[extropy-chat] Elvis Sightings (2)

[Ben Goertzel]

>
> Well sure there are, and there are thousands of pro cold fusion  
> articles,
> but none of them are in Nature or Science or Physical Review  
> Letters, or any
> journal a real scientist could cite without acute embarrassment.
>

That is BS, there have been CF articles published in respected journals,
even though not in any of the absolute most highly rated ones like the
once you cite...

But, the political issues regarding these top journals rejecting CF  
papers have been
well-discussed already, e.g. by Nobelist Schwinger...

I.e., it's not that each individual CF paper has been individually  
reviewed
carefully and found wanting.  Rather, at a certain point these  
journals decided
to reject all CF papers as a matter of policy, and then proceeded to  
follow
the policy in spite of the contents of future papers in the domain....

A bad sort of policy, IMO

But thanks to the Net we can find things like Schwinger's views online,
even if the top journals don't want to publish them...

> So Keith, will cold fusion become mainstream in the next year or not,

I doubt it.

But I bet it will become mainstream in the next 20 years, and quite  
plausibly the
next 5 or 10...


> I
> mean, the mainstream can't ALWAYS be wrong,

I agree, they are usually right.   But not always.

> if the phenomena is real they're
> bound to catch on sooner or later,

Agree, but in this case it's taking a surprisingly long time...


> it's flabbergasting they've managed to
> avoid it for 17 years.

I do find it disturbing, but it's not the MOST disturbing aspect of  
human
irrationality I've come across...

-- Ben