[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings (was: cold fusion warms up)

[Lúcio de Souza Coelho]

On 12/26/06, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
(...)
> Split? Split implies 2 roughly equal parts, but there is no big controversy
> over this matter, 99.9% of the scientific community think cold fusion
> (except Muon-catalyzed cold fusion) is utter crap. It would be neat if it
> worked but it doesn't and there are plenty of other neat things that do
> work; life is short, time to move on.
(...)

Like Damien, I would be delighted in seeing the source of this 99.9% number.

As for my claim about the scientific community being seemingly split
on the reality/validity/possibility of "cold fusion", my source is the
panel of scientists gathered by the DoE in 2004 to review this issue
of alleged low-energy nuclear reactions. (Report available at
http://www.science.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2004/low_energy/index.htm
) There we can read (last phrase stressed by me):

"The excess power observed in some experiments is reported to be
beyond that attributable to ordinary chemical or solid state sources;
this excess power is attributed by proponents to nuclear fusion
reactions.  Evaluations by the reviewers ranged from: 1) evidence for
excess power is compelling, to 2) there is no convincing evidence that
excess power is produced when integrated over the life of an
experiment.  *The
reviewers were split approximately evenly on this topic.* "

Of course, that report considered just 18 reviewers and there may be
some selection effect/statistical bias/whatever in such a small
population, so if there is some other study considering larger sets of
specialists I would like to see it.