[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings

[John K Clark]

"The Avantguardian" <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>

> Gregor  Mendel's work was also highly criticized, ridiculed,
> and essentially ignored for almost forty years.

Pons and Fleischmann were not ignored, far far from it! They were a
sensation, for a while. Thousands of researchers tried to duplicate their
results and thousands failed to do so.

And remember, at the same time that Mendel wrote his paper Bernie Applebaum
also wrote a scientific article; it was ignored at the time and it's ignored
today. That's why  Bernie Applebaum is not one of the scientific Olympians.

Ben Goertzel <ben at goertzel.org>

> This is not extremely high or anything, but nor is it disastrously  low;
> it is higher than plenty of other respectable science journals

And there is not a doubt in my mind that the reputation of
"Electroanalytical Chemistry" would be considerably higher if it had not
published Pons and Fleischmann's article.

> Anyway, judging a piece of science by the fame of the journal it's
> published in is really not very sensible.

That statement is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous! When I read an article
in Science or Nature I tend to think it's probably true, even if I have not
personally duplicated the experiment. I make no such assumption when I read
in the National Enquirer that a statue of Elvis has been found on Mars.

John K Clark