 209.253.120.198 (talk) 03:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The article wasn't about cold fusion, and it sounds like the writer isn't saying that the statement is true, but that Putterman believed it to be true, that that was Putterman's motivation, or am I reading it wrong? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question about passing the GA review: that's exactly what I'm saying, and I'm not happy about it either, which is why I've been giving Pierre a hard time. I wish these issues had come up during the weeks that I spent on the review, but they didn't. The lead wasn't changed to take a more pro-CF position until the day after I moved on to the next article to review. I can't just say to the proponents, "You can't say that", since what they're saying is true; the only power I have, any of us have, is to insist on balance, that if more is said on one side, that we make it clear what the other side is saying in response. Only...the other side isn't saying anything (that I can find), which boggles my mind, and gives us an impossible job here. Even Robert Park, one of the most vocal skeptics since the beginning, has been hinting at nuclear processes now. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I would say rather that "cons" have not offered plausible alternative explanations for the observed phenomena, and have certainly failed to demonstrate any of their hypothesis via experiment, or even do any experiments to test them.

For example, contamination has been proposed as an explanation for the transmutation-like phenomena, but since 1) rare earth elements (lanthanides) showed up, and 2) unnatural isotopic ratios showed up, this explanation is not plausible - not to mention the fact that 3) the composition of the material was measured prior to the experiment! So after proposing an explanation that, given the circumstances(1 & 2), is highly improbable, and has already been scientifically ruled-out(3), those who proposed the explanation didn't perform any experiments to discover if contamination really was the source. (An experiment that they could have done: they could have split the source palladium into 5 samples, crushing one and doing a spectral analysis on it to determine it's original composition, then with the remaining 4 samples, doing the experiment with hydrogen-1(p), hydrogen-2(np), helium-3(npp), and helium-4(nnpp).) If contamination really was the source, they'd be able to scientifically prove it - but they haven't even tried to.

The end result is that we don't have any sources to cite to support their position - because they haven't produced any. Now I can understand the "burden of proof" argument -- it lies on the side making the extraordinary claim -- but when your hypothesis has already been scientifically ruled out, that makes your claim extraordinary. And I can understand them not wanting to take the time and effort on something that they didn't think fruitful, but it doesn't make for strong arguments on their part, and consequently leaves us with an unbalanced debate. Which is what brings us to this discussion.

Having said that, a "balanced" presentation, to me, is, to put it in confusing mathematical terms, one that minimizes the Kullback–Leibler divergence ("Q" being the article and "P" being reality). That is, one that "tells it like it is". I think the main area of difficulty for this article re:balance is that the weight of the popular viewpoint and the weight of the available scientific material are sorely out-of-sync with each other, yet we must present both aspects to the reader - who expects them to be strongly correlated - without confusing them. Kevin Baas^talk 15:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Dan says: "Here's the problem: UNDUE won't let us make the statement 'Most scientists have met these reports with skepticism', which we all know to be true, and then follow that up with a long article that only gives sources that support exactly the opposite conclusion."

UNDUE refers to the weight given by reliable sources. DOE is a reliable source, and provided an ambivalent view, as we all know. The article represents that ambivalent view with due weight. "Most scientist" is not a reliable source, because they simply do not publish. Hence, the article does not need to give due weight to their opinion. If we accept that, the riddle is solved. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

With respect to 2004 to the present, I agree with both of you. I like Kevin's last sentence. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

What about creating a sample page in userspace to flesh it out and see how it would stand? And what would the proposed title be? seicer | talk | contribs 02:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The first step is to make a few more posts like the ones I made at WT:Chemistry and WT:PHYSICS. (I'll get to this in a week, but I'm hoping someone else will beat me to it.) If physicists and chemists are interested, then the logical place for the "con" position would be in sections of pre-existing pages, such as Nuclear_fusion#Production_methods, Calorimetry and/or Electrochemistry. (Nuclear fusion is already a long page, so if material is added to the Production methods subsection, it should probably be spun off into a separate page.) These arguments could then have a more positive and educational spin. This is a common technique in science journalism and science education: you bring up recent, or contentious, or even (at first glance) goofy topics as a way of generating and sustaining interest. You could talk about why there was so much confusion over the calorimetry for cold fusion experiments as a lead-in to methods of calorimetry or to energy storage and balance in electrochemical cathodes. You could explain why most physicists lost interest in cold fusion in the early 90s, as a lead-in to a discussion of when the instincts of physicists have tended to be right and wrong. There are plenty of areas where the predictions of physicists have turned out to be spookily accurate, but also many areas where they seem to be really bad at seeing the future. For instance, even with huge amounts of interest and money, they have often stumbled at predicting the behavior of electrons in crystals and macromolecules (hafnium alloys, carbon nanotubes, graphene), and who knows, maybe there are things about the behavior of electrons in paladium crystals they still don't get.

If we don't have and can't recruit content experts for these subjects, then I would still suggest splitting the article, and perhaps the "con" position could be called Critique of cold fusion. Now that there are regular sessions on cold fusion at the APS and ACS meetings, and plastic CR-39 plates showing tracks of energetic particles produced in labs funded by the Navy and DARPA are being passed around, the "con" position necessarily includes a government-funded bad behavior. One point that hasn't been made yet, that I recall, is that you've got major WP:BLP issues when you imply that researchers are charlatans and conspirators. That's another reason I think you want to break this article into two pieces rather than hopping back and forth; the "pro" page should focus on what people have reported and what the evidence is. The "con" page should not trash people; it should focus on what the science says, on the history of similar experiments, and on providing context. The "con" page could, if desired, discuss science policy and process in the Bush administration; this would not be the first time that DOE scientists got something wrong, you know. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't understand what the problem is, and where you are trying to get. No amount of wikipedia expert editors will solve the problem of lack of sources for the skeptics camp. To solve this, one would need to encourage skeptics to write articles in peer-reviewed journals, not in wikipedia (as examplified by the next discussion).

You say: "If we don't have and can't recruit content experts for these subjects, then I would still suggest splitting the article". If you don't have content for the skeptical side in the main page, how would you find content for a separate page ? Also, let's avoid a Wikipedia:Fork. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I personally think the 2004 DOE report is an adequate representation of the (degree of) skepticism of the community. However, I think we need more discussion about how to summarize that report. (For example, focusing on the "research proposals should continue to be evaluated based on their merits" as a positive response to the research is misleading.) Could we agree that the '04 DOE report is a good representation of the "mainstream" response? Gnixon (talk) 03:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Along with the '89 DOE report and a few papers published in '89 and '90, yes. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Gnixon, you say "focusing on the 'research proposals should continue to be evaluated based on their merits' as a positive response to the research is misleading". How could we be misleading, since we are quoting verbatim the conclusion of the 2004 report ? Pcarbonn (talk) 07:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Because it is not a quote from the conclusion of the 2004 report. It's a sentence taken from the body of the report that you have cherry picked, as has been pointed out to you several previous occasions. Was something about these previous discussions unclear? The conclusion section of the 2004 report is clearly labeled, and it is an objective fact that it does not contain that quotation. Why do you persist in mischaracterizing this?--Noren (talk) 14:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Noren. I'm glad you are back. Are you refering to "research proposals should continue to be evaluated based on their merits" ? Indeed, it's not a quote from the 2004 DOE Report. It is nowhere in the article either. The article does quote the 2004 DOE report verbatim. Some sentence come from the DOE conclusion, others from the body of the report, because they convey the same message more clearly. That's not cherry picking. Nothing prevents us from doing it, does it ? Pcarbonn (talk) 14:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, where were you during the mediation?

If you really think it's unbalanced, i would rather expect you to insist that we include an equal amount of material from the other two charges, as well.

In academia and the like, "conclusions" of reports are usually anything but conclusive. Usually "conclusions" say something like "In conclusion, we just reviewed what we told you we were going to review in the intro." And the 2004 DOE report is certainly no exception. Which is why I remain bewildered at your insistence to quote what is arguably the least informative section of the report, to the exclusion of anything meaningful the reviewers had to say about the three aspects they were assigned to review. And you do this, ostensibly, on account of the section's name alone, which is clearly a misnomer. Kevin Baas^talk 19:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Kevin Baas, Comment on content, not on the contributor. My whereabouts at any particular time are not an appropriate topic for this page.

The fact that the conclusion doesn't give the message that you want it to does not mean the conclusion is faulty. --Noren (talk) 01:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I was trying to be nice - to make you feel missed; to make you feel that your input is appreciated. And in response you accuse me of attacking your character. Well that's the last time I'll ever try to pay you a complement.

Re: "The fact that the conclusion doesn't give the message that you want." Who ever said that the section titled "conclusion" didn't give the message that I wanted? Now you're just putting words in my mouth. (...again. At least this time they're not personal attacks.) I do not appreciate being made a straw-man out of. Kevin Baas^talk 15:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, in the past my opinion has been discounted based on the observation that I was insufficiently active during that mediation, though in fairness you weren't the person who did so. I do not discern any hint of warmth or welcoming in your statement "Yes, where were you during the mediation?" or in the rest of your comment- if that was your intent, you might want to consider phrasing such things differently in the future. Your claim that I was attacking your character is false.

I'm bewildered by your bewilderment, as I don't understand where you're coming up with the idea that I want the entire conclusion included. I never said anything of the sort. What I did do was point out that Pcarbonn had made the false claim that it had already been done, in spite of a previous dispute he had been involved in when passages were incorrectly referred to as part of the conclusion. You spent a paragraph discounting the report's conclusion, which was what led me to the impression that it did not give the message that you wanted it to give, as I stated.--Noren (talk) 03:05, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

"Your claim that I was attacking your character is false." - Your claim that I claimed that you were attacking my character is false. Yet another straw man. You should really read more carefully. I claimed that you accused me of attacking you - and my evidence is your link to WP:NPA (" Comment on content, not on the contributor.").

Now if a person writes "Hello Noren. I'm glad you are back. ...", and the next person writes "Yes, ..." most people would interpret that as to mean that that person is also glad to have you back. I really don't know how I could have been much more clear - there are practical limits. And this is by no means the only time there's been a communication problem. It seems to happen a lot. (For instance, just above you seem to have gotten the idea that I claimed you were attacking my character, when I did no such thing.) So I'd appreciate it if you met me half-way by trying to read what I write more carefully.

I never said you said anything of the sort. Pcarbonn never made such a claim. Passages were never incorrectly referred to as belonging to the section titled "conclusion". I never wrote anything discounting the report's conclusions -- I never disputed anything written in the report (save the appropriateness of the title of a section - in general academia) -- you're confusing the report's conclusions with a section in the report (misleadingly) titled "conclusions", but I've already explained this in the paragraph that you're referring to - this was in fact the entire point of that paragraph. Perhaps if you had read it more carefully and with more good faith you would have understood the point I was making. Perhaps if you had understood, you would not have had to make one up that's convenient for your perspective (and assumes bad faith). And might I add that that's where the "impression" came from. Not from me or anything that I wrote - but from your failure to understand the point that I was making, and your subsequent filling of that gap by pulling-something-out-of-the-blue that is consistent with your assumptions. Kevin Baas^talk 15:30, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

And now we have veered far onto the course of talking about talking about content and making accusations about each other and other people (and I apologize if my remarks have been a little ascerbic) - and though I hope it has helped us, at least, to more accurately interpret each other in the future, I fear it is diverging too far away from the matter to which it always must return -- and that is, ofcourse, the content of the article. Gnixon has made a suggestion below which I believe will help make the article more "balanced". Kevin Baas^talk 16:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn, I am referring to your claim that "How could we be misleading, since we are quoting verbatim the conclusion of the 2004 report ?" Please indicate where the article does so or retract your false claim. --Noren (talk) 01:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Easy. The lead quotes verbatim the report conclusion: "the field would benefit from the peer-review processes...", and "The 2004 panel identified basic research areas..." Section 1.6 of our article is verbatim the conclusion of charge element 3 of the report (It would be ok to add here "reached the same conclusion of the 1989 report", although this statement is very vague). Our section 3.1 and 3.3 quote verbatim the conclusion from charge element 1 of the report. The references are given at the end of the paragraphs in our article (instead of being repeated at the end of each sentence). Pcarbonn (talk) 06:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I apologize if I confused the issue by making up that quote from memory. I thought it was a good enough paraphrase to get the point across without inaccuracy, but maybe not. Mea culpa. My point was that "no focused program" best represents the attitude of the reviewers, whereas "funding agencies should entertain well-designed proposals" is simply another way of saying that CF research shouldn't get any special attention (because that statement simply restates the SOP for funding). I suppose the latter statement could be interpreted as a caution not to blackball good new research simply because of an association with CF. Anyway, I think the statement is liable to be misinterpreted to imply approval of CF research if it's included here out of context. Gnixon (talk) 15:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC) To be clear,

Please be more specific and say where we are including statements out of context. The section on the 2004 DOE report fully includes one of the 2 paragraphs of charge element 3, which is concerned with the question of continued effort. If quoting verbatim one half of DOE's assessment is "cherry picking", I don't have an issue with quoting the other half (it says basically the same thing). The lead section also presents the same balanced view, and is the validated result of many discussion and the mediation. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, sorry if I was a little vague. The lead seems okay, I think. I'm not happy with the 2004 DOE section. If we want to quote the report, we need to be clear that we're quoting it. One reason it's important here is that the style of the report is not appropriate to the style of this article. My interpretation of that paragraph is that "...individual proposals..." is a polite preamble to "...no focused program." The takeaway is "no focused program," which is all I think we need to include here. On the other hand, quoting the entire paragraph may be useful for indicating the tone of the report. Gnixon (talk) 16:01, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

If your take-away is "...no focused program", someone else's take away might be "reviewers were unanimous that more research and peer-reviews should be encouraged." So, it is best to include the full section and avoid introducing POV. I'm fine with making it clear that we are quoting the report. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

See, that's my issue. It's very clear that reviewers did not recommend a focused program. However, I think it's a misrepresentation to say they "encouraged" more research. One could just as well read those statements to say that agencies should not fund poorly-designed proposals that do not meet accepted scientific standards and do not undergo the rigors of peer research. That reading would be consistent with the following paragraph, which emphasizes using modern techniques in any further research, and says "experiments similar in nature to those that have been carried out for the past fifteen years are unlikely to advance knowledge." In any case, I think the quote from the report that is most relevant to this article can be found shortly before what we've been discussing: "The preponderance of the reviewers’ evaluations indicated that ... the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions is not conclusively demonstrated by the evidence presented." (There has been no demonstration of LENR.) Gnixon (talk) 17:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

OK. I'm fine with adding the "preponderence" sentence to the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Me too. That's a good sentence -- very precise and informative. Kevin Baas^talk 15:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Please hang around and help us develop the "con" position, Noren, and thanks for the links. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Some fixes

Hi everybody!

I came back to cold fusion to see how it went. It looks like the article is much improved. There were a few problems that I saw and fixed:

1. References to how many reports/experiments/groups etc. made claims are irrelevant to the encyclopedia and bog the reader down in needless details. Also they can be construed as soapboxing. I reworded those statements or sometimes removed them as all they served to do was to make a Project Steve point (meaningless).
2. Some of the wording was a bit over-the-top with respect to the reports of transmutation, excess heat, and fusion products. I tried to reword these statements to be as neutral as possible.
3. Sometimes the experimental results were reported in excessive detail for reasons that I can only surmise. It looked like soapboxing to me, but in any case I think my version is more concise and readable.
4. Sometimes the experimental results were worded as if the results had actually occurred. Of course, with a controversial topic like this, we cannot do that. I tried to attribute where possible.
5. There was some repetition in prose. Oftentimes those statements were throwaway or soapboxing anyway. I either got rid of both offending instances or changed one and deleted the other.
6. I added some categories. One that some people may object to is "pathological science". Note that just because we categorize a subject with a certain category does not mean that Wikipedia endorses that category. It's just that we have reliable sources which have called cold fusion a "pathological science" and so it is appropriate to put it under that category.

Here's the diff:

[8]

ScienceApologist (talk) 03:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

1. On the contrary, such counts of reports/experiments are relevant to the debate, and should be included, especially on a phenomenom that many people think has never been replicated. There are other examples of such counts in wikipedia: global warming ("These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least thirty scientific societies and academies of science"). Many articles also say "large number", "many", ..., but we found during mediation that these are subjective words and we couldn't agree on which one to use, so it's better to give the count themselves. Also, the counts come from the quoted sources : if they found it useful to count them, why shouldn't we ? Pcarbonn (talk) 09:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

In a word, "no". The "counts" are irrelevant and problematic no matter where they show. We don't need to say "large number" or "many". We can simply say multiple or single as the case may be. Three is just as bad as sixty. We aren't writing a citation analysis after all. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Please provide support to your view from a wikipedia policy or guideline. We have to choose between "Reports say that...", "Many reports say that", and "200 reports say that". The latter is the most informative. Again, such numbers have been picked up by reviews published in peer-reviewed journals. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Listen, it's simply a matter of summary style. The enumeration of reports is a constantly changing point. How do you decide what is a report worthy of including in the list? Should we count the number of articles in nature? Should we count reports that were rejected in high-impact journals but accepted in low-impact journals? These arguments are simply not worth having. Leave it un-enumerated and we have no issue. Otherwise, we should go through the list one-by-one and decide if their really "legitimate" reports (something I do not believe will be fruitful). ScienceApologist (talk) 17:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Summary style means representing secondary sources faithfully. If those secondary sources do state a count of articles, we should include them too. Making the count ourselves, as you imply we are doing, is original research, and would not be acceptable. This is not what we are doing here. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's go on mediation if this cannot be agreed. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

You are choosing to believe the count of one particular cold fusion proponent. That's not verifiable in a controversial subject like this. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The way to address such issues is to properly attribute the sentence to the researcher. This is what we do. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

We should stick to facts rather than attributed opinions. See WP:SUBSTANTIATE. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

3.The reason they were included was to inform the reader on significant aspects of the results. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

"Significant" to whom? I say that we include the stuff that is clearly significant to everybody. The rest we should let fall by the wayside till it is picked up by outside sources.

Many of the statements come from secondary, peer-reviewed, reputable sources, not primary sources. Therefore, they clearly meet your criteria of 'being picked up by outside sources". Pcarbonn (talk) 23:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

No, you have to consider WP:REDFLAG. The things I removed were mentioned by advocates as obvious evidence. They are not mentioned by sources that are independently reviewing the evidence. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no requirements for "independent reviews" in any wikipedia policies. Your argument has no validity. What counts is whether the sources are reliable and secondary. They are in this case. I'm ready to go in mediation on those points if needed. Let me know if you would accept it. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, there is. WP:FRINGE#Independent sources. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

4.Agreed. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

5.OK to avoid the repetition. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

6.Please provide a recent source that cold fusion is clearly an example of pathological science. On the contrary, there are many recent sources indicating that this is a valid field of enquiry, such as the DOE. This question was already debated here: I suggest you take a look at it. Here is what the guidelines for categorisation say: "An article should normally possess all the referenced information necessary to demonstrate that it belongs in each of its categories.". This is clearly not the case here. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You miss the point. We have sources that say that cold fusion has been described as a pathological science. That is good enough. Please read WP:PSCI for more. Also note the principle of least astonishment in WP:MoS and WP:NAME. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You have not yet provided a source for pathological science. Please do. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, I could not find any reference to 'least astonishment' in WP:MoS and WP:NAME. Please clarify. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The "principle of least astonishment" is explained in the guide to writing better articles, WP:MOSBETTER#Principle of least astonishment.--Gimme danger (talk) 23:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

What I remember is an article from a sociologist of science discussing CF as an example of pathological science. Of course as a sociologist he was not classifying CF himself but using it to illustrate how such a category is thrown up in the process of Science as a discursive practice. When we discussed it before the consensus was that an article from the sociology of science was not relevant to the article. But the question could be reexamined. As someone who is much more au fait with soc of science than with science itself, I don't mind having another look at the article and seeing what it yields for this page. In the meantime, please let us not war over cats and see also. It is the most tiresome kind of warring because it can never be resolved by reference to sources. Let's include path. sci. in mainspace or not at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what's meant by the last sentence there. But in any case, I'd certainly include cold fusion in the category "physics", i mean, is has to do with studying natural physical processes, doesn't it? I mean, it's certainly not "Biology". And it's not politics or religion. It's physics. That should be embarrassingly obvious. Kevin Baas^talk 22:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe that itsmejudith said that "pathological science" should be clearly demonstrated in the body of the article (which it isn't), or should not be added as a category. I fully agree. Pcarbonn (talk) 23:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

From the CF article, "As of 2007, the scientific community did not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." As SA has pointed out, WP:PSCI refers to an arbitration committee case in which it was decided that "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience." Given this arbcom case and this recent statement from a reliable source, we should place this topic in the Pseudoscience category. I don't know if there are analogous guidelines for the pathological science category. --Noren (talk) 16:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "the scientific community did not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme" does not imply that said field is "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community". (Although the converse may be true.) See Pseudoscience#Identifying_pseudoscience. Thus, the cited arbcom ruling is not applicable. Kevin Baas^talk 16:31, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kevin. As already explained in the archived discussion mentionned earlier, "not saying P" is not the same as "saying not P". Pcarbonn (talk) 17:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

We have sources that state explicitly that many scientists, for better or worse, regarded it as pathological science. That is in the article right now! ScienceApologist (talk) 22:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. The article says that many scientists view cold fusion with skepticism. This is not the same as saying that it is pathological science. You are confusing skepticism and rejection. Please let's be true to our sources. We can't call something "pathological science" if there is no source for it. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

You may be thinking of "Indicators of failed information epidemics in the scientific journal literature: A publication analysis of Polywater and Cold Nuclear Fusion", E. Ackermann, Scientometrics 66, 451-466 (2006), which examines the publication histories of Polywater and Cold Fusion as examples of failed information explosions. It includes what is, in essence, a post-mortem analysis of the phenomenon of CF publication in mainstream scientific literature. --Noren (talk) 00:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a quote from this source that explicitly presents cold fusion as pathological science. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

A premature post-mortem it seems, given recent developments, but I guess the author is entitled to his own opinion. Kevin Baas^talk 15:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I wasn't thinking of the Ackermann paper, which also looks to be a possible source. It was actually a book: Bart Simon, Undead Science: Science Studies and the Afterlife of Cold Fusion. There is a link to its Google Books page in Archive 14 of this talk page. I haven't got the whole book. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The Simon book does assume that it is carrying out a postmortem, and it is definitely premature, since it references few developments after 1990. The sociologist author does seem to have a physics background since his method was participant observation and he obtained a job in a laboratory. But his academic interest is really only in the sociology debates - Bruno Latour, Actor-Network Theory, social constructionism versus realism - that sort of thing. It probably doesn't matter for his argument that science went in a different direction after he finished his research. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:11, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Whether it is "premature" or not is irrelevant. The references to mainstream articles (such as those in Physics Today or Science Daily periodicals) reference this kind of thinking. Therefore we invoke WP:CBALL and wait for the big bad establishment to decide that they were wrong. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You have completely misunderstood what I was saying. I am talking about a sociology book. We talked a while ago whether it was any good as a reference at all. The consensus then was not, but I now wish us to consider whether it might be possible to get some useful information from this book and another paper (Ackermann), which is also about CF as an example of how Science is/isn't conducted and not about the substantive findings of the science. The Simon book leaves off its description at about 1990. It is definitely no good as a source for how CF is regarded now but may be useful for how it was regarded in the 1980s. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The people who study pseudoscience in the context of social networks are sociologists and therefore are qualified as reliable sources. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree. I thought it was implicit in my post above. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Lack of reproducibility section biased

The lack of reproducibility section is biased. It basically is an attempt to make it sound like this is less of a problem than it really is, when it is the heart of the problem. It doesn't state that many independent attempts to reproduce the experimental results have failed historically, the reason for its rejection by mainstream science, and it tries to "John" it away by saying that that because the mechanism is unknown, it failed for some unknown reason. This is unacceptable. Titanium Dragon (talk) 19:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

TitaniumDragon, feel free to add any sourced material to correct the alleged bias. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I extended the sentence describing the issues that the reviewers had with the submitted material with information from 2004 DoE. --Noren (talk) 01:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. Pcarbonn (talk) 05:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: "It doesn't state that many independent attempts to reproduce the experimental results have failed historically, the reason for its rejection by mainstream science," I thought it did. Hell, that's what the entire section is about, isn't it?

"and it tries to "John" it away by saying that that because the mechanism is unknown, it failed for some unknown reason" - If you read this italicized text carefully you'll see that it's basically a truism - you can't reliably reproduce something unless you know the mechanism behind it (i.e. the neccessary and sufficient conditions). this is just reality at work - it holds true for all things, science or not. The mechanism for polywater was not known for a while and thus the phenomena could not be reliably reproduced. As soon as the mechanism was found, it could be reliably reproduced with ease. Now for cold fusion, the mechanism could just be a mis-calibrated calorimeter or other experimental error. And then as soon as everyone mis-calibrates their calorimeter the same, they'll all get the same results. But that's not the case right now because we don't know the cause (whether it be present or absent in an experiment). So you see, the cause of the mysterious phenomena is irrelevant -- the statement holds true regardless. One might even say it's a tautology. When the mechanism for something is unknown, the cause of it's "failure" or "success" is, by implication, also unknown. Now if the article gave the contrary impression, that would be cause for concern. Kevin Baas^talk 15:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

And from what I recall this material is attributed per WP:NPOV and it serves to provides neccessary WP:BALANCE. But like P said, feel free to add sourced material to correct the alleged bias. Kevin Baas^talk 16:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

scientific method

Having dealt with electroplating issues such as Hydrogen Embrittlement (similar to the effect desired here, HE is unpredictable in practice), there has been little mention in literature of electrode configuration and environment. Although Electroplating is considered an old industrial technology, getting the product wanted is sometimes more of an art than science. One inch by .25 inch? Read the literature critically. The DOE morons refer to equal distribution of He3 and H3 using ballistic deuterons, yet Jones' muon induced fusion is by tunneling between two H2/H3 nuclei brought together for very short periods of time (half life of muon 2.2 msec gives several hundred fusions, less reaction inefficiencies). Tunneling of one nucleon would promote equilibria favoring lowest energy (total nuclear binding energy), likeliest proton transfer D + T > He4 + n in muon reaction. Discount two nucleon tunneling as less likely. With D + D, He3 is more favorable. Does anyone think it is odd that instead of acid solution that would promote hydrogen activity, that the "successes" are using strongly alkaline solution? And specifically Lithium Hydroxide? The higher overvoltage in alkaline solution would promote deposition/diffusion of Lithium. "The absorption cross section of deuterium for 2200-m/sec neutrons has been related to that of boron by intercomparison with lithium. A value of 0.57±0.01 millibarn for deuterium, based on a measured value of 755 barns for boron, has been obtained"[ http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v87/i5/p785_1] The neutron absorption cross section of Lithium6 (and Boron-10 = 5333 barns; reports of improved "success" with Boron contamination) may point to something other than D+D reaction. By the way a link to Palladium Hydride should be in the wiki. Shjacks45 (talk) 10:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Better version

I have reverted to a better version [9]. My arguments, above, for why this is a better version have not been substantively refuted. I find Pcarbonn's edit summariey "per talk" to be relatively misleading. It is also clear now that

ScienceApologist (talk) 23:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

ScienceApologist, we disagree. The normal way to resolve this is mediation. I'm ready to go for it. Would you accept it ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept it if you find a mediator who can answer Filll's AGF challenge questions to my satisfaction. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Pls clarify what is "Filll's AGF challenge questions". Pcarbonn (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

ScienceApologist, I looked at the diff and i don't understand why you insist that your version is better. The only arguments i recall you making are regarding putting numbers of experiments in there. I really don't see why you think this is such a big deal. I don't see how it's "special pleading" - the numbers can be just as damning as they can be supportive, so putting them in doesn't support a POV - they are objective. But that's not a big issue for me, anyways; i could go either way and for the sake of compromise i'll agree to leaving them out. But that's the only arguments i've seen you make. I haven't seen anything that justifies removing "In addition, the isotopic ratios of the observed elements differ from their natural isotopic ratio or natural abundance." - which is very significant and very important. Also, I don't see any justification for removing "Arata and Zhang said that, in one typical run, they observed excess heat power averaging 80 watts and output heat energy equal to 1.8 times input energy over 12 days.", which is also interesting and important. That ain't no calorimetry error. Now if we are going to present the POV the observed excess hear is due to calorimetry errors -- which we are -- we must, in accordance w/WP:NPOV, balance it with an existing counter-point. Preferably something that gives the reader some objective measurement so that they can have a better sense of what's being debated. What better to do this than an example of a typical run from reputable scientists? Also, "say is" -> "believe to be" seems to be an introduction of weasel-wording to me. "Say is" is direct, objective, factual, and attributed. "believe to be" is indirect, subjective, and speculative. So there are at least three different ways in which the previous version is better than the one you're proposing. Kevin Baas^talk 18:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The enumeration is essentially original resesarch and not factual (you have to make a lot of evaluative considerations to come up with those numbers and they aren't reliably vetted). They are very far from objective in a controversial article like this. The claim that the isotopic ratios differ from natural ratios does not source any attempt to characterize the significance or the confidence level on this claim: in fact the claim itself is suspect due to low-number statistics. You might think it is very significant and very important due to you conflict of interest, Kevin, but there is no outside evaluator who has said as much. The excess heat measurements are just excessively detailed and needlessly pedantic. There is no attempt to characterize how "typical" the run is nor is their any way for the reader to evaluate the numerical claims. Ain't no calorimetry error is your opinion, it's not one that can be imposed on Wikipedia. In other words, the counterpoint can be something along the lines of "Cold fusion believers think that they have calibrated their calorimeters well, but critics disagree." But simply making this controversial "measurement" statement is problematic and not necessarily believable since replication is, as always, the key in this article. Finally the "say is" point is wrong: they actually don't "say" that. They do imply that they believe it. So I've dispatched your "three different ways". Thanks for playing. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

SA, I beg to disagree with many, if not most, of the statements you make.

• "The enumeration is essentially original resesarch and not factual". It would be if we, as editors, came with them. Instead, they come from reliable, secondary sources, which we should represent properly. If we don't mention these enumerations, we are not presenting the secondary sources properly. This argument apply to most of your following statements too, such as "The excess heat measurements are just excessively detailed and needlessly pedantic. ". If reliable sources choose to make those statements, who are we to judge ?
• "Replication is, as always, the key in this article". Wrong. The 1989 DOE clearly said it wasn't. Please read the section on reproducibility.
• "the 'say is' point is wrong: they actually don't 'say' that". As far as I know, this is not true. Please be specific if we missed something, and we'll correct it. Or would you prefer to use "they wrote" ?

By the way, you have not yet produced a source that says cold fusion is an example of "pathological science", with those exact words.

Pcarbonn (talk) 20:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Sheer number of published studies is irrelevant except in context of a statement that CF research continues to be conducted. I will not categorically state that it would always be improper, but the removed instances seemed of rhetorical rather than encyclopedic value. We should also be careful not to make this a wikinews article reporting every new paper and minor fluctuation in the field.

Also, Huizenga (1992) establishes the relevance of pathological in at least a sociohistorical context. - Eldereft (cont.) 21:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Browne (1989) might also be supplemented with this Morrison (1991), which states "Cold Fusion is best explained as an example of Pathological Science." - Eldereft (cont.) 21:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, I disagree to delete the number of published studies, and I ask that you accept mediation on this issue. Wikipedia should present both cases of a controversy, and the disputed statements are important according to the proponents.

The sources for pathological sources that you propose are more than 15 years old. It certainly was considered pathological science back then, and these sources are included in the article. If it were still considered so, how come that there is no such recent references ? No editors have found a post-2000 source yet. All post-2000 references talk of skepticism, not rejection. Therefore, the pseudoscience tag is not justified anymore. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Just because proponents on talk pages think something is important and others disagree with them does not oblige us to accommodate them. We describe controversies as they are reliably and verifiably extant in sources: not on Wikipedia talk pages. As far as I've seen, I cannot find any notice of the numbering of studies by anyone except a cold fusion proponent. Thus, it is a point which has received no outside notice and is not therefore worthy of inclusion on a page that isn't pandering to cf dreamers. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

To SA: The numbers (not "enumeration" - you misused that word) come from external sources and therefore are not original research. The numbers are factual and reliably vetted insofar as they satisfy WP:VERIFY (remember, wikipedia is not about "Truth", it's about verifiability).

As regards isotopic ratios - whether or not the confidence levels are measured and evaluated in any paper is academic and last i checked, not part of WP:CITE or any other policy for that matter, and last i checked, not a single figure from a skeptic notes any confidence levels, but i don't see you saying we shouldn't include any of their material on that account -- looks like a double standard to me - and one that, if it were applied consistently, would turn this (and many other wikipedia articles) into a stub very quickly.

Now assuming that i have a conflict of interest is a show of bad faith, in addition to being an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy based on an unsupported assumption.

And "...there is no outside evaluator who has said as much." is false on it's face: where do you the information came from? From outside evaluators. Ones that said it was significant. And they're certainly not alone. Any competent physicist will tell you that. I would go so far as to say that it qualifies as common knowledge, if not common sense.

Yes, "Ain't no calorimetry error is [my] opinion". I thought I had made that obvious. But thanks for pointing that out to anyone who might have missed it. My point was that the example of the amount (and duration) of excess heat observed constitutes a counter-weight to the opinion that it was a calorimetry error, thus fulfilling the requirement for WP:BALANCE. My point was that the fulfillment of this requirement is what makes the example (or an equivalent) essential. The word "typical" was taken (I believe) directly from the paper cited. Said cited paper provides a way for the reader to evaluate the numerical claims. You hypothetical statement "Cold fusion believers think that they have calibrated their calorimeters well, but critics disagree.", as you mention, would have issues with it. What stands out in it to me is "cold fusion believes think.." and "...critics disagree" could be worded better, and it could benefit from more specific information than simply pointing out that there's a disagreement somewhere.

I don't have the time to look at if they "say" or not, nor do I really care all that much about that part. But in any case I would appreciate a less derogatory tone than "Thanks for playing". And I hope you can see that there are valid issues with some of the changes that you propose. Kevin Baas^talk 15:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The cold fusion proponents here are engaging in article ownership, disruptive editing and tendentious practices. I will not engage with such nonsense. Plenty of people have pointed out the problems with their versions, but they put their heads in the sand. Sorry, it's clear that it's a waste of time to deal with these people and I don't think that this is worthwhile. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Extraneous lead sentence

I think this sentence:

It stated that the field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival academic journals.

should be cut from the lead. It's a long sentence, and I don't think it adds enough to the two other sentences about the 2004 DOE report to justify keeping it in the lead. In addition to generally cluttering the lead, I think it distracts from the more notable aspects of the report, which were that it did not recommend focused funding and that it recommended certain lines of research. I suggest moving the sentence to later in the article. Gnixon (talk) 13:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It is unwieldy. I think the point of the statement is that Cold Fusion proponents have been notoriously unsuccessful at getting their work accepted by major peer review journals or normal grant-funding processes. This point ought to appear somewhere. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the point of the statement was to encourage CF researchers to pursue their research through normal channels, which could have a number of positive outcomes. I also think the words of the statement were chosen very deliberately, with concerns for political sensitivity, and it would probably be a mistake for our article to interpret them favorably or unfavorably---better to quote the statement in full if we consider it an essential part of the DOE report, but not in the lead. Gnixon (talk) 15:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is long and doesn't add very much information. As Gnixon states, it's quite a neutral sentence so it doesn't really serve to provide much balance (on either side). In the context of the intro that sentence reads like a lacuna; after reading it, I think, "well that was a waste" - and that's after re-reading it because the first time I read it I though I wasn't paying attention and missed something. Kevin Baas^talk 15:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Article ownership issues at cold fusion

cross posted to WP:FTN

Hi all.

Currently there are a number of editors at Talk:Cold fusion actively working for New Energy Times to try to get our Wikipedia article to conform to a position that treats the subject with more favor than mainstream secondary sources give it. They are writing articles about editing Wikipedia and publishing them on-line, glowingly praising themselves for getting the article into such a state.

Now the article is protected right now by an administrator who sees the issue as a contest of equals (which it manifestly is not, but I digress). The current version up I think is better than previous versions, but there are some issues.

1. CF-advocates want to remove the pseudoscience category even though that is how it is generally considered.
2. CF-advocates are interested in repeating the claims of various CF researchers as fact and are willing to go into some detail to do it. For example, they want to include an enumeration of all the "successful" cold fusion experiments. Of course, we do not have any secondary sources confirming the analysis of how many experiments were successful, only the articles and books written by CF-proponents. What's more confirmation bias means that we cannot easily characterize how meaningful such enumerations are.
3. CF-advocates want to include "evidence" that has not been independently verified. For example, there is one experiment where a researcher used a mass spectrometer to determine the isotopic abundance of certain atoms. He reported a "non-natural isotopic ratio" that neither characterized its significance nor the confidence level to which this is accurate. No one else has reproduced his results. Nevertheless, the CF-advocates think that this "amazing result" needs to be reported in our Wikipedia article. WP:CBALL does not seem to phase them.

There are more issues, but this gives a decent overview. Basically, there are a number of users asserting ownership over an article which needs to be carefully vetted lest we mislead the reader into thinking there is more to Cold Fusion than meets the mainstream eye.

Thanks in advance.

ScienceApologist (talk) 15:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a tricky article because it covers a very recent, very controversial branch of research that critics essentially regard as bad science. Hence it is difficult to find secondary sources that are up-to-date on the subject---I'm not aware of any. Under these circumstances, it's difficult to figure out how to represent the general opinion of the scientific community. The occasional publications that might be considered to represent the broader community are considered out of date by proponents of the rapidly-evolving field, which responds to any criticism on a much faster timescale than notable bodies release any new commentary. I frankly don't know how to handle the situation. I'm sure it doesn't help to have LENR proponents explicitly working for a favorable presentation of the field, although I appreciate their valuable help in identifying and interpreting relevant sources. Gnixon (talk) 15:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they do a wonderful job of identifying sources for their positions. However, the issue is that when the mainstream doesn't take notice of the positions, Wikipedia is under no obligation to go to great lengths to get that information out to the public. In fact, just the opposite: we are under the obligation as explicated at WP:FRINGE to make sure that ideas that are not subject to critical review are not unduly discussed. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This is an article about cold fusion, so even new research that may not merit weight at, say, Fusion, may be notable here. It should be possible to describe significant new research without implying that it has affected the mainstream opinion. Gnixon (talk) 15:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC) Also, all sources are potentially valuable, and we should be glad when they are brought to our attention. If someone is only finding sources supporting his side, it would obviously be useful for someone else to find other relevant sources. Gnixon (talk) 16:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

New research should be included when it is noticed by people who aren't cold fusion advocates. That's the sense of WP:FRINGE and that's how we should go about writing an article. There is no problem when things are brought to our attention. The problem comes in when people insist that every source brought to our attention deserves inclusion. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE seems to apply more to stuff like Face on Mars, as I mentioned below. I agree not every source necessarily deserves inclusion. Gnixon (talk) 18:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Fringe also definitely applies here. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: "New research should be included when it is noticed by people who aren't cold fusion advocates." I believe WP:NOTABLE, WP:VERIFY, WP:CITE, and other relevant policy pages cover the topic pretty well. And I'd hate to see this article degrade into something completely useless to the reader simply because someone decided that only stuff that everybody already knows should be in the article.

And I know that's not what you're suggesting - I don't mean to be making a dishonest argument (via fallacy of the excluded middle and straw man). Just to point out that it's more complex than that, and we should strive to be neutral, balanced, accurate, and informative, in the "sense" of an encyclopedia, and that we should take care not to over-interpret guidelines one way or another, but to make sure that our work is strictly within the literal meaning and faithful to the intent of policy (esp. core: WP:NPOV, WP:VERIFY & WP:OR). And by so doing create an article that gives the reader a broad and current overview of the subject along w/its more significant details and references for further research - and an article that beats the socks off of Britannica's in breadth, depth, and quality of writing. ;-) Kevin Baas^talk 15:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested edit

The page is locked, or I would remove it myself, but I request that an admin remove the "New Energy Times book index Extensive index of books on cold fusion", "Recent papers on cold fusion listed on New Energy Times", and "A student's guide to Cold Fusion: a technical introduction to the field by Edmund Storms" from the "Further reading" section immediately. It's highly inappropriate to link to one's own site or be self-promotional in Wikipedia articles.

Also, there are almost 10 citations in this article from New Energy Times. I'd like to review those for appropriateness as well. In the "Further developments (1989-2004)" section, it is listed in the line "A few periodicals emerged in the 1990s that covered developments in cold fusion and related new energy sciences (Fusion Facts, Cold Fusion Magazine, Infinite Energy Magazine, and New Energy Times)." I want that reviewed for appropriateness as well.

I'm having trouble finding anything [10][11] that establishes the periodical's importance, notability, or reliability, and the fact that editors from New Energy Times are demonstrably here editing, this may be at least a WP:COI issue and at worse a WP:EL#ADV issue.

Nothing in CiteSeer either.[12]

At the New Energy Times website's "About" page, in the "Founder" section, it reads:

"He, or New Energy Times have been quoted in, or have contributed photographs for Wikipedia, Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry World, Intute, Nature, Current Science." ([13] my emphasis)

No kidding.

From the Mission Statement:

"Its primary focus is the subject of low energy nuclear reactions, part of the field of condensed matter nuclear science historically known as 'cold fusion.' New Energy Institute seeks to advance the development and application of clean energy, accessible and affordable for everyone."

Sounds like advocacy to me.

I am deeply concerned about the influence of New Energy Times on this article. Even the image we use Image:Spawar1stGenCFCell.JPG was produced by the founder of New Energy Times, Steven B. Krivit (User:Stevenkrivit), who was here between 2004 and 2007 with very pro-cold fusion points of view.[14]

User:Pcarbonn currently writes for the New Energy Times and recently posted on ScienceApologist's page "You are famous !" with a link to this article[15] at New Energy Times, written by him, which says:

"I'm pleased to report that the revised page, resulting from the mediation process, presents the topic as a continuing controversy, not as an example of pathological science. This is a major step forward in the recognition of the new field of condensed matter nuclear science and low-energy nuclear reaction research."

and...

"I hope that the revised Wikipedia article will help put a stop to the epidemic of pathological disbelief and that it will help raise the interest of scientists so that prominent scientific journals won't be able to reject articles on the topic "because it does not interest our readers."

That's absolutely advocacy.

All of this from one place, New Energy Times. That periodical, with an undetermined reliability and notability that seems to have an unhealthy interest in Wikipedia, is all over this article. The spam has got to go. And the rest needs to be seriously checked. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Concurred. If we have consensus, somebody please place an {{editprotected}} tag to attract the notice of an uninvolved administrator (or maybe we have some already dropping in, in which case go for it). - Eldereft (cont.) 19:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Some violations of WikiPhilosophy

Wikipedia is a place that stifles the free-thought and creativity of new ideas. To that end, there are a number of statements made by the CF-proponents here which I submit are problematic:

1. Wikipedia should present both cases of a controversy, and the disputed statements are important according to the proponents. This sentiment flies in the face of WP:NPOV: especially the WP:WEIGHT clause. Like it or not, cold fusion proponents are on the fringe, and while it is obvious that there work deserves mention in the encyclopedia, their perspectives need to be appropriately described as being as marginalized as they are in the research academic world. Looking at this as a "sides" issue tends to make people think that there is some sort of "contest of equals" going on here. There isn't. Cold fusion proponents are not equal to the detractors; the detractors have the upper hand and we need to make sure our article gets this across.
2. The sources for pathological sources that you propose are more than 15 years old. It certainly was considered pathological science back then, and these sources are included in the article. If it were still considered so, how come that there is no such recent references ? This is a debate technique which has no place at Wikipedia. The fact is that Cold Fusion had a lot more attention in 1991 than it does today. While CF-proponents think their project has progressed, there is no indication of outside sources that believe likewise. The DOE report indicated that they didn't see much progress, and just because you get two sessions at professional conferences doesn't mean that your subject material is being taken more seriously. No, in fact, the issue is that no one in the mainstream pays attention to the cold fusion junk anymore and that is why we don't have more "modern sources". Most of physics/chemistry consider the matter to be sufficiently settled to not deserve comment.
3. My point was that the example of the amount (and duration) of excess heat observed constitutes a counter-weight to the opinion that it was a calorimetry error, thus fulfilling the requirement for WP:BALANCE. I get the impression that the writer of this chestnut didn't actually read the wikiessay he is referring to, but no matter: this point is incredibly problematic from the standpoint of a mainstream encyclopedia. Our job is not to make sure that we "counter-weight" mainstream derision with the excitement of the CF-advocates. Our job is to write an encyclopedia article that is poperly WP:WEIGHTed to the mainstream understanding of the subject. Imposing opinions masquerading as fact is highly problematic and must be avoided.
4. i don't see you saying we shouldn't include any of their material on that account -- looks like a double standard to me - and one that, if it were applied consistently, would turn this (and many other wikipedia articles) into a stub very quickly. There IS a double standard on Wikipedia. It's called WP:REDFLAG. The mainstream gets a pass for their skeptical sources because their claims are no extraordinary. CF-claims are. They need to be exposed to more scrutiny and only the best sources can be used and only the points that are best supported by the preponderance of the evidence can be discussed in articles. It's not fair, but that's the way Wikipedia works. There are other Wikis where you can write all about cold fusion to your heart's content without having to worry about whether you are stepping over the line with respect to WP:WEIGHT, WP:FRINGE, WP:SYNTH, etc. Not here.
5. Truth will prevail, sooner or later, and your side is not helped by your behavior. This is more evidence that the CF-proponents view this article as a WP:BATTLEGROUND. Problematic. We need to write an article that presents cold fusion as it is considered by the mainstream. We welcome the inclusion of claims from the CF-proponents inasmuch as they clarify their position on the subject, but Wikipedia articles on fringe topics like this are not to be written as a parity of sides. In fact, the sides DO NOT have parity in this instance. Cold fusion is derided, not taken seriously, and generally ignored in the mainstream. These are all facts that even the CF-proponents agree to. Yet they seem to think that simply writing the article with these facts as the framework is problematic for their on-going battle to gain acceptance for their CF-beliefs. Wikipedia is manifestly not the place to engage in such activity.

ScienceApologist (talk) 15:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

While I don't think it's a good thing for proponents to advocate a favorable presentation of Cold Fusion, I also think the pendulum can swing too far in the other direction. We do not need to debunk cold fusion, nor do we need to make sure the article presents it as bad science, even if that is the opinion of mainstream science and I'm not saying whether it is. Representing the published responses of notable scientific bodies should be sufficient. We should strive for, and be able to achieve, an article that both proponents and critics of LENR will concede is accurate and unbiased. Gnixon (talk) 15:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

You are right. Debunking is right out simply because it should not be necessary if we are conservative in our approach to content inclusion. If we take WP:REDFLAG seriously, then there will be nothing we need to debunk because only the best sources will be used in the article. We also don't need to label it excessively as "bad science" or whatever, but we do need to mention that most people in the know consider it to be "bad" science. Keeping the pseudoscience category is one way to do this. I'm not sure if your last sentence is feasible. However, we can all dream dreams. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

You may sa-a-e-ay I'm a dreamer... but I'm not sure I'd agree.  :) Attributing "redflag" sources to CF proponents makes it possible to represent research considered significant by proponents without misleading the reader. Likewise, we should represent the opinion that CF is bad science iff it can be attributed to a notable source---otherwise we're engaging in OR and synthesis. It may be frustrating here that scientists generally don't publish opinions they discuss freely in the coffee room, but that's part of the profession. We have to be sure the article attributes all opinions to notable sources, although clearly our collective understanding of the sources will influence our subjective editorial choices. Gnixon (talk) 16:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is far more research that is considered "significant" by the proponents than we have time to include here. What we should do is look for sources that are considered significant by those who are not proponents. WP:SOAP is useful to think about. We have a guideline for how to cover marginal stuff like this. It's high time we started using it. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why we can't represent a reasonable sample of what proponents consider significant. We can do that without engaging in or allowing soapboxing. WP:FRINGE apparently applies more to stuff like Face on Mars than to this article. Gnixon (talk) 18:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The key word there is "reasonable". Part of the problem is that the proponents are advocating for things like an enumeration of the positive results, pointless recountings of the claimed numerical measurements of excess heat, and discussion of amazing new isotopes. The problem is, none of these points have been vetted by outside sources nor are the strictly verifiable in the global sense. They are attributable, but the cherry-picking is being done in a way to skew the summary in favor of cold fusion proponents (because those are the things that they are most excited about). And WP:FRINGE DEFINITELY applies to this article. We cannot even begin to discuss if you disagree. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that WP:FRINGE offers useful advice for this page. Gnixon (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Then I'm not convinced it's worthwhile discussing things with you. This is a fringe subject. I encourage you to start a request for comment if you are convinced that the community would think otherwise. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

ScienceApologist, you keep dreaming. This is not a fringe subject, nor a pathological science subject until you have a recent source to support that view. On the contrary, most sources support the opposite view, such as the 2004 DOE which encouraged agencies to support further research. I suggest you start a request for comment yourself if you disagree. Wikipedia is here to inform, not to spread rumors and hearsay like the one you support. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE in its current form doesn't apply well to this subject, but neither did the 2004 DOE report "encourage" agencies to support further LENR research. It recommended that agencies consider proposals for well-designed experiments on specific, relevant topics, in the context of not recommending a focused research program. The most relevant Wikipedia policy for these recent discussions, by a longshot, is WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND. Gnixon (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Is this topic fringe?

Does the fringe theory guideline apply to this topic?

This topic is not fringe, but an area of exploratory science recognized by the 2004 DOE, the most notable source on the topic. This is extensively documented in our article.

Nonetheless, the Fringe guideline provides helpful advise, such as the parity of sources: a consequence of this guideline is that, if a panel recognized cold fusion as a valid area of exploratory research, as the DOE did, it would take another panel to say it is pseudoscience before we would present it as such. If 2 reviews of the field published in scientific peer-reviewed journals have presented cold fusion as demonstrated, we would need other such scientific reviews, this time unfavorable, to present cold fusion as bad science. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a total revisionist history you've adopted, Pierre. The 2004 DOE report reaffirmed the opinions of early reports that there was not much to cold fusion suggestions. If it wasn't fringe, it would have received recognition and funding. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that the guideline WP:FRINGE uses the example of Face on Mars as a "fringe theory." I think cold fusion is qualitatively different, given that a group of researchers has continued funded research for about two decades. The DOE hasn't seen a need to conduct two separate reviews on Face on Mars research. Gnixon (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The Face on Mars is a good example of pseudoscience, not really a good example of a far out fringe topic within regular science. And anyway, it's the "Face on Mars" not the "LGM's Nuclear Fusion Reactor on Mars" :) Count Iblis (talk) 21:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, well I wasn't the one who put it at the top of WP:FRINGE!  :) Anyway, after looking over the guideline in more detail, I think it does apply to this article, and does offer useful advice. However, I think we should be careful in applying it. Cold fusion and "low energy nuclear research" are not the same thing as Time Cube. Gnixon (talk) 22:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study." - Eldereft (cont.) 22:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. The 2006 Discover Magazine references and the 2007 Wired Magazine reference indicate that mainstream scientists think cold fusion is "bogus," a "fiasco," and/or "discredited." Also, no academic physics department in the US is studying cold fusion in any serious way. Also, no pro-cold fusion data has been published in a major physics journal. In fact, CF is labeled as fringe science by wikipedia itself. Note that the 2004 DOE panel did not indicate that CF was not fringe; it simply said that the techniques had improved and that using better techniques would be nice. It is totally possible for something to be a valid topic for exploratory research and fringe science at the same time. So where does that leave us? Each editor should look at the article and ask, would a casual reader of this article think that cold fusion is a fringe science topic? If the answer is no, then we have not been doing our job. By the way, does anyone else think that Pierre looks like Imre Lakatos? Remember: AGF! 209.253.120.158 (talk) 23:17, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• No. Prior to reading this article, I might have said yes. It is a minority, controversial position without doubt, but on Wikipedia, people feel like fringe allows them to create attack pages. The work by the US Navy (ref), the Indian gov't (ref), and others, e.g. Osaka University (ref), show that while is a minority position, it is not without scientific interest and (disputed) evidence. There are reportedly many articles in journals by physicists with positive results. When you have a number of prestigious physicists (Nobel Laureate Schwinger and Mallove; likely others) arguing for cold fusion and claiming fraud, and 3000+ papers in physics journals, nearly 500 positive research results (note), a layman cannot say that cold fusion is fringe per se. I'm concerned that giving someone an inch here might let them feel like they can go a mile. Cold fusion seems fringe to the public, and mainstream scientists, most of whom haven't researched its developments, will no doubt call it fringe, but it appears to be rather what Imre Lakatos would call a competing research program. Neutrally state what has been found, what hasn't, what concerns exist, ect. Even in 1989 the DOE stated that "it was not possible to state categorically that cold fusion has been convincingly either proved or disproved." The lead looks OK, but I'm not sure what "new physics" is. II 00:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You could as well mention Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize in 1973. Here is a video of a recent talk where he says that Fleischmann and Pons should receive the Nobel prize. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Being researched by the Navy/Government and receiving kudos by a Nobel Prize laureate are not guarantees of "non-fringeness". Didn't the U.S. miliarty engage in psychic research at some point, for example? And even Nobel Prize winners such as Linus Pauling had some fringey ideas late in their careers. --Itub (talk) 12:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The term "new physics" usually refers to concepts which lie outside the currently validated laws of physics. So if one could not find an explanation for, in this case, cold fusion using accepted theories then it would constitute new physics, or new laws of physics. This is not necessarily bad; the scientists at the LHC expect/hope to find new physics in that experiment. But I would stress that the LHC is qualitatively different then this case since the conditions involved (namely very high energy per particle) have never been studied before. In contrast, cold fusion is claimed to take place under conditions that are well-studied already (low energies per nucleon). Joshua Davis (talk) 23:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• No. 3000+ papers in physics journals, nearly 500 positive research results. Vufors (talk) 15:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
• Yes, utterly, per these observations [16]. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 03:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are utterly mistaken. The article you mention talk of "New Energy News". This has nothing to do with "New Energy Times". Pcarbonn (talk) 06:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

:::Oversight on the author's part. They're the same, same publishing organization, same topic, etc. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 06:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC) Remarkably similar, but might not be the same. The other stuff applies. Specifically what applies is that in your article for the New Energy News, you said it is currently an unrecognized field and that prominent scientific journals reject articles on the topic. I concur. That also happens to be the definition of WP:FRINGE. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 06:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. "Examples include ... ideas which purport to be scientific theories but have not gained scientific consensus ..." - it is clear that cold fusion has not gained scientific consensus, which is the standard the policy requires (though proponents do purport it to be scientific.)--Noren (talk) 05:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:Fringe is not a policy, but a guideline. It does not require anything, it only gives advises. The requirements for articles are clearly stated in the only 3 policies of neutrality, verifiability, and no original research. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. And moreover, I'd say that the article (as currently written) does a very good overall job of following that guideline. :-) --Steve (talk) 05:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I should mention that I concur with that. I didn't see any redflags while skimming it. All the important key points of WP:FRINGE, presenting majority and minority views as such, seem to be here. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 06:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes it comes under the guideline because the guideline takes a broad definition. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. I can only give anecdotal evidence that every physicist that I've ever talked to about the subject (not insubstantial number since I am a working physicist) have considered it bogus. That doesn't mean that they are right, but it certainly implies that it is not mainstream. But let me say that I'm not complaining about the article itself since I haven't looked at it carefully; I'm just answering the question at hand. Joshua Davis (talk) 23:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. Insofar as it pertains to WP:FRINGE guidelines. Quoting: "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study. Examples include conspiracy theories, ideas which purport to be scientific theories but have not gained scientific consensus, esoteric claims about medicine, novel re-interpretations of history and so forth. Some of the theories addressed here may in a stricter sense be hypotheses, conjectures, or speculations." Kevin Baas^talk 15:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. It's definitely currently outside the realm of a "prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study". As such, the guideline is applicable. — Scientizzle 22:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes - There seems to be a misunderstanding that just because there is ongoing research or publications that something is automatically "scientific". We know that the Soviet government invested in ESP research, which shoots way past fringe into pseudoscience. This did nothing to legitimize this idea into the realm of science. In the case of cold fusion, until such time that substantial evidence comes forward to give a chance of this occurring, it remains fringe. LonelyBeacon (talk) 06:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
• Yes - WP:FRINGE seems appropriate. Ronnotel (talk) 17:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
• Yes For the reasons stated above, in particular Kevin Baas. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, even if they eventually turn out to be correct and become merely ordinary. TStein (talk) 04:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, but only due to the scope and approach There are two sides to the cold fusion issue. The serious-scientific side is based on journal research and examines how fusion could take place under different energy situations from the canonical 'hot' fusion. There have been plenty of journal articles published on the subject, and it is considered mainstream science, just as serious scientific tests are mainstream science. On the other hand, there is also the pseudoscience using "cold fusion" as a buzzword similar to "free energy" which is not accepted by mainstream science. This article is a fringe theory in mainstream science, but is not pseudoscience. HatlessAtless (talk) 20:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on removing "Further reading" links to New Energy Times?

As I mentioned here[17], "Further reading" links to New Energy Times are self-promotional. There's citation links as well, but for now I'm mostly concerned about having the "further reading" links removed (we can come back to the others later). In order to have them removed while the page is locked, there needs to be consensus. In other words, is there consensus? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with this. I've tried many times in the past to remove those links. ScienceApologist (talk) 00:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's even a question. I'm no expert on the subject, but I find it very difficult to believe that New Energy Times is the end-all further reading source on this topic, that it's particularly notable considering it doesn't show up in citation searches, or why links to the website's list of books needs to be there when the books themselves can be listed instead. There's no reason they need to be there, even if there weren't editors associated with New Energy Times involved in this page. Pcarbonn, if you could agree, that would be helpful. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 00:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

There are 5 other links to New Energy Times in the article, so removing these is not exactly censorship. They do suggest the field has more respectibility than is really justified, so let's just do it. 209.253.120.158 (talk) 03:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

There isn't consensus for removing New Energy Times from "Further reading", as the following thread by Gathall shows. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Why would anyone suggest removing the most comprehensive and up to date listing of pro and con cold fusion books on the Internet form the "Further reading" section of the Wikipedia Cold Fusion article? What is the justification for removing the link to the New Energy Times book index from "Further reading" section of this article? This is the most accurate listing of further reading on the cold fusion topic out there, and it is not totally biased towards the pro side. The editors of New Energy Times have made an effort to also list the books that attack cold fusion (some of them quite harshly), so it's not fair to attack their objectivity. At the very least, the New Energy Times book index should be kept in the "Further reading" section of this article. Rock nj (talk) 13:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

(merged sections to avoid repetition) --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep further reading as is.

There's no point declaring further reading links self promotional since almost 80% of the further reading links on most wiki pages would fall to the same claim.
The point of the further reading category of links is to flag that the links posted in the bulk of the text and references are not the sum total of papers on the subject. If sites with dozens or hundreds of papers, other links and data can't be included in the Wiki then the illusion is created that there are only a few papers. Given the volume of work done since 1989 is so large it is reasonable that the hub sites like New Energy Times should be included under the further reading category so people can look beyond the claims and counter claims and hunt down the papers one by one. I can think of more further reading links that could be added, I.e. The condensed matter section of the journal Fusion Technology from 1989 to the end of the century has over a hundred papers that I know of. If we have to skip the hub web sites like Mr Krivit's then the problem is that we will have to cite a dozen journals by name, date and number.
We must also consider the historical implications. If Cold Fusion is confirmed and the Wiki site has a major error locked in, then Wikipedia will suffer accordingly. I know that does not matter to the hard line sceptics but it should matter to the rest of us and to the management of Wikipedia. Cold fusion can't be disproved; we have replicated peer reviewed work. It can only be ignored or proven. The prudent place to stand in is the place of the informed optimist not the willingly ignorant. It is also prudent to send readers seeking more information on the sites archiving the data. The sites condemning cold fusion have not said anything new since 2005. Gathall (talk) 08:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Why New Energy Times? Why not some other site? WP:EL#ADV is a concern because spamming is not appropriate and there are editors from New Energy Times currently editing this article. We don't want people coming here to advance their position, promote their website, or anything like that because it ultimately makes Wikipedia unreliable. I'm a person who knows almost nothing at all about cold fusion and I don't even want to read this article because I have no idea what's reliable and what isn't. I'm sorry, but this sort of thing ticks me off more than anything else at Wikipedia because the majority of editors are trying to build a reliable reference. When you can't trust the reliability of the project, it makes all the time one spends here seem kind of pointless. It's a no brainer. Whether New Energy Times is reliable on the subject or not, they don't need to be in the further reading. Books belong there. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 09:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing us back to policy Neal. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The fact is that most cold fusion research is reported in scientific papers and field reports, not books. The most current "further reading" information in this field is on the web on websites like New Energy Times, not in stale books. Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia, so why not feature website references for further reading, as much legitimate information sharing in fast changing scientific fields has transitioned to the web (away from books) in recent years.

While a number of different websites have been the premier source for "further reading" information about cold fusion over the years, there's no doubt that the two websites that are currently the most up to date on this topic are New Energy Times and LENR-CANR.org. These websites provide someone interested in learning more about cold fusion (which is why they came to the Wikipedia page in the first place) a majority of the current and up to date information available about the topic. They also provide a detailed list of both pro and con cold fusion related books (more detailed than a Wikipedia page) that a person can utilize to research this field and the merits of cold fusion even further.

I am in favor of keeping New Energy Times in further reading and adding LENR-CANR.org to further reading, so a person interested in learning more about cold fusion can easily access the most current and comprehensive information about the topic available on the Internet. At the very least, the New Energy Times book index should be kept as a reference to cold fusion books. Rock nj (talk) 12:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I did not add the link to New Energy Times in the "further reading" section, and there was no self-promotion. Kevin Baas did here, in the draft of the mediated version. This was later copied by Seicer to the main article here. Wikipedia will not gain in quality by falsely attacking editors, removing reliable sources on baseless grounds, and by not checking the facts. As stated earlier, New Energy Times has been cited by Wired in reference to cold fusion, among others, giving it enough notability for inclusion in wikipedia. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If any one of you has never "advanced a position" on wikipedia, let him be the first to throw a stone at me. I have just advanced the position that cold fusion is not pseudoscience, just as others have advanced the position that it is fringe science. Luckily, wikipedia has plenty of checks and balances which makes articles reliable despite the variety of intent of editors. I can tell you that I have met opposition, as I have stated in the NET article. There is no reason to think that this cold fusion article is not reliable, although it can always be improved, obviously. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you please go back further. Baas's edit from April 2008 isn't when it was added because it's even in the April 2005 version.[18] I didn't say you added it. I said New Energy Times people don't need to be posting self-promotional links. Are you saying you've never self-referenced here? I'm not attacking your position on cold fusion. I don't know enough about cold fusion to make a judgment on that. But surely you must realize that there's a problem with self-sourcing, self-promotion, etc. because that alone makes it unreliable. How would one conclude reliability honestly if it's rigged? I've been to your website. Wired, and this small list[19] does not make NET the authoritative end-all of further reading on the topic where there's 4 out of 6 links to them in the further reading section. As Rock nj pointed out, LENR-CANR.org is comprehensive, and this list[20] looks more comprehensive than anything at NET. Why isn't that link here? Is it because NET is here editing and they aren't? As an outsider who came here because of your comments in NET, how am I to know, honestly? If this is an unaccepted, often criticized topic, where's the balancing links? Surely you must see that there is a problem. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

So you are attacking NET without evidence to back it up ? Surely you must see that there is a problem. How could I do self-reference, if I have no involvement with NET except for a paper that I was invited to write after the fact ? And now you are suggesting to add LENR-CANR.org ?? It has been attacked in the past by you know who, that's why it's not included. How do you know that the article is reliable ? Because it has been written and checked by many people during mediation and after, and that it has been promoted to good article status. As far as I know, this has not been challenged. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Questioning, my friend, is not an attack. Asking to remove links when there's a clear conflict of interest is not an attack. An interest in a topic does not preclude one from participating. Acting in a inappropriate manner because of conflicting interest is precluded. If you simply had an interest in the topic, there'd be no problem. Heck, writing about the topic doesn't necessarily indicate a problem. Advocating that your website be included is a problematic conflict of interests. If LENR-CANR.org is not included because SA attacked it, and NET is included because it's disproportionately defended... what am I missing here that makes this even a question? Honestly, in good faith, what am I missing? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 15:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the flaming. I believe I gave an adequate, satisfying answer. As I said, I did not add the link, and NET is not my website at all. Even if I had proposed the link to other editors and if I had an interest in NET, it would be perfectly OK per wikipedia policy. Let me know if you need more information. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Why such a tizzy over New Energy Times link? Because of claims that it is "self promotional?" From what I can tell NET doesn't focus just on "cold fusion" issues. It focuses on a plethora of alternative energy issues.

I often come to Wiki in order to seek out the "further reading" links. I see nothing wrong or dangerous with letting the reader decide what they wish to follow up on. I'm not interested in having some alleged expert (an expert that may or may not have all that much knowledge of the controversial subject) do the "editing" for me. Orionworks (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. We have standards. We're not a dumpster. You may not want "experts" to tell you anything, but as far as this encyclopedia is concerned, editors are the ones that dictate content: not readers. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The implication that NET is an "indiscriminate collection of information." The implication is that Wiki is above the standards of information published in NET. The implication is that NET uses Wiki as a "dumpster" to dump it alleged propaganda. Where's the objectivity in such opinions? Leave the NET links in. I think Wiki will survive the scandal. 130.47.34.2 (talk) 17:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC) orionworks

SA, exactly which wikipedia standard do you see violated here ? Several editors have said that NET and LENR-CANR are the most informed website on the subject. They have been used by Physics.org and Wired. What exactly is wrong with these sites ? That they come from proponents ? That's not a good reason, since cold fusion deserves a fair representation, according to wikipedia policy. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

SA, Wikipedia should not be censored so much that it becomes a pack of lies.Ron Marshall (talk) 16:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I want outside opinion on this. I think that's a reasonable request. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 14:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The issue always seems to be about an attempt to suppress experimental evidence. Cold Fusion was trashed by the political method, not the scientific method. The scientific method depends on experimental results. If the current experimental results were known in May, 1989 Cold Fusion would not have been trashed. What we have now is a defacto censorship enforced by social conformity. An admin type once told me that Wikipedia was all about consensus. If Wikipedia existed in the middle ages it would report that the world is flat. If Wikipedia is going to hold onto this mind set, it should put the flat earth analogy as a warning on all of its scientific articles. Or if Wikipedia cannot handle scientific controversy in a fair and truthful manner it should stop publishing articles on scientific controversy.Ron Marshall (talk) 16:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

While I don't agree with your comparison with the flat world theory, I share your concern with censorship. Censorship can come in contradiction with the Arbitration Committee's decision on significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. A similar edit war to the one we had here is brewing over the hydrino theory : just as the physics establishment did not like to be challenged by chemists with a jar, they don't like to be challenged by a physician, Mills, who pretends to be a physicist. Yet, recently, another physics theoretician, Bourgoin, independently wrote a paper based on conventional physics and published in a peer reviewed paper that supports the possibility of hydrino states, of exactly the same energy level as the one proposed by the physician. To me, this publication from a reliable scientific source shows that the hydrino concept is a scientific controversy, not pseudoscience anymore. Yet, the physics establishment and the general press will continue for some time to call it so and to ridicule it. What should wikipedia say ? The undecided view from the few reliable experts in the field, or the simplistic view of the ignorant establishment or the press ? Should it be close to the scientific researchers in the field, or to the general public ? If it is considered pseudoscience, policies say that it could be censored, if not, it should be represented fairly. What are the criteria to distinguish the two ? I see a lot of commonality with the issues we have faced here. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Compromise?

Maybe a compromise could be:

New Energy Times, a website dedicated to cold-fusion research, has compiled lists of books and recent papers about cold fusion.

It provides balance by making clear the biases of that source. Just as the Intelligent design page links to pro-ID resources, and Ouija board links to resources that take the ouija board seriously, likewise it's reasonable for a page on cold fusion to have a link to a primarily pro-cold-fusion book or paper index, as long as the link is not portrayed as being unbiased when it is, clearly, biased. Everyone, both actual scientists and cold-fusion advocates, would benefit from knowing where to find a comprehensive list of recent sympathetic cold-fusion publications. The link seems the best of its kind, so I don't think it should be removed solely based on the self-promotional motivations of its original inclusion. --Steve (talk) 16:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with that if it's one single link, not four links (like in the current article), and the section is balanced with at least one other reliable source for the opinion that cold fusion isn't worth pursuing for each link that is pro-pursuing, per WP:EL#Avoid undue weight on particular points of view. Also, the "further reading" should be changed to "external links" per standard practice. "Further reading" sections are almost always lists of notable books on the subject, not external links to websites. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 16:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Nealparr, The External links idea is a good one. But why do you need "at least one other reliable source for the opinion that cold fusion isn't worth pursuing for each link that is pro-pursuing". Are all Wikipedia articles formatted this way? If I visit the nuclear fusion website, will there be anti-nuke websites listed under the External links section? If you can find an anti-cold fusion website, then by all means post it under External links, but I do not see anything in the Wikipedia policy or format that says this is necessary? This could be taken to an extreme in many case, as many things are controversial at some level or another. Rock nj (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Nuclear fusion is well established and relatively uncontroversial. Note the balancing of links on Nuclear weapons#External links and Nuclear power#External links. Not all Wikipedia articles with multiple points of view have balancing of external links, but they should (that's the point of policies and guidelines, "best practices"). A better question than "why?" when there's a guideline that explains why is "why not?" --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You say: "the section is balanced with at least one other reliable source for the opinion that cold fusion isn't worth pursuing for each link that is pro-pursuing". Feel free to add what you find. Many editors have tried, but found nothing. I agree with the compromise proposed by Steve. I'm fine with reducing the number of links to NET, if that helps. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I find it very hard to believe that with the number of people who use it as an example of "pathological science", not one person would be a reliable source for his or her own opinion. Robert L. Park isn't reliable for his own opinion?

In fact, according to the SFGate[21], "[Robert Park is] the world's leading debunker of tabletop fusion". And yet, I couldn't find Park anywhere in this article except an obscure reference to his book in the bibliography. Nothing about him in the main text.

Heck, just last year he was criticizing both cold fusion and Wikipedia on the exact same page![22] He doesn't count as someone reliable enough to express that view, his own view? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 17:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, feel free to add anything of value from Bob Park. We could also include what he said last year: "Bob Park, at the University of Maryland, US, [...] concedes that 'there are some curious reports - not cold fusion, but people may be seeing some unexpected low-energy nuclear reactions'. " (source). That's not inconsistent with what he wrote in the reference you gave. Pcarbonn (talk) 18:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You're familiar with the history of this article. Was he ever included? If not, why? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 18:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I recall him being mentionned in a page on the cold fusion controversy (see archive), written in good part by Jed Rothwell of LENR-CANR.org. This was quickly deleted from wikipedia, as you could imagine. Pcarbonn (talk) 18:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I think when the page is unlocked, there should be some text added about Robert Park to the criticism section. Back to the original point, if the further reading section is changed to "external links", and the NET four links are reduced to one, that's a good immediate fix. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding texts from Park, as long as the pro-CF side of his arguments can also be presented (if they are not already). Pcarbonn (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

So, how's the consensus for fixing the further reading section? --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 19:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like we are making progress, except that Robert Park hasn't made any pro-CF arguments or statements. A vague, noncommittal, possibly condescending, comment which includes the phrase "not cold fusion" clearly doesn't count, and does not merit inclusion in the article. When he makes a clearer statement supporting cold fusion, we can certainly discuss that. 209.253.120.158 (talk) 20:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm really not very pleased with the continued POV-pushing pursued by Pierre "pro-CF side of his arguments" makes it seem like we have to always accomodate a pro/anti dichotomy. What we should do is simply describe the fact that cold fusion is looked on with derision until it is no longer looked on with derision. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

No. We need to publish the opinion of experts in the field as published in reliable sources. The DOE did not look at cold fusion with derision. Until you find a published source from experts to support your statements, they cannot be used to steer the editing. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

What I meant is that, if we quote Bob Park saying that Fleischmann and Pons are incompetent scientists, for example, we should also include their strong credentials as scientists. Is that unreasonable ? Pcarbonn (talk) 17:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Um, if we believe that the opinions of Bob Park are necessary to the article, then we should just include the opinions of Bob Park. It is not our business to provide counter or supporting evidence to his opinions. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Is that your idea of writing from a neutral point of view, as policy requires ? Of presenting unorthodox scientific subject in a fair way, as policy requires ? Pcarbonn (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)