Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 18

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

Archive 18

Archive 19

Archive 20

→

Archive 25

Inclusion of Mizuno's paper

On a related topic, Pierre, I see that the abstract for the Mizuno article does not mention anything about cold fusion. If an article describes unexplained experiments but does not advocate cold fusion as an explanation, it should not be used to support the pro-CF position in this article. The exact phrasing is important. Do you know of any quotes in the article that make such a claim? Olorinish (talk) 17:20, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The referenced article presents evidence of excess heat in an electrolytic experiment that cannot be explained by chemical process. The researchers come from a Nuclear engineering research group. The paper explicitly mentions 'cold fusion'. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:43, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

That article does not assert that cold fusion is taking place in their equipment, so I am removing it from the wikipedia "cold fusion" article. Olorinish (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The statement for which I added the sentence says that Mizuno has reported the observation of excess heat in the context of a cold fusion experiment, not that he claims that cold fusion is taking place in his apparatus. Thus the source is relevant. Are you suggesting that we should remove all sentences about excess heat because the article is not about excess heat ? Pcarbonn (talk) 19:29, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Pierre, you know that is not what I am proposing, and it is unproductive to say that I am. Does anyone else have any thoughts? Olorinish (talk) 19:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I realize that the Mizuno article authors may believe that cold fusion was being detected. My point is that unless they state that in the article, wikipedia should give it extremely low weight when presenting evidence in favor of cold fusion. Olorinish (talk) 19:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your logic. Are you saying that the statement we make in the article is not relevant to the article, and should thus be removed, irrespective of the reliability of the source ? Should it also be removed for the other researchers then ? Or should the statement be removed because its source is not reliable ? Let me quote the paper : "The generation of excess heat in this experiment cannot be explained by a chemical reaction". Pcarbonn (talk) 20:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this paragraph. Can you restate it? Olorinish (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying that I don't understand if you want to remove this statement because of a lack of relevance or of a lack of reliability of the source. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Both, but more for relevance. Olorinish (talk) 21:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Please note also that many researchers acknowledge that they do not know how to explain the excess heat, and that it is possible that it is not fusion, although it is likely to be a nuclear process. This is explained in the theory section. That's why they don't like the cold fusion name anymore , and that most researchers, and the DOE, calls it low energy nuclear reaction. Do you accept that ? Should it be explained better in our article ? Pcarbonn (talk) 20:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

For the experiments discussed in this article the label "cold fusion" is a far more useful description than "low energy nuclear reaction." Also, it is more well known by the typical wikipedia reader. If researchers are using LENR instead of CF in current conversations, maybe that should be in the article. Olorinish (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it is in the first sentence of the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Please note also that Mizuno is the leading researcher in transmutations occurring in cold fusion experiments, as explained in the transmutation section. Here is what he says in the quoted article: "We previously reported that anomalous isotopes are created on metal surfaces and metal regions, which cannot be explained by conventional electrolysis. [..] This indicates that some type of reaction affecting the nucleus has occured. We expect to clarify the reaction mechanism by analyzing these reactions products". Pcarbonn (talk) 20:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Even if Mizuno et al. state that in a later paper, it does not change the fact that the earlier paper failed to claim cold fusion, and should therefore be given very little weight. Olorinish (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Which later paper are you talking about ? The sentences I quoted are all from the same paper.Pcarbonn (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Which paper has the quote "We previously reported that..."? Where in the article is it? Olorinish (talk) 21:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

This one, which is the one quoted in the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:12, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

LENR-CANR.org site useful?

I note that there's no "External Links" section to this article, so I won't be so bold as to add one yet, but I would like to point out that there is a site, LENR-CANR.org, which has collected a number of cold fusion references, and has some tutorials on the subject. My cursory examination of the site suggests that it is a proponent of cold fusion. The only reference that our Cold fusion article makes to the site is the Bibliography entry for "Josephson, Brian. D. (2004)", which references a paper on the site. – Wdfarmer (talk) 06:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it is a well known site in the field. However, several editors have concerns that it is violating copyright by offering all these articles from journals. This has been debated several times in the past, and the conclusion was that we should not link to it, per this policy. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

According to that policy, you can't link directly to copyrighted works on lenr-canr that you know are infringing (If they have permission under a nondisclosure agreement then how could anyone know?), but you can link to the same URLs through the Wayback Machine. Seriously, am I reading it wrong? If so, how does it not say that? 69.228.198.199 (talk) 12:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the policy seems strange. I would suggest that you raise that issue in the talk page of that policy. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Reliability of Department of Energy vs. literature reviews in academic journals

Why are the results of the DoE reviews in the introduction, but more recent peer-reviewed literature reviews in academic journals are not? Is there something in WP:RS or WP:V or anywhere else that can be construed as suggesting that a government agency is more reliable than scientific literature reviews? 69.228.198.199 (talk) 12:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I support the inclusion of the scientific literature reviews in the intro. I suspect that the choice has been made on notability, not reliability. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Additional comments on the 'Criticism' section

Setting aside the personal attacks, I would like to make a few comments regarding the current 'Criticism' section.

1.) The introductory sentence uses a reference to the 1989 DOE report. In the intervening years, much has changed. While lack of reproducibility is still a problem, the other three issues have been addressed in part and need to be modified. Precision of calorimetry is not so much the problem as accuracy. While the historical notation that precision has improved is probably worthwhile, that is not a current criticism. The unanswered question today is whether or not a calibration constant shift mechanism is active (ignoring all debate on what would cause such a shift). The absence of nuclear products has been replaced by a massive abundance of supposed nuclear products. The criticism is that such products are the results of contamination or analytical chemistry errors. As noted in the last subsection, several theories have been proposed, but none are accepted, so the criticism today is that the proposed theories are still inadequate. The intro should reflect the current criticisms, not those that are 19 years old.

2.) In the ‘Precision of calorimetry’ subsection, most of the references used in the 1st two paragraphs are pre-2000, and as such are not relevant to current concerns (Browne, 1989; Wilson, 1992; Shkedi, 1995; Jones, 1995). The quotes from the 2004 DOE report in the next paragraph should be referenced to clarify to the readers that these are current comments (2004), not from 1989.

3.) The explanation of the current criticism by Shanahan should be modified to indicate that while the specific publications used mass flow calorimetric data, the method is applicable to any calibrated method, and as such applies to all type of calorimeters, i.e. to all available publications claiming excess heat production to be observed.

4.) Note that the Shanahan critique was published in 2002. In the next paragraph, ref. 88 is to a 1992 report. How can it possibly rebut Shanahan? Ditto for ref 89, which was published in 1997. The 88 and 89 references should be dropped. Ref 91 is the Storms 2006 rebuttal to Shanahan’s 2002 and 2005 publications, and it should be moved to after ‘published a rebuttal’. Ref 90 is a 2007 book, published after the 2006 Storms-Shanahan exchange. It may or may not be relevant, I haven’t read it. I will look into it. The Shanahan rebuttal to 91 is unreferenced here. Of course renumbering will occur.

5.) Regarding the statement referenced by 88, as noted in 4.) the ref. is not relevant. The statement comes from the Hagelstein 2004 reference, where it is also unreferenced, (i.e. an author’s opinion). The whole sentence should probably be struck, since it is just opinion, but perhaps a ref. to the 2004 DOE report might be minimally acceptable. That still gives it too much credence.

6.) In the ‘Lack of reproducibility of…’ section, it would be worth mentioning that Shanahan’s critiques make it clear that he believes there is an effect, but that it is non-nuclear in origin, i.e. fully conventional. Thus attempting to control the effect based on nuclear reactions would not work, thereby producing great difficulty in obtaining reproducibility in detail.

7.) In the “Missing nuclear prod…” section: The title is out-of-date as noted above. Today there are reports of nearly every element known to man being found in cold fusion experiments. This section should be split into two sub-sections, perhaps ‘conventional products’ (like 3H, 3He, 4He) and ‘unconventional’ (like heavy metals with or without isotopic distribution shifts). The first paragraph of the current section is fine and would be the 1st paragraph of the ‘conventional products’ subsection. The next lines referring to Clarke, et al’s work are fine, but the impact of the work is not communicated. There should be a statement added to the effect that the finding of significant air inleakage in samples provided by a prominent CF research causes considerable skepticism about similar claims when full analytical results and protocols are not disclosed (which has not happened to date). That ties in nicely with the next paragraph which is fine.

8.) Now on to the new subsection ‘Unconventional products’. This section should discuss the criticisms of the nuclear transmutation claims, which are standard variants of the criticisms quoted just above from the DOE 2004 report, namely contamination of the apparatus or samples. All the published claims to have observed transmutations are based in surface science techniques, such as SIMS, XPS, and SEM-EDX. If I recall correctly Scott Little used XRF to find new elements in a repeat of the G. Miley work, but Little only posted papers to the Web. (As an aside, I note that Wiki seems to be able to retrieve posted documents, like the DOE 2004 report, and others, and use them as refs., so why can’t we use Little’s papers?) The problem with surface analysis is that it is a trace analysis technique, by definition. If the researchers used 2.5 moles of water (about equivalent to 50cc) that was 5-nines purity, that means you have 5e-6*2.5 = 1.25e-5 moles of impurity, i.e. contaminant. That is ~7.5e18atoms (assuming an atomic contaminant) of contaminant. If we assume the radius of the atom is 5 Angstroms, i.e. the diameter is 10A, then the area it covers if we treat it as a square is 1e-14 cm2. That means we can cover ~75000 cm2 to a depth of 1 atom. Most electrodes are about 4 cm2 (2x2 cm). That mean we would be able to cover the normal CF electrode about 10,000 atomic layers deep if we started with 5-nines purity electrolyte solvent. Most surface studies do not indicate anywhere near full surface coverage, so we are safe in assuming what is observed could have come from a trace of a trace.

9.) Now if you put that contaminant in 50cc, you have 2.5e-4 Molar contaminant concentration. In “Principles of Instrumental Analysis”, (1971), D. A. Skoog and D. M. West, chapter 22, “Voltammetry”, subsection “Stripping Methods”, pps. 594-597, you find the statement that these methods a) include stripping trace contaminants from solutions with solid electrodes (such as palladium) electrochemically (as in a P-F cell), and b) that the concentrations that can routinely be measured lie in the 10e-6 to 10e-10 M range. Thus our 5-nines contaminant is already two orders of magnitude more concentrated that the normal upper range of the analytical technique. Both points 8.) and 9.) imply to avoid having to address the contamination issue, one needs to be another 5-6 orders of magnitude purer in all starting materials, i.e 10-12-nines material. Such a material cannot be purchased. Therefore all CF research claiming these things must (again) fully disclose all results and methods used to prove contamination is not the problem. To date none have, so there is no published claim to have observed heavy metal transmutation that cannot safely be ignored. The CFers just haven’t done their job, which would be very labor intensive as you have to run many, many cells made from different starting material batches to try to detect changes due to contaminants. Further, you may recall I pointed to Scott Little’s work where he took some of the most prominent ‘new’ elements on a CF electrode and actually tracked them down to contaminants, proving that it was a problem in relation to Miley’s reports.

10.) With regards to SIMS claims, I have noted before that the basic problem is that the CF researchers prefer to ignore the existence of M-H(or D) and M-H-H ion species in the mass spec signal. A case in point is “Producing Elements of Mass Number 137 and 141 by Deuterium Permeation on Multi-Layered Pd Samples with Cs Deposition”, H. Yamada, et al, Proceeding of JCF8, Nov. 29-20, 2007, p 26. (see http://dragon.elc.iwate-u.ac.jp/jcf/file/jcf8-proceedings.pdf) JCF8 is the eighth Japanese Cold Fusion Society meeting. In that paper, the researchers deposit Cs on a complex Pd-containing membrane. Cs is 100% mass 133. In Figures 2 and 3, they show mass spectra with a strong Cs133 peak (120 counts) and a strong mass 135 peak that they label ‘Cs-D’ (~90 counts), and a strong mass 137 peak(110 counts) which they do not label Cs-D2, but instead label as ‘(137La, 137Ba)’. In the text they also speak of 137Cs, a man-made Cs isotope. Why do they not speak of Cs-D2? In the text they dismiss the possibility without reference, and then also look at mass differences between the CsD2 and La, Cs, or Ba peaks that amount to 0.02%, claiming that that excludes CsD2. The most likely source of the mass 137 peak, especially given the agreed upon and strong presence of CsD, is Cs-D2. Such handwaving dismissal of the obvious is clearly biased interpretation, and serves as an excellent example of the criticism of the SIMS claims to heavy metal transmutation.

11.) I have no comments on the theory section, as this is not of interest to me.

12.) One could also add comments on conventional explanations of the CR-39 data as well, since such data was remarked upon in the prior section of the article.

Thus the whole section is out-of-date and does not reflect the criticisms of the field as they now stand. It needs to be rewritten, as I have said before. I might add that most of these criticisms were present in 2004 and should have been brought up to the DOE panel, but weren’t. So much for the validity of that review. I reserve the right not to respond if I so choose. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Dr. Shanahan for these contributions. Wikipedia allows you to be bold, so feel free to make corrections to the article directly. You just need to remember that wikipedia does not tolerate original research, and that all statements in wikipedia must have been verifiable from a reliable source (please provide these sources). The condition for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. This may explain why some statements seem obsolete. If there are some ideas that you believe are true but not published, I'd suggest you have them published in a peer-reviewed scientific paper first, so that we can include them here later. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have been bold. New version of the section is up, refs also modified (or will be soon).Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It adds some good info, but contains a little too much analysis/synthesis (see WP:OR) in my opinion. Kevin Baas^talk 19:50, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It would help if you were specific. Then we could discuss the points. I tried to be as short as possible, but in the 'accuracy..' subsection for example, the problem was that Storms failed to take into account my last publication, and came to conflicting conclusions about the CCS. That needed some explanation.Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:48, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I have removed unsourced statements, as per WP:BRD. Anything that cannot be traced to a reliable sources should be excluded from the article. Let's discuss if you disagree. Also, policies and previous discussions prevent us from quoting self-published sources (e.g. Little) or proceedings (e.g. Storms 2000). Pcarbonn (talk) 15:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I also believe that the new paragraphs are difficult to understand by the average readers. I would suggest to move it to the Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments article, and keep a simpler version in this main article. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:58, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

And so it begins... Pierre, you have gutted every significant new (as opposed to 1989) criticism I added. I am not going to get into a revert war with you. I don't have the time. What specifically did you think was wrong with these sections excepting of course that they directly cjallenge cold fusion claims? I think the rest of you should carefully examine the major edits P has made and put some of it back at least.Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I've removed what does not come from a reliable source. If you can provide reliable sources, I'll be happy to add them back. Kevin Baas concurred that the new edits contained original research. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

And as I said, I need specifics, not the generalities you and Kevin have posted to date. Let me give an example. You completely deleted the section on heavy metal transmutation criticisms. Why? Yes, I explained that contamination was a problem, but that's just arithmetic, and understanding trace and voltammetry. I also commented on the SIMS data mis-analysis, with an example of just such a problem referenced (which IS allowed by the Wiki policy if you read it). If the heavy metal transmutation claims are to be allowed in the 'evidence for' section, the problems with the claims should be allowed in the 'Criticism' section. Otherwise remove the transmutation claims from the otehr part of the article too. (I'll stop now until you answer my comments here before moving on the rest of your deletes.) Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:15, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of transmutations reports

You wrote 3 paragraphs on metal transmutations. The only source for criticism is the one from Little, and as said above, it is self-published and thus not reliable. If it was reliable, how come it has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal ? I also suspect that many of the statements that you made do not come from that source, but I'm willing to see the evidence. In a topic that is so controversial and full of dubious claims, we need to use reliable scientific sources. The evidence for transmutations that we cite does come from reliable source, hence there is no reason to delete it. Self-published evidence from CF proponents of cold fusion have been rejected in the past, so the same rule should apply to both sides. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]Taking your comment line-by-line:

• You are correct, I wrote three paragraphs. I wasn’t aware however, that there was a word count-to-reference ratio requirement. Can you point me to that requirement please?

• The way I read the Wiki policy on sources, use of web pages is frowned upon and is OK only when used for a limited specific purpose. The Little paper is used for 1 purpose, to illustrate to the reader how much work must be done to adequately address the contamination issue. I state that. This meets the policy requirement.

Here is what the WP:SPS says: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." The Scott Little reference fails to meet this requirement, unless you can show otherwise. Because this is the only reference you provide for the 3 paragraphs, they should be deleted unless proven otherwise. If you disagree, we can ask Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard for a 3rd opinion.

Scott Little meets these definitions. He has listed 3 publications in peer-reviewed journals on his employer's web page (see http://www.earthtech.org/publications/index.html), one of which is directly related to the cold fusion field, where he is sole author. He was requested by Krivit to participate in the CR-39 round robin study (see http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html).Pcarbonn (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

In the reference I use, he collaborates with George Miley, a nuclear engineer, cold fusion promoter, and former editor of Fusion Technology (now Fusion Science and Tech.) So put the three paragraphs back...(since you imply that is all that was needed...).

Personally, I think that even without the Little example, the paragraphs belong. (more to come when time allows) Kirk shanahan (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, the source related to cold fusion is a proceedings, which we agree is not reliable. The other 2 are not related to cold fusion. So, he does not meet the criteria. You have not shown that "his work in [cold fusion] has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:Reliable sources. The word proceeding does not appear. Does a policy exist that states that everything that is labeled a proceeding cannot be a reliable source? --Noren (talk) 03:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

We agreed that the same rules should apply to both sides. It has been stated many times by others on this talk page that we should not accept proceedings as reliable for this controversial article, ScienceApologist has added this request to the To Do list for this article, and Dr. Shanahan independently requested it in this thread.

Why do I insist on proper reliable sources ? Because of what the 2004 DOE said : "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." This applies for both sides of the controversy. Noren, I believe you insisted for the inclusion of this sentence in the lead, but I may be wrong. It would be a bad idea to not follow their advice for this controversial topic. Without it, the article would quickly be "full of controversial and dubious claims", as Dr. Shanahan said here. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, the WP:SPS policy says: "A reliable self-published source on a given subject is likely to have been cited on that subject as authoritative by a reliable source." In this case, Scott Little's webpage on transmutations has no such citations and cannot be considered "a reliable self-published source". We can all imagine what would happen if we would accept content from webpages from any CF researchers who has published in proceedings (like content from this page ?). Pcarbonn (talk) 06:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Here are 2 other sites that would qualify as sourceable with your proposed criteria : lenr-canr.org and Kowalski's site. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:25, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Storms meet this requirement as he has published articles in the relevant field in reliable third-party publications. Furthermore, books published by reliable publishers like World Scientific are not seen as self-published, but as reliable sources by wikipedia policies. If in doubt, you can request 3rd opinion at the Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Your opinion of Scott’s work is not relevant. The reason I have to use Scott’s paper is that there is no equal paper from a cold fusion researcher, which is one of the points I make as a criticism. If you think I am wrong, I would be glad to look over the reference you can cite.

The references are cited in the nuclear transmutation section.Pcarbonn (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

No, those references do not include any detailed descriptions of activities undertaken to assure that contamination is not relevant. My point still stands. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• You are correct that most of what I wrote does not come from the Little paper. That would be in violation of Wiki policy. I will look in more detail at what I wrote below. But I would note that since you say you’re not sure what the Little paper says, I would assume you haven’t read it. If that’s true, how can you conclude it violates Wiki policy, isn’t reliable, isn’t relevant, etc.?

As you acknowledge, most of what you wrote does not come from the Little paper, and is thus not sourced. Hence the deletion. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't need to read the paper because we are not judging the reliability of content, but of sources. Please read WP:Reliable policies. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• As to ‘reliable’ scientific sources, I find very few of the references cited by most cold fusion researchers (and the writers of the Cold Fusion Wiki page) reliable on scientific issues. Sure, you can cite newspapeer articles and the like for historical documentation, but the scientific citations are too often from Proceedings or journals that are cloistered in the cold fusion community alone, and clearly have inadequate peer review. Let’s also realize that books are not peer-reviewed either. This is primarily why the topic is so full of controversial and dubious claims.

With regards to the sources in the pro-nuclear transmutation section: The citations used are nos. 72 and 75 – 82. There are two double refs. to the same paper in that, giving us 7 refs. used. 72 is the Hagelstein white paper – not peer reviewed or published. 75 and 77 are books by Mizuno and Storms – not peer reviewed. 76 is a 1996 paper published in the first volume of the J. of New Energy. Highly suspicious because the cold fusion researchers have pulled together into a closed society and do not participate in normal scientific channels, claiming they are surpressed. A journal of ‘New Energy’ started in 1996 sounds like a journal formed expressley to promote cold fusion and the like – not reliable (at least to mainline scientists). 78 is a referenece to a publicity blurb written by the U. of Ill. Engineering Dept. – that’s not even a real reference – not published, not peer reviewed. 79 and 80 are refs to the same paper from the proceedings of ICCF10 (2003). In general Proceedings are of lower reliability that peer-reviewed journal articles, and the proceedings of a highly controversial field are even less reliable. This ref is semi-acceptable, but shouldn’t be taken as highest quality. Refs 81 and 82 are to the same Iwamura paper (2002) in J. Jap. Appl. Phys. I have commented extensively on it in spf about the time it came out, and I find all the usual errors in it. The journal may be reliable, but the paper isn’t, but that doesn’t disqualify this ref from the article. So out of 7 we have 1 good one, 1 marginal one, and 5 that have no reliability for deciding scientific issues. (The Hagelstein ref has value from the point of view that it represents the ‘best foot forward’ of the field’s proponents, i.e. it is expected to be highly biased. The balance comes from the DOE reviewers’ comments.)

72: Hagelstein paper: I don't mind removing that sentence if you have an issue with its reliability.

75: Storms is a reliable source, as noted above. Let's ask Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard if you disagree.

76: whatever your opinion of J. of New Energy, it is a peer reviewed journal and thus considered a reliable source by wikipedia.

77: is reliable because Mizuno has published in scientific journals on the relevant topic.

78: I don't mind deleting it if you have an issue with it.

79 and 90: i'm fine with deleting it too. Proceedings should be excluded.

Pcarbonn (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that uniform standards should apply. I wasn’t around for the other issues you bring up, but I assume their use violated Wiki policy, unlike my targeted and specific use for a singular purpose.

Now on to what I wrote and why:

1st paragraph – I point out 1) these claims were not discussed in the 2004 review (they were mentioned however), 2) the criticism is the way the issue of contamination is handled, 3) the P-F type cell is essentially doing stripping voltammetry, 4) that extreme purity requirements are in force if one wishes to ignore contamination issues, 5) the CF literature does not support such purities (meaning the issue cannot be ignored),and 6) that my rebuttal paper makes note of a phenomenon in Storms work that points to stripping of the electrodes as relevant. Note I connect to Wiki pages on ‘trace’ and the various ‘voltammetries’, which is a type of internal referencing. To me, I have laid out as briefly as possible the issue, with supporting information to make sure the readers don’t think I (or the article) am/is just whining.

Unless this reasoning is sourced, wikipedia considers this as WP:Original research, and in particular, Synthesis of published material which advances a position. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

2nd paragraph – This paragraph adds the idea that the contaminants can be extracted from the things the cell is made of. This is not a new or original idea. In fact the whole polywater fiasco was attributed to this very phenomenon. So, I see no need of references for that, nor is it practical. This is Chemistry 101. Then I give the example of how hard this is to trace down. And I make the statement that there are no examples of this level of effort in the proCF literature. If you have a counter to that, please let me know, but to ‘reference’ my statement, I would have to cite every paper that claimed heavy metal transmutation, which is not practical of course. Nevertheless, the statement is correct. If you disagree, please cite a reference for the basis of your objection.

I would suggest that you get this reasoning published in a scientific journal. I'll support its inclusion in the article once it is done.Pcarbonn (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

One of the criteria for publishing is that something new and unique is added to the literature in the publication. Pointing out that a paper fails to address contamination is not new and unique. This is one of the primary reasons there is no reference to cite. It is basic, common knowledge. However, the psuedoscientist finds it convenient to pretend it isn't, and thus claims a paper must be published pointing out this problem before it becomes a problem. Not so, failure to conduct 'normal' studies addressing common and recurrent problems is a problem with or without someone specifically pointing it out. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

3rd paragraph - Here is where I address the second part of the cold fusion transmutation claims relating to shifted isotopic distributions. I connect to the Wiki page on the analytical technique used, and give a brief statement of the problem of multi-atom ions. The fact that the cold fusion researchers ignore this is another statement that would require citing every paper that makes SIMS claims of this type, not practical. Again, if you disagree, cite a reference where the SIMS data is unambiguously for transmutation. I also cite an example of the specific problem here, which is another Web page. But again, I am using it as an example for a specific purpose which fits the Wiki policy. I end with a clear statement of the critcism.

I would suggest that you search for a reliable source that says : "the cold fusion researchers ignore [the possibility of multi-atom ions]". Pcarbonn (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

No what I have done is read the cold fusion researchers' papers and found no evidence they address the isssue. As explained above, I would not expect to find a particular paper stating that. If you have an example to the contrary, please cite it. make sure it is not just assertions that such work waas done. We need full disclosure, just as Scott Little did, to accept the revolutionary claims being made. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

All-in-all, I kept it as brief as I could while clearly stating the criticisms and explaining their technical basis (no one should accept criticisms without a basis behind them). Your block deletion of what I wrote is unjustified scientifically and from the point of view of Wiki policy. This subsection should be restored as written.

Shall we go on to the next block? Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

If you agree with what I said, we can go on the next block. Otherwise, let's resolve this first. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Over the weekend I've had some time to consider my options here, and I've come to the conclusion that I am embroiled in a battle that is going to take an inordinate amount of time to win because of your tactics. Further, I suspect that whatever I am able to accomplish through this battle will be obliterated within 6 months as was my prior attempt to set the record straight on this issue. All one has to do is look at how you altered the entire meaning of the 'Accuracy of Calorimetry' section to see this. The problem in dealing with fanatics when you yourself are not one, is that they will outlast you, unless you also become a fanatic. I don't consider this issue important enough to become fanatical about. therefore, I'm gone. Too bad that Wikipedia loses a balanced article. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

A pity that you quit Wikipedia. Hopefully that will give you some time to publish your original research in a scientific peer-reviewed journal. Because the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, as the policy says. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

As you can see I haven't quit, I am just not going to get involved in general, non-specific debates, or in line-by-line, word-by-word debates. What I wrote to add to the Criticisms section is basic chemistry, understood by all, and supported when possible by published refs, or in other cases with clear examples. I just apply that basic understanding to the case at hand. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Have I returned too late? I've been away from wikipedia for a while. I see I was asked for specifics before. My apologies, I thought the link to OR and "analysis/synthesis" would be enough. My problem is with anything like "...this means (i.e. implies) that..." or "...therefore...", or "...one could conclude that...", or "...apparently failed to...", etc. Anything with causation or logical connection is analysis. Any thing connecting two different ideas that were not connected by any of the sources is synthesis. Any analysis should be taken directly from a reliable source and attributed to that source and cited. (for instance "...such and such says that this means that...." (citation).) Any synthesis, by definition, does not have a source, and thus should be removed. Per wikipedia policy (see specifically WP:OR#Synthesis_of_published_material_which_advances_a_position). For an educated scientist such as yourself, it should be rather trivial to find these parts of the text, which is why I didn't bother to be specific at first (and now i see pcarbonn has done it for me). Kevin Baas^talk 15:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Kevin, a) you're not being specific again, b) Pcarbon and I were discussing the nuclear transmutation criticisms in the mass deletion of additions I made to the Criticisms section, and I see no examples of what you are mentioning there, c) Pcarbon's tactics are the issue: failure to understand the point of highly specific refernces, requiring that every sentence be referenced even when this is grossly unreasonable and unnecessary, misapplication of Wiki policies designed to keep crank physics out to keeping normal chemistry out of a crank chemistry article, and block deletion of my comments, leaving behind sections that lead the reader to a completely different conclusion than was intended. I cannot engage in a line-by-line, word-by-word battle with him or anyone else. In reference to WP:OR#Synthesis_of_published_material_which_advances_a_position, please read footnote 2 of that page. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have removed footnote 2 of that page: this was a recent addition to the policy, and it does not have consensus as per talk.Pcarbonn (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I like this rule - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR Kirk shanahan (talk) 22:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

And you actually want to advertise that!? Kevin Baas^talk 14:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely! When a bureaucratic rule or policy detracts significantly from the quality of an article, trash the rule. I think that makes perfect sense. Why do you have a problem with it? Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Because often times peoples opinions about "the quality of an article" are biased and that bias leads to POV, and the only way to overcome that bias is by faithfully and cooperatively applying a set of objective and common-sense rules. That's why the rules where made in the first place.

In this case it is very clear. The existing criticisms of the field are not being allowed to air. That's bias.

Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

As discussed below, not all of the pro-CF arguments and counter-anti-CF arguments are being allowed to air, either, per WP:RS and WP:OR. But that is not bias. That is equal treatment of both sides. Again, that's why we have objective criteria: because subjective judgment is susceptible to unconscious bias, whereas objective criteria are not. Kevin Baas^talk 15:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

If someone's favorite rule is anarchy, then clearly their goal is not as self-less, to put it mildly. This holds true not just w/respect to Wikipedia policy, but in general. Children and criminals hate rules. I don't imagine you'd want others to perceive you that way. Rules are important in every day life, like not interrupting people and treating others respectfully. They work. If someone advertises that they don't want to follow them, well they're usually looked down on and shunned by society, and for good reason. I don't imagine you'd want to be looked down on and shunned. You're basically saying, "off all the rules, like don't call people names, don't bully people, don't revert war, etc., my favorite one is not following any of them." and when people hear that, it translates to "My favorite things to do are call people names, bully them, revert war, etc.". It's a big red flag; you're basically saying "I'm disruptive." And people don't like disruptive people so I don't see why you'd want to advertise that.

And as I have noted elsewhere, the primary rule being violated is NPOV. The reason it is being vioolated is the misapplication of other rules, so that's when the IAR rule comes into play, as it should, since the NPOV rule is being subverted by the other ones. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

No rules need "subvert" any other rules - understood correctly, they complement each other. I believe I have made IAR and the others clear by directly quoting them. However, it seems that either you still do not understand them, or you take issue with them as they stand. If you take issue with them, you should discuss it on their respective talk pages, not this one. Otherwise, I suggest you read them more carefully, and particularly the lines I quoted. If all else fails, I'm sure you can find an administrator or someone on one of the project talk pages to help clarify them for you. Kevin Baas^talk 15:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

But for what it's worth, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here and assuming that you were just trying to make a point. Understand that Wikipedia is not an anarchy and the rules on here are not suggestions. They are enforced. And we have a graduated process for the resolution of disputes. Wikipedia is more formal than you might think. If you read the essay on what WP:IAR means you'll see that it's quite far from a blank check. Quoting:

"Ignore all rules" does not mean that every action is justifiable. It is neither a trump card nor a carte blanche. A rule-ignorer must justify how their actions improve the encyclopedia if challenged. Actually, everyone should be able to do that at all times. In cases of conflict, what counts as an improvement is decided by consensus.

They're enforced except for the NPOV one apparently. And it's highly unlikely we will get a 'consensus' when there are 3 people commenting. That's why, in fact, Wiki is anarchical. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:08, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Please refer to WP:ANARCHY. Kevin Baas^talk 15:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

So WP:IAR isn't much of a prescription for action and therefore isn't much of a rule. And when it comes to Wikipedia's three core content policies (listed in no particular order):

• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view,
• Wikipedia:Verifiability, and
• Wikipedia:No original research

WP:IAR is, for all practical purposes, the rule that gets ignored. The three core content policies are non-negotiable. Quoting:

"The principles upon which these policies are based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.".

This includes WP:IAR. Furthermore, if you're following here, WP:IAR is trumped by consensus, and consensus is trumped by the three core content policies. As a new user, you should take some time to read and familiarize yourself with these policies, as they permeate the 'pedia. Kevin Baas^talk 15:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

And of course it is my assertion that the NPOV rule is being consistently violated in this article that keeps getting ignored. The unwillingness of certain 'editors' to allow the valid criticisms of the field into the 'Criticisms' section means that the article is unabashedly 'pro' CF, when in fact the scientific consensus on this field, derived from the detailed studies of the 1989 review panel and confirmed by the 2004 panel, is that the field lacks scientific rigor. All I have done in my attepted additions is explain why that it so. Until such critcisms, explained for the layman, are allowed in the article, it will remain biased, which violates the NPOV rule. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly true. There are many criticisms against anti-CF arguments that are not in the article, but are left out because they lack reliable sources per WP:RS and WP:OR. This does not give the article an anti-CF bias. And the reason this does not give the article an anti-CF bias - the *only* reason - is because criticisms against pro-CF arguments that lack reliable sources are likewise left out per WP:RS and WP:OR.

If we were to introduce either pro-CF or anti-CF material into the article that violated WP:RS and/or WP:OR, in order to not also violate WP:NPOV we would have to do the same to both. The net effect of this would be that, though the article might still be neutral (depending on the balance of unsourced statements), the article would contain original research and would no longer be verifiable, thus violating at least two out of three of the core content policies, where before it had violated none (or, at most, one).

If there is pro-CF material that is unsourced or original research, the solution is not to add unsourced or original anti-CF material, but to find reliable sources if available, and if not, remove the offending material. Kevin Baas^talk 14:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

First, nothing I have written in my article edits is OR, so let's drop that OK? If you have examples to the contrary, quote them.

Next, sourcing is needed when specific facts are cited, not when base knowledge of the field is referred to. This is why I asked if I needed to source 2+2=4. If it's a fact in the article, it has to be sourced, right? Of course not, it is basic, it doesn't need a source. The discussion ongoing so far was on the subsection of my edits dealing with nuclear transmutation products. I sourced specific facts (usually by going to Wiki pages!). What is being challenged is the idea that contamination must be adequately dealt with. That is basic to this field. It is ALWAYS present when an effect being discussed can potentially be attributed to a contaminant. In my years of chemical research and education, I have never seen it 'sourced'. It is just basic chemistry that if a component is present in an amount that is enough to cause an effect, it must be examined carefully before one can say it is not causing the effect. 2+2=4.

The fact is that at this time, there is precious little 'antiCF' information in the article that is not presented as having be successfully dealt with. In truth, there are MAJOR issues outstanding. A fair and balanced article would point that out and explain it for the non-technical reader. Instead, such additions are block deleted because of malicious application of rules (which normally are used with good intent and correctly). That is why the article as a whole is biased, critical facts (not opinions) are being blocked. Again, cite your examples where RS is needed. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn has already cited numerous examples of OR edits in your material. Until you acknowledge that, we aren't going to make any progress AT ALL. With all due respect, lately you are seeming less like a human and more like a brick wall. I much prefer talking to humans than brick walls. Not only do I find it more enjoyable, I also find it more productive. Kevin Baas^talk 15:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

A) Welcome to the club. I've felt like I've been talking to brick walls for a couple of weeks.

B)I disagree Pcarbon's assessment of 'original research' being pushed off as fact in my suggested edits is correct. I have repeatedly tried to explain this, and have been repeatedly ignored or redirected to other issues. But I also recall that the majority of his comments were on not sourcing statements, not on 'OR'. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

a) I know. That's what I said. I really think it's a waste of my time. The section is full of synthesis and analysis and i can't believe that you aren't capable of seeing any. pcarbon did it for another section (apparently, my mistake), perhaps you can learn from the numerous examples he brought up? b) ...and I see no examples of what you are mentioning there - I see no examples of anything besides what i was mentioning there. c) Pcarbon's tactics are the issue - obviously not. we are discussing the article here, in particularly with regard to the policy that both me and have cited in relation to your additions. "requiring that every sentence be referenced" ... is policy. Welcome to Wikipedia. Kevin Baas^talk 14:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And yet you refuse to cite one specific example we can discuss. I can't deal with your vague generalities. I know you don't like putting ideas together in one sentence, but that is not a Wiki policy violation. Especially when all that is going on is trying to explain chemistry concepts to laymen. That's all I did. If you have an example of where you think I do more than that, please cite it specifically so we can discuss. Maybe I did do so, but I don't believe so at this time. So help me out. Pick one! Just one case please! By the way Pcarbon did not do this as far as I remember. He disliked intensely my using Scott Little as an example, for good reason, as he refuses to allow the anti-CF view to exist in this article (making it a biased one...NPOV violation?). But he didn't pick any detailed example except this. He also resorted to vague generalities. By the way, I am essentially using the Socratic method here. You have made general statements I disagree with, so I want to discuss in detail what you think you are seeing. However, you're not participating. (By the way, read the Socratic method article, a very technical article in philosophy, and every sentence is NOT referenced.) You have gone way over the top on this one Kevin. Do you understand that you are adversely affecting the NPOV of the article? Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

To be specific: you discuss contamination in electrolytic cells, while the transmutation evidence provided in the article comes from a gas system. For the anomalous isotopic ratio, you say "cold fusion researchers typically ignore [multiple atom configurations] for unspecified reasons". However, Iwamura does consider molecular ions (p 4647). Surely, they are bad experiments to which your criticism would apply. But your criticism does not affect the good ones, and does not bring value to the article. That's probably why you cannot find a reliable source for it.

Your right, I didn't comment on gas cells. Would you like me too? The issue remains the same, only the chemical transport mechanisms change. I have commented extensively on Iwamura's work in spf when he first started publishing, and I doubt your statement is supportable. I also have been reading Storms' 2007 book, and he also does a little handwaving at the problem, but he concludes it isn't real WITHOUT CITING ONE REFERENCE. He says for exaple (pg 96) "Some of the reported elements are normal impurities made visible after being concentrated on the surface. However, many of the elements, especially those having abnormal isotope ratios listed in Table 9 cannot be explained this way." He then discusses several claims, without ever mentioning the molecular ion problem. Note that he has focused the nuclear transmutation claims on the isotope ratio problem, but doesn't mention the potential impact of H, D, and maybe even T on these numbers or discuss how the issue is avoided/neutralized. That is the criticism, they don't consider it, even when it is blatant as in the Yamada example I cited. And I can't find a 'reliable source' for that because a) contamination is ALWAYS an issue at trace levels, and b) no one but me is watching the field from the skeptics side, so if I don't publish, it doesn't get published, and I don't think its worth the effort, because IT IS AN OBVIOUS PROBLEM. What is so hard about understanding that mass 137 might be CsD2 as opposed to La (especially when one acknowledges CsD is present!)? Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

What is so hard ? That transmutations happen in deuterium experiment, but not in control experiment with hydrogen. You would have to propose and demonstrate a mechanism for this selectivity for your argument to hold (unless you are a pseudoskeptic, of course). Pseudoskepticism should be resisted as much as pseudoscience. Pcarbonn (talk) 05:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Ummm...P, it's called 'the isotope effect'. H and D are very significantly different in their metal hydride chemistry. That's why we can use Pd to separate the isotopes. H is never a good control for D when you are talking metal hydrides. As a matter of fact, those who think the scientific method requires that you run a 'control' at the same time you run an experiment need to study this issue carefully, because it clearly shows that the real crux of scientific research is _being in control_, not in running a control. That's why the inability of the CFers to control their results is a clear indicator they are barking up the wrong tree with respect to what they think is the primary mechanism of the Fleischmann-Pons-Hawkins Effect.

Now as to the Iwamura paper, please give me the credit to understand the field in which I am employed. I don't recall the details of the paper today, and I'm not going to worry about it either, but I know that if my criticisms could have been addressed by considering the H data, I wouldn't have brought anything about it up. The simple explanation, which may not be the correct one (I'd have to look at the paper again) is that when you have a spread of naturally occuring isotopes and you add one to all (from H), the apparent spread will not change, especially if the highest mass is very small in contribution. But when you add D, you are adding two, which cause an apparent shift in disribution because some masses will be changed more than others. It all depends on the original bare element duitribution details. The other simple explanation is that the CFers routinely fail to report thier 'control' results in any way other than verbally, which is not full disclosue, which is required if one expects others to accept a revolutionary new concept. It is NOT accepted just based on assertions.

So now that I have 'explained' my skepticism, are you going to remove your implicit ad hominem attack against me? Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I have made an ad hominem attack. I just suggested that your argument is an example of pseudoskepticism. Since your response does not provide any experimental data in support of your explanation, I'll also consider it as a plausible explanation at best, and thus another example of your pseudoskepticism. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

C'mon, get real. I assert that CFers are psuedoscientists AND explain why I say that and I get jumped all over. You assert that what I write is an example of pseudoskeptisicsm, WITHOUT explaining why, which you couldn't do as I always back up my comments with explanation, and you say you're not doing anything wrong??? Double standard again! Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought I had already made abundantly clear the difference between -ism and -ist. Apparently my efforts were in vain. Kevin Baas^talk 15:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

That's because there is no difference in the communicated message between "That guy is doing pseudoscience." and "That guy is a pseudoscientist." Functionally, they are the same statement expressed somewhat differently. I think you may be infected with that dread germ "politicus correcticus", which alters your brainwaves so that certain preprogrammed phrases/words are automatically viewed as containing content that isn't actually there. Yes, it MAY be there in some cases, but when the speaker/writer of the word or phrase explains in detail why the phrase is being used, you can normally assume there is no perjorative content over and above that nominally contained in the word, i.e. saying 'He is a criminal.' does contain some negative connotations in most circles, but it does not necessarily contain anything beyond that. In a technical discussion, further perjorative content is usually indicated by the use of the word or phrase in an attempt to end the dicussion when the debate is stalemated.

With respect to my case, I used the 'forbidden word' to decribe the activities of cold fusion researchers, and I was specific as to what they do that qualifies them for that simplifying label. In Pcarbon's case, he just applies it, especially when I have just finished giving detailed reasons why I am skeptical about a certain claim. Giving details is not pseudoskepticism, in fact it is the opposite. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, my efforts were in vain. When you feel like comprehending what I have addressed ad nausuem, you will have your answers, as they have already been spelled out for you very clearly. In the interim, I won't waste my breath repeating what I have already said many times in many ways, because you clearly do not care to hear it. This matter is closed to me. Kevin Baas^talk 15:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

You also say: "any He evidence presented by cold fusion researchers MUST always be accompanied by a full analysis report of the examined gases (including masses for common air components) before it can be accepted, a condition that has not yet been met". First, what is the basis for this requirement ? Second, the SRI team did do it: they report that the ratio of 3He/4He significantly differs from its natural abundance, where 3He is a common air component. Surely, if one shows that the cell is Helium leak-tight, that Helium production is correlated to the heat generation and that the ratio 3He/4He significantly differs from its natural abundance, he has a strong case. That's what SRI said. Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought Pcarbonn (talk) 17:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The basis is the scientific method, which requires full disclosure, i.e. "archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists". Specifically a criticism is out there that says one of the top dogs in the field sent samples to a trace-level MS expert for analysis to confirm the production of 4He that were almost totally air! That means another top dog (and any 'lesser') researcher too is fully capable of NOT sealing their apparati from air inleakage. The level of importance of the claim, given the criticism, means that the claimants must fully disclose all relevant experimental details in support of their claims.

The scientific method requires publishing in peer-reviewed papers. That applies to criticism too. Wikipedia reports on published papers.

The scientific method is so much more than just that. Peer review is designed to be lenient, so some trash will alsways get published. The point is, that it is quickly pointed out by the interested scientific community at large. That's exactly what happened in the early days of CF, but the CFers have not addressed the majority of the issues raised, most focusing on contamination issues. Instead they withdrew from the scientific review process by circling their wagons and only talking to themselves. That's why the vast majority of their 'publications' are proceedings of ICCF conferences and the like. I'm reading Storms 2007 book. I checked the first 300 of the 646 references he cites in Chapter 4, and guess what, about 60% are to such Proceedings! The two specific cases I cite in my attempted additions to this page are their response to my CCS criticism, and their response to the Clarke criticism, or should I say non-response. In Storms book, he doesn't mention my final rebuttal to his comments, even thought they were published back-to-back, and he was privy to what I was writing during review! Neither does he mention Clarke's criticism (although he does mention the unexpected detection of 3He). Nothing but bias! Wave your hands at the critics and that's adequate. Not quite for good science... 192.33.240.30 (talk) 20:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Please beware of pseudoskepticism: i.e. beware of assuming criticism requires no burden of proof, beware of making unsubstantiated counter-claims, of offering counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence, of suggesting that unconvincing evidence is grounds for dismissing it. Using the same tactics, I could say this: if we accept that top dog researcher in CF is capable of not fully sealing their apparati, we can also accept that the trace-level MS expert might let air leak in. But that's not in line with the scientific method, the way I see it. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The 3He/4He ratio has nothing to do with air inleakage. 3He comes from T decay and is not normally present is air unless T decay is ongoing nearby. The ratio that Clarke use was He/Ne, but that wasn't even necessary as massive N2 signals were deteected. Your comment "Surely, if one shows that the cell is Helium leak-tight" is ABSOLUTELY the crux of the matter. No one has done that yet. To show it is leak tight, you need to do several things: a) show no N2 is present, b) show the 4He to Ne ratio is not that of air, c) show that you can accurately measure He conc by a full experimental apparatus test, not just a MS instrument check, and d)show that the amount of He4 produced is significantly greater than air concentration. 3He being present is strange. But those results are far fewer than 4He, and not replicated in detail, so the ugly issue of CONTAMINATION (this time of T) comes up.

I have a strong applied statistics background, and I find the 'correlations' presented by CF researchers to not be compelling. The problems are that they often are on limited data sets and not of high quality (note that a correlation coefficient of .8 is not hard to get). For example, in the reference you cite, Figure 1 is just such an example. They have 6 data points, and a straight line through them that originates at (0,0). However, 5 of the 6 points are clustered and a quick look suggests no correlation to excess heat (slope of fit = 0). The 6th point is offset a bit, and might drive computing a non-zero slope, but the fit appears to have been forced through the origin, which invalidates the correlation coefficient. Forcing it through the origin is like adding a large number of (0,0) points to the data to cause a desired result to obtain, i.e to go through (0,0). And in the end the correlation coefficient is only 0.78. I could go on but we have better things to do. (But note your criteria for accepting the McKubre case have all been directly questioned here.) Oh, and the McKubre reference you cite is from a Proceeedings...

We are getting into extreme technical details here which are probably not kosher for a Wikipedia talk page. We need to refocus on the article and specifically the Criticsims section here. I have cited the basis, as I did before, and explained it here. Let's put the comments on He detection that were deleted back in. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, this is not the place to discuss these issues. We are not a peer review committee. Science Journals have such committees. That's why wikipedia rely on them. There is absolutely no way that the unsourced statements that I challenge will get on wikipedia, unless they are properly sourced. And again, please beware of pseudoskepticism. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm more concenred with psuedoscience. Unwillingness to consider alternative explanations (i.e. 'criticisms') is a dead give-away of psuedoscientists. 192.33.240.30 (talk) 20:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

You may be concerned with pseudoscience. Please note however that a majority of wikipedia editors rejected the notion that cold fusion might be pseudoscience. See here. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Those responding rejected a proposal that the article on CF be placed in the category Pseudoscience. That is not the same as taking a stance on whether CF is pseudoscience or not. My personal opinion is that CF research is a minor and contested field of scientific research. Some of those who research in the field are scientists, others are not. Whether there is a genuine CF effect is something that scientists are far from agreeing on. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You probably won't agree with what I said. The point of the policy is to avoid having to discuss controversial statements like these, endlessly. Either you find a source, or you don't. If you don't, I have the right to delete it: the policy saves a lot of time to both of us, while not impacting the quality of the article. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You may also want to read the warning at the top of this page that says that "This is a controversial topic that may be under dispute": "Make sure to supply full citations when adding information and consider tagging or removing uncited/unciteable information." Pcarbonn (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn pretty well covered what I was going to say (I'll get you some specific examples when I have more time.), but i'd like to add one thing: You said "Do you understand that you are adversely affecting the NPOV of the article?". Do you realize that I have not made any edits to the article in a really long time? How could I be "adversely affecting the NPOV of the article" when I'm not even affecting it in the first place? That strikes me as a little ridiculous. Kevin Baas^talk 20:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn's complaints were oriented around referencing, yours were oriented towards drawing unwarranted conclusions. To me they are separate issues. I did find it amusing however that when I pointed out that footnote, P went off and deleted it. Pretty typical. Your position prevents my additions from being restored, thus you are affecting the article, because no real, valid criticisms are adequately described as it stands now. I look forward to your specific examples (seriously). Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe I gave specific examples a few paragraphs above (3 indents before, starting with "To be specific:"). If not, please clarify how I can help further. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Done in detail in 2 of 3 cases. I probably have done the Iwamura case on spf, but I'll have to check. I may get back to this in a day oor two (or more). Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother. You'd better look for proper sources. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh but it was realtively easy. My comments on the paper you refernce are found in the thread "New cold fusion paper by Iwamura et al." started by Jed Rothwell on July 9, 2002. What's so funny is that in it, I make all the same arguments I make here today! 192.33.240.30 (talk) 20:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

And just so you know, we're not trying to gang up on you or anything, we're just trying to make the article better. As you can see, OR isn't taken lightly on wikipedia, and if somebody put this article up for review (e.g. WP:FA), that would be one of the first criticisms of it. We'd have to fix that in order for this article to achieve the coveted FA status. So we're trying to fix it now. Don't take it personally - we're perfectionists here, and if you hang out here enough, sooner or later you will be too ;-). Kevin Baas^talk 15:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Iwamura

Dr. Shanahan, you are not going to win this argument by continuing to argue like this. You criticize articles published in reputable scientific journals, such as Iwamura's paper published in Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. This article describes how they have analyzed the possibility of contamination, and rejected it based on the experimental evidence they have. They also described how they distinguished molecular ions from atomic ones. Despited the evidence, you pretend that they have not made the necessary analysis, you propose a possible explanation without any experimental evidence to convince us that it can explain the observed behavior, and you still have not provided any published scientific paper related to the topic to support your opinion.

For the record, here are some quotes from Iwamura's paper:

"The offset voltage technique is based on the fact that the kinetic energydistributio n of atomic and molecular ions is entirelydiffere nt and the distribution of atomic ion energyis broader than that of molecular ions. If we filter the central part of the distribution by applying a certain offset voltage, all signals decrease, however, the signal of molecular ions decreases much more than that an atomic ions. Therefore we can select onlythe signals of atomic ions."

The key word is 'much'. First, how much is much? It is 'total'? They use an 80eV offset voltage, which from my quick checking is quite large. That really decreases signal strengths overall. I have a lot of questions on how effective this approach is, but (see below) it isn't really necessary to pursue this idea.

In fairness however, coupled with the fact that Storms also waves his hands at the contamination issue, I am willing to substitute 'inadequately addressed' for 'ignored' in what I wrote. Unfortunately, that begs some explanation (in the article) and people ar already complaining about length. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"The first point is that the XPS analysis of the nuclear products is performed in the vacuum chamber. We do not expose the Pd complex test pieces to an air environment during experiments, and w monitor pressure in the chamber. Monitoring pressure enables us to detect anygaseou s contaminants invading into the chamber, as the test apparatus is located in a clean room where temperature and humidityare kept constant."

Ok, fine. But that's not where the problem is most likely to arise from, so this statement is of marginal value. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"The second point is that since the detected material, Pr, belongs to rare earth elements, it is difficult to assume that Pr accumulated on the Pd complex test pieces by an ordinary process. The purity of the used D2 gas is over 99.6% and most of the impurityis H2. The other impurities detected by a mass spectrometer are N2, D2O, O2, CO2 , CO and hydrocarbons; their amounts are all under 10 ppm. We analyzed Pd complex test pieces deposited with Cs by glow discharge mass spectrometryand confirmed that the amount of Pr in the test pieces was under the detection limit (0.01 ppm). If we assume that all of the Pr at 0.01 ppm distributed in the Pd test piece (0.1 mm, 0.7 g) gathered in the analyzed area, a circle of 5mm diameter and 20 �A depth from the surface of the test piece, the number of Pr atoms attained the same order (1013 atoms) of the detected Pr However, it is impossible for all of the distributed Pr in the Pd test piece to gather in the narrow surface area against the flow of D2 gas without the application of a specific force on Pr, because such a phenomenon breaks the law of thermodynamics."

As noted previously on these Talk pages, the problem is that Pr and Cu have the same XPS peaks. Cu is a very likely contaminant. I note in the paper that the authors quote purity numbers on all the chemicals used, except the CaO! When I critiqued this article originally I was able to find a standard analysis label for CaO that listed significant Cu contamination. So, it depends on what they bought and used. Further, CaO was sputtered by an ion beam, but CaO is an oxide and will static charge, which will deflect the ion beam to the nearest conductive point, which in these systems is often Cu containing.

The neat thing about the quoted paragraph is that it shows that 0.01 ppm of contaminant can easily be detected by the SIMS technique, illustrating what I said in my CF article additions, that SIMS (and all surface analysis) is a trace level technique. In fact it is ultratrace. Iwamura, et al's final line is flat out wrong. Surface segregation, dealloying, etc., is a well known phenomenon in surface science. It was a talk on just that in Fe-Ni alloys that got me interested in surface science for my graduate degree. BTW, the flowing D2 may well assist segregation processes. I have read some Russian papers on this for lighter elements. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"The third point is that the isotope ratio of produced elements is anomalous. In this paper, we show the isotopic anomalyof Mo. It provides evidence that the detected material, Mo, was produced bycertain nuclear processes. If the Mo were a contaminant, such efficient isotope separations would not be possible."

In http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg20731.html, the comment is made that at ICCF13, Takahaski, et al tried to replicate the Iwamura results and found that the Mo was actually S. The fact that Iwamura detect masses in the Mo region just points to a tiny Mo contaminant. The principal change in Iwamura's data (fig. 9) is that mass 96 has grown dramatically. That's the iosotope shift he claims. Mass 96 would be the triatomic S3. Thus further suggests the mass filtering by Iwamura was inadequate. Lots more details on methodology and results needed before we can accept the 'Pr' and 'Mo' findings from Iwamura. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"The last point is that the elements detected by the D2 gas permeation varydepending on the given elements at the beginning of the experiments. In our experiments, Pr or Mo was detected when Cs or Sr was deposited on the surface of Pd complex test pieces, respectively. It is very difficult to assume that the detected elements change depending on the given elements byexte rnal contamination."

the contaminants present would also depend on the starting materials, so it isn't 'difficult to assume' at all. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"The above discussion stronglysuggests the existence of low-energynuclear transmutations induced by a simple method."

No it doesn't. See above comments. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"We noticed that a certain rule exists between given and produced elements.13) The increase in mass number is 8, and the increase in atomic number is 4. At present, we do not have a complete theorythat can explain the obtained experimental results without a few assumptions."

Just shows you how silly rules (theories) can be generated when you misinterpret the data. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

As said repeatedly, we are willing to include any criticism that is reliable and verifiable, but not self-published original research. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't used any self-published original reasearch other than Little and Yamada to illustrate one specific point and NOT to draw a conclusion, which I still say is within the bounds of Wiki policy.

BTW, for the record, I don't have problems using Proceedings as references as long as one understands the problems with them. In general Proceedings suffer a little less critical review than regular journal papers. Proceedings from a highly biased crowd are expected to have even less critical review. But typically published DATA is not impacted nearly as much as interpretations. Thus I often find facts and tidbits from such sources that are of value. My prior comments on the sources used in the 'pro' section were intended to point out that the same 'standards' that are being applied to me were not being enforced in that section (until I pointed out the problem).

Also, criticising articles published in peer-reviewed journals is common and expected in science. Publishing is not a declaration that the Truth has been found. It is a request for comment from the general scientific community. The peer-review system does not guarantee that trash is not published. In fact it is well-known that a lot does get published. that is by design, because we don't want to accidentally suppress real discoveries. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, you are going nowhere without proper sources. As you say, "criticising articles published in peer-reviewed journals is common and expected in science", so, why can't you publish your original research in scientific journals, as you have in the past ? Other critics of cold fusion did not find any problems in publishing their critique. We'll be happy to include it in wikipedia when you do. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

So we're back to that old saw again hmmm? You have the key in your comment 'original research'. This is not original research it is basic chemistry, a fact you refuse to comprehend. It won't be published because it's not original research! That's why it needs to be in the Criticisms section! Good grief! What does it take to get through to you! This is like saying 2+2 = 4! So anyway, I'm calling it. No more debate, at all, with Pcarbon. He's too biased to deal with. I may respond to Kevin if he ever get the specific example I asked for, but I may not. We'll just have to see if and when he posts. End result - Wiki loses. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, it is not like saying 2+2=4. A good scientists would formulate your opinion as an hypothesis, and go out to test it experimentally. Thanks anyway for your other input. Pcarbonn (talk) 20:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

In this case, you could purposely add contaminants to the CaO layer, and see if you could observe them appearing on the Pd surface. You could measure the delay corresponding to the time required for the migration of the contaminants through the Pd layer, and see if it is compatible with Iwamura's observation.

Another case demonstrates the importance of experimental confirmation to avoid the pitfalls of pseudoskepticism. In 1990, Gary Taubes suggested that Bockris had spiked his cells with tritiated water, a then-plausible explanation for Bockris' tritium observations. Storms went on to test this hypothesis, and found out that the observations did not match Bockris' (see his report).

Pseudoskepticism should be resisted as much as pseudoscience. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Bockris investigation

The current article states that this article [ http://www.mikeepstein.com/path/free.html ] is evidence that a panel found Bockris "not guilty of violating Texas A&M standards in proposing, conducting or reporting controversial research." However, most of the article is about transmuting materials into gold and silver, not about cold fusion. It seems most likely that the investigators were not commenting on the Bockris cold fusion work, so this article should not be included in the wikipedia cold fusion article. Does anyone disagree (besides Pcarbonn)?

Also, it is not a good idea to have a major claim in the article which is only supported by an editorial from a non-mainstream journal [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Scientific_Exploration ]. Does anyone know of a more mainstream source which discusses investigation of the Bockris work? Olorinish (talk) 11:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I have now provided a reference to a New York Times article. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning up the References

Several references need to be fixed or deleted per current standards. I would prefer, as per my own suggestion, that the original writers of the verbage using these references fix it up, but I will do so if nothing is done by early next week., unless good reasons can be put forth in the interim as to why they should not be deleted.

These references are incomplete. (They need to have journal, volume, year, and page)

• Epstein (1994)
• Feder (2005)
• Gozzi (1998)
• Hutchinson (2006)
• Joyce (1990) = page missing, but easily identified as ‘22’. (I will add.)
• Oriani (1990)

Refs. to Proceedings (should be deleted): Key:

• APS – American Physical Society
• ICCF = Int’l Conference on Cold Fusion (1 to 14)
• ICCMS = Int’l Conf. on Condensed Matter Science (the new way to say ‘cold fusion’))
• SMMIB 2005 = 14th International Conference on Surface Modification of Materials by Ion Beams (published as a separate issue of Surf. And Coatings Tech.)
• TFT26 = Transaction of Fusion Technology 26(4T) is the Proc. of ICCF4 (Note: There was a separate publication of Proc of ICCF4 by EPRI that actually contains more papers than the TFT26.)

Refs:

• Bush (1994) – TFT26
• Chubb (2006) – This is an APS session on-line agenda. Does this meet Wiki standards?
• Fleishchmann (2003) - Proc of ICCF10
• Higashiyama (2003) – Proc of ICCF10
• Hubler (2007) – Proc of SMMIB 2005
• Iwamura (2004) – Proc of 11th ICCMS
• Miley (2003) – Proc. of ICCF10
• Mossier-Boss (2007) – Proc. of 2007 APS March Meeting
• Schwinger (1991) – Proc of Yoshio Nishina Centennial Symposium
• Storms(2000) – Proc. of ICCF8
• Yamada (2007) – Proc. of 8th Meet. of Japan CF Soc.

Note: I added Storms and Yamada, and I will delete immediately.

Non-peer-reviewed refs.

• Josephson (2004)
• Kowalski (2004)
• Lewenstein(1994)
• Prow (2001) – a public relations piece, not a newspaper or journal article
• Szpak (2002a and b) – internal SPAWAR reports

I think we have already agreed elsewhere that Prow was to be deleted.

Non-reliable journal refs.

• Mallove (1999) Infinite Energy Magazine
• Krivit (2005,2007) – New Enegy Times
• Mizuno (1996) J. of New Energy
• Storms(1990) – New Energy Times

Biberian(2007) is incorrectly labeled a 'review' in the first section. Later on, it is correctly labeled an article. It is also mentioned using 'cited by' in several references where a primary article is referenced. I feel this is unecessary as the primary ref. is adequate. If we were to put 'cited by' after every referenced article, we would have to do a lot more editing.

Oh and I forgot the ref 124, last in the article. It is to Biberian, but the section is on theory and he doesn't speak to that. I suppose someone got the refs mixed up. perhaps they were going for the Storms 2007 book? Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

In that paper, Biberian says: "At this point there is no satisfactory theory explaining the unique characteristics of condensed matter nuclear science". This supports the statement we make in the theory section, although our wording could be improved. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I’d also like to note for the record that the Biberian 2007 publication is in a journal devoted to nuclear reactors, and is thus completely out of place. Further the journal only started in 2005 and thus does not really have ‘mainline’ status as of yet (it may attain that in the future, if it survives). It is extremely unlikely that any competent peer review occurred in that setting, because people who could evaluate the claims made are not in that reviewer pool (this is a typical problem with a variety of CF publications). Is this considered a reliable source for Wiki? Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with some of your suggestions, please note the following:

• the WP:RS guideline states that "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." This includes other sources than peer-reviewed journals. So, the fact that a source is not peer reviewed does not disqualify it necessarily.
• You state that some papers come from proceedings, while the reference clearly points to a journal. Please clarify your argument for removal.
• We use 'cited by' in accordance to Say where you got it, or to show their notability.

Pcarbonn (talk) 20:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Responding:

• 'with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy' - that's the rub of course. Per the Goodstein reference: "...because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism." That's why, for example, the J. of New Energy is 'suspect'. A journal's reviewer pool usually derives from its author pool, and when JNE has no mainline papers in it, its pool is drawn from the fringe. The condition noted by Goodstein normally obtains in that situation. Ditto for Proceedings, even when published by mainline publications (such as the TFT26 issue), as review of Proceedings papers is almost always (but with exceptions) done by conference participants. That's why on the pecking order of publications, proceedings articles rank second or third. Everything I questioned above has the problem of 'reliable fact-checking and accuracy'. As was noted by Goodstein in 1994, the cold fusioneers were arlready noted for this problem, and instead of trying to overcome this, they continue to publish the bulk of their papers under problem conditions (peer reviewed or not.)
• You may do what I do, go to Google, look up the journal's Web site, and check the volume quoted. I made no mis-statements above.
• In this case, the original references are all that is needed, the 'cited by' is extraneous. Someone citing your work does not make any more or less true. And again, if you want to cite Biberian just because he cites the other authors, you should do so on all references, which will make the reference list untenable. I believe the 'cited by' is to be used when you can't obtain the prime refernce, such as 'Socrates said' (cited by Plato...). Kirk shanahan (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 12:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC).

Your questions about sourcing could usefully be taken to the reliable sources noticeboard. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:14, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Sub-Section Merge

Although this may seem trivial, I just wanted to formally point out a slight inconsistency. There are two headings with essentially the same name in the "Criticism" section. "Precision of Calorimetry" and "Accuracy of Calorimetry" appear to display an obvious redundancy. Respectfully, I will merge these unless otherwise contested; I don't expect a reply anytime soon.

Aaagmnr (talk) 22:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Precision and accuracy are in fact different concepts, but a heading "Precision and accuracy of calorimetry" might be OK. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Strange, I always thought they were synonymous terms. I have implemented your suggestion, and thanks for the clarification.

Aaagmnr (talk) 20:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Distinctly different, but don't feel bad, many scientisits haven't taken the time to clearly distinguish the two, including most of the cold fusioneers. When I made my additions to the criticism section, I left the old section 'precision...' in as I don't think I should be block deleting others' writings. However, the criticisms raised in that section were old, i.e. from the '89 DOE report, and more or less addressed in the years following, and as such really don't offer much in the way of insight for the situation today. (I even added a sentence stating that in my edited version from Sept. 17 I think, but that sentence was deleted.) Which is of course why Pcarbon sees fit to leave them there and relegate the real criticisms to a stub article which will likely be deleted in 6 mo. to a year, just like the last time. Anyway, in the old 'precision' section what was discussed were primarily 'accuracy' issues (which are also know as 'biases' or 'systematic errors'). Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:39, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

More eyes needed again

This is getting arcane and hard to follow. Perhaps necessarily. All I can really understand as a non-scientist is that Kirk is getting a hard time. Having a genuine researcher in the field present and editing under his own name is potentially helpful but it's not the normal state of affairs so we all need to be cautious. Please stick to the advice at the top of the page about being welcoming. The article needs more opinions, so I'm going to post a note again on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard. I'm also going to ask Kirk a question on his talk page for my own clarification. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:39, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I can see that for a non-scientist. The primary problem I am having is with basic explanatory comments I wrote to help the reader understand the criticisms I am listing being taken as some kind of original thought and thereefore needing refernces. They aren't available, because they are underlying concepts to the field of chemistry. That's why I keep referring to sourcing 2+2=4. I welcome more eyes, and I will go now to check my talk page. Kirk shanahan (talk) 17:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Which facts in particular were removed as unsourced?

Here is a sentence in the article which is very difficult for me to understand: "His [Shanahan's] response included a breakdown of the 10 experimental runs analyzed into 4 sets based on what seemed to be a clear time-dependent shift in the calibration constants. This time dependence suggests a chemical aging effect that can be reversed by appropriate in-cell processing, further emphasizing the non-nuclear nature proposed by Shanahan."

What is meant by "breakdown," "analyzed into," "time-dependent shift," "chemical aging," and, "appropriate in-cell processing," in that sentence? 69.228.210.225 (talk) 02:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I hope you have read the version of Sept. 17, 2008 before the large sections I had added to the Criticisms section were deleted. After the deletion, only disconnected bits and pieces were left, the sentence you cite being one of them. I wouldn't have had a problem editing for clarity if what I had written made no sense to some, but the block deletions were a problem in my opinion. So, you can get some context from the Sept. 17 version. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Those two sentences are the same in the version of September 17th, with no more explanation for the terms I asked about than there is now. What do those terms mean in those sentences? 69.228.230.16 (talk) 22:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I was hoping that seeing them in their original context would have clairfied. In my paper I analyzed 10 'runs'. A run was an experimental sequence where the applied voltage to the cell was ramped up for 0 to a maximum and then back down to 0 (or near it). If you plot the calibration constants as a function of time (or simply in sequence), it is clear that there is a pattern present. I identified what seemed to 'reset' the pattern and start it over, and this resulted in being able to group the 10 runs into 4 sets containing 3,3,1,and 3 runs each. The CF 'activity' systematically reduced in the series to level measured with 'dead' electrodes. This strongly suggests a chemical process altering the electrodes systematically in time, i.e. a chemical aging effect. Since it could be reversed, i.e. the activity restored, this adds to the impression that chemistry is at work, not nuclear physics. BTW 'analyzed into' should not be connected as you have done, it is 'runs analyzed' and 'into'. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I altered the wording slightly. Any improvement? Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Not for me. Would you please completely rephrase the summary in terms of the hypothesis (chemical instead of nuclear, right?), the data, and the reason(s) the data support the hypothesis? IwRnHaA (talk) 06:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. It is one of the sentences added by Shanahan. I have removed many sentences for lack of sources. Pcarbonn (talk) 07:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems you also deleted some sourced statements. For example, cited to Little and Yamada. You removed the citation to Little, so that can't have been an accident. Why? 69.228.210.225 (talk) 08:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The Little source is a self-published page on his website. Little has not published any paper on cold fusion in reliable scientific journals. Therefore, he cannot be considered as a reliable source according to WP:SPS. We should be particularly cautious about such sources on a controversial topic like cold fusion. Yamada is not offered as a source for the paragraph in dispute, but rather, is criticized without any sources. After removing the unsourced criticism, there is no reason to cite Yamada anymore. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

In his continuing attempt to make sure no valid criticisms get out about cold fusion, Pcarbon wiped out another part of my additions. I have restored them. Some simple editorial changes that he made (such as dropping the (a) and (b)) wouldn't have been a problem, but he wiped out the entire fact that in his 2007 book, one of the leading cold fusion scientists refused to fully address the issues I raised in my publications. That is a crucial fact regarding the current state of affairs with the conventional explanation of the Fleischmann-Pons-Hawkins Effect. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I certainly don't see it as something as important as you do. I fail to understand why it is important, since the arguments presented are the same as the ones in the previous paragraph, and no sources are presented that are not in the article already. Again, please beware of WP:UNDUE weight, and of writing about oneself. I'm open to comment from others, though. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

As this is the 'More eyes needed' section, I heartily request just that. Pcarbon is heavily biased and incapable of fairly editing any critical material. For those other eyes, there are two levels to all the criticisms that I have added (the ones present before were primarily from the 1989 DOE report, and, at least in part, were somewhat adequately addressed, and thus were of historical value only and certainly not very critical at all). The first level is the technical one, i.e., there is a simple and valid conventional explanation for apparent excess heat signals. The second level is that the researchers whose work is impacted by these criticisms routinely fail to incorporate any response to these criticisms, which is a very telling observation. To get a true picture of what is going on in the field today, one needs to know, for example, that Storms completely ignores the final rebuttal of his objections to the CCS problem, and further concludes in his book that it is not an issue! That is downright misrepresentation on his part, and that fact needs to be brought out in the Criticisms section. Note that he does the same thing with the Clarke results on He detection (not mentioned in the book), and Storms inadequately addresses the contamination issue (in that case there is no specific reference that can be quoted, as only basic chemistry is needed to understand the issue). Mainline science does not accept claims from scientists who ignore their critics. Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I now understand your point. No need to make ad hominem attacks: I'm perfectly capable of accepting other's opinions. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:34, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, the only source that you have provided for your opinion is Dr. Britz review of Storms book : "The book makes a good case for cold fusion. There are some weaknesses. Some of the figures are poorly done, and the text is often awkward. Some expert criticism of Storms' calorimetry (Shanahan, 2006) is not mentioned, [...]. Nevertheless, these weaknesses are comparatively minor and do not detract from the major message of the book, the rather solid experimental evidence of some exotic process taking place, from a careful and self-critical researcher." (cited by New energy Times)

While Dr. Britz gives notability to the idea that Storms' book has weaknesses, it does not exactly support your sweeping statements on "the true picture of what's going on in the field today" or on "downright misrepresentations", on the contrary. Your generalisation is largely overblown and exagerated. While I could see it mentionned in an article on Storms, I don't believe it belongs in the cold fusion article, for WP:DUE weight reasons. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:30, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Following a brief description of his calorimeter, Storms (p. 41, chap. 3) remarks that a 1.2% agreement in Joule and electrolytic calibration “demonstrates the calibration errors proposed by Shanahan [18] are absent.” Ref. [18] is to my 2002 paper. On page 172 (chap. 7), Storms writes that “Shanahan [78] has proposed that…” and “This error is shown by Storms to apply to neither flow [79] nor Seebeck calorimetry,[42]” Ref [78] is to my 2002 paper. Ref. [42] is to a Storms presentation at a conference in 2005. Ref [79] is to the Storms 2006 comment. My 2006 rebuttal to that, published back-to-back with Storms' 2006 comment, is NOT mentioned at all in either chapter. According to the Index, these are the only times my work is mentioned. These are facts. That's what was written. That's what was sourced. Check the book yourself if you think I am lying. Therefore your cites of rules and regulations are irrelveant, and just serve to demonstrate the extent you will go to to try to suppress my additions.

Further, what you apparently didn't get from my comment above, is this treatment from Storms (and may I add Kowalski's Web page does the same thing) is notable for those seeking to determine what is going on in the field, and thus is a valid addition in and of itself in the Wiki article. Remember "Some EXPERT criticism of Storms' calorimetry (Shanahan, 2006) is not mentioned," [emphasis mine] and "Mainline science does not accept claims from scientists who ignore their critics." Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the fact that your recent expert work is not cited in Storms' book. I'm saying that we don't need to give it a full paragraph and thus undue weight, based on what Dr. Britz say. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In the last paragraoph, there are 4 sentences. I agree the second is superfluous, I didn't write it as I recall. If the second sentance is removed, the third needs some slight modifications to make sense. But those three sentences constitute the explanation of the problem with the Storms 2007 book. Thus, they are necessary and not redundant, as the other paragraphs do not deal with that issue. I will make the changes. Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I have removed an offensive phrase from the article: "With funding from the US DOE". This phrase was added by Pcarbon in an attempt to discredit my work by associating it with the 'big, bad DOE'. In fact, funding sources are irrelevant to this discussion. The work was published in a mainline, peer-reviewed journal where funding sources do not impact that process. Unless all work referenced in the article is equally described, the application of such a phrase ONLY to me is biased. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Please WP:Assume good faith. That the DOE is funding your work is relevant when some say that DOE is not financing work on cold fusion at all. It's also interesting to note that DOE held the 2004 panel AFTER you have published your work with their financing. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think it comes as a surprise to just about everyone that you have such a low opinion of the U.S. Department of Energy. Most people would take pride in having their work funded by the DOE, whereas you apparently take offense. I don't think anybody could have anticipated that so I don't really think it was meant to be offensive. It seems to me that, quite to the contrary, it was meant to give weight, notability, and credit to your research. But to each his own, I suppose, and I see no harm in removing it. But in the future try to WP:Assume good faith. Kevin Baas^talk 17:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I began this exercise assuming good faith, but I was proven wrong. I can't assume that anymore.

I work at the Savannah River National Laboratory, which is a 'goco' (government owner, contractor operated), thus anything I do that gets published via work gets stamped with the 'DOE-funded' label, and since CF involves Pd, and I am a Pd-H chemist, I can't do it from home by the terms of my employment agreement. However, most of my managers can't understand why I want to worry about CF because "everyone knows it's bad science". I have taken as much flak over this as any other CFer. So don't assume DOE 'supports' me in anything but an indirect manner, just like the way NRL 'supports' CF research in its ballpark.

With regards to the 2004 review, when I found out about it, it was just about to happen (within a week or two). I contacted our rep. in the Office that was running the review and sent him/her my paper and additional comments, and was promised it would be passed on to 'the right people'. I personally know two of the reviewers, one of whom referenced my work in the written comments, and the other being one of the oral presentation panel, and neither ever saw a word of my work. I am not down on DOE, I am down on the review. It was inadequate if it was intended to get a full picture. I doubt we'd be having this debate if they had looked at my work and let me present the counterview. Fourtunately, they did specify publically what was considered, so we all know my work wasn't. Also note the discussion on my user page. I actually got involved with CF in about 1995, with my first publication submission in 2000.

Kevin, you haven't followed the CF field. They routinely harrange DOE for not supporting CF research. For an 'insider' like Pcarbon, the comment was an allusion to a 'conspiracy theory', because 'if DOE were fair, they'd be funding CF'. The idea is that I am a 'paid labcoat' that DOE trots out to 'confuse' the public about the reality of CF because DOE is really run by the oil companies. All hogwash of course, but it is a direct slam to my integrity. BTW, the reason I got into CF was that if what they say is true, I had the potential of suffering physical harm from an exploding sample, or releasing tritium to the environment due to same. When I asked my collegues why I shouldn't worry, no one could answer (because they all know CF is 'bad science'). Personal safety was my concern. Intellectual curiosity kept me going. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Kirk, thanks for the clarification on the DOE funding. I now agree that it should not be stated in the article.

Again please assume good faith. I was the one to defend the view that our article should represent the 2004 DOE panel's conclusion. See my personal page for the history of this article. Why would I do that if I consider them as part of a conspiracy ? I fully agree that the review had shortcomings, but I believe it affects both sides. I would fully support another review by the DOE if I was asked, and I would hope it would be done properly this time. I'm not sure what would be the outcome though. I doubt that your speculation on CCS would carry the day, but my opinion is irrelevant, and WP is not a crystal ball. My reason is that you have analyzed only one experiment (which uses Pt rather than the usual Pd), you have offered only an hypothesis which still needs to be verified experimentally, and there are still reports of unexplained radiations, even if not at the level expected in view of the excess heat.

You call me an 'insider' : I don't have anything at stakes in this, other than my intellectual curiosity and the wish that researchers provide a better world for my kids, if there is any chance they can do it. My (small) contribution is to present the state of the issue as it is documented in reliable sources, and to prevent the spread of unsourced and unscientific opinions like 'everybody knows that CF is bad science'. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

You say: "Fourtunately, they did specify publically what was considered, so we all know my work wasn't." Please elaborate, because as far as I know the presentations made by the researchers during the one-day session was not made public. I have no indication that your work was not considered (the only indications that your work may have been considered are your statements above, and the leaked comment from reviewer #5, who may very well have mentionned it during the one-day session). Pcarbonn (talk) 20:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I find I have to correct myself. The information that was once posted when the report was issued included the full presentation and comments but has apparently been taken down. That it was there can be seen from the link to it found at the bottom of this page: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/archive.cfm/pubDate=%7bd%20'2004-12-08'%7d#energy . Therefore, I seem to have no hard proof that this happened, which makes my claims simply my word. Take that as you see fit. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I have just examined the 'leaked comment' and it is the documentation that I read at the time of the report. My memory may be faulty, but I thought I read this on the DOE Web Site where the report was posted. In any case, the context is now corrupted for this document, so it can't be used to support my previous claim anyway. (Reviewers 1-9 were the written-only reviews.) Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The document submitted by the CF researchers is already cited in the article (see Hagelstein). Is that what you mean to have seen ? I have never seen any copies of the 8 or 9 presentations made during the one-day session. I would be very interested in any info leading to them. If you have seen them on the net in the past, you may still find them on the wayback machine. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

For the record, what I recall reading in early 2005 was the Hagelstein paper, the DOE report, and the reviewer comments. That latter may or may not have been the 'leaked comment' mentioned above. I thought it was all on the DOE Web site at the time, but I may be wrong. In the end, all this means is that there is no visible proof my work was not considered during the review. I will stop claiming that now, and simply assert that that was the case. Take that comment FWIW to you. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The statements a person makes reflects their character, and your statement "I began this exercise assuming good faith, but I was proven wrong. I can't assume that anymore." particularly stands out to me in this respect, and I shouldn't have to point out the irony that this statement was in response to two people proving your bad faith assumption wrong.

I'm sorry, but what are you reading? You completely misrepresent the situation. This particular discussion centers around the "With funding from the US DOE" phrase. I explained why this was a problem above and below. Pcarbon's first response was to cite rules at me again, which, again, weren't relevant. The particular problem I am having is that he doesn't stop there, he block deletes my additions, most of which are still in the 'deleted' state. You support him. I still contend this opposition is unwarranted. As a person who has 'published' a sarcastic note of the same ilk as those quoted below, Pcarbon is not unbiased or seriously trying to be neutral in my opinion. My comment that you quote was in response to P's attempt to stifle me once more by citing irrlevant rules, and I stand by it. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

"Kevin, you haven't followed the CF field." - correct. "They routinely harrange DOE for not supporting CF research." - i'm an outsider but i can say with confidence that this is a misrepresentation. and it certainly doesn't follow that they think the DOE dubious or that them providing some funding somehow magically makes your results erroneous - that's flimsy even for an ad hominem argument. And to assume that someone - anyone - was trying to make such an egregiously flawed argument is downright offensive. Kevin Baas^talk 16:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

[unindent] On the other hand, the truth usally clears things up a bit. Take a look at these Kevin. It only took me 15-20 min. to come up with this. I didn't check sci.physics.fusion, but I'm sure there's lots more there establishing a long tradition illustrated by the following.

Storms: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg01633.html

(blames DOE for failing to act in the text) http://home.netcom.com/~storms2/editorial.html

In Storms 2007 book, pps 17-18, he describes not participating in the 2004 reviwew because it was "a waste of my time". He may be right, but it illustrates his attitude.

On page 91 he is talking about He evidence and speaks of the DOE review thusly: "Or this information can be simply ignored, as it was by many members of the DoE panel..." Dovetails with his Vortex comments well doesn't it.

Mitchell Scwartz (editor Cold Fusion Times): http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html (look for: "DESPITE the US Constitution, the directives of the US Congress, the President, Secretary") (also: "because of the competition with oil and hot fusion, cold fusioneers have been attacked for 17 years by the some in the DoE, the US Patent Office, and some hot fusion physicists to a degree that is unknown in other competing energy and science fields.") http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html#PTO connections (look for "But this has so far been obstructed by many including some in the DOE and the US Patent Office,")

enough from Mitchell Schwartz. Lots more available I'm sure.

Rothwell (LENR-CANR Website manager and all around CF aficionado): http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg01660.html http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg03246.html http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg21601.html http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg21605.html http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg17808.html

Rothwell, but note the Storms and Miles connection: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg03309.html "The DOE Lies Again" @ http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf (also note the tomne of the discussion re; Miles proposal on the LENR-CANr website.)

enough from Rothwell. Tons more available I know...

Terry Blanton (Vortex): http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg07386.html

Brian Josephson (via Rothwell, Vortex) http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg02211.html

Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is all fine. I grant you that these examples represent instances where researches have expressed that they feel there is too much pseudoskepticism and neglect of the field, and in some cases specifically named the DoE panel (they probably found their arguments specious). However,

• They are not denying empirical evidence - they are expressing the sentiment that the field is excessively neglected and plagued with pseudoskepticism.
• Were it that they do not generally fund CF research, that would not imply that the CF research they funded was suspect.
• Giving examples of CF research that the DoE funded, far from supporting the notion that the "DOE [does not support] CF research", undermines it.

Perhaps I could be more clear if I tell you that I see a number of distinctions here that it seems to me you are failing to make in your argument. Kevin Baas^talk 15:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Scientists who write about their work in Wikipedia

By some accounts, there are over 3,000 scientific papers on cold fusion, and probably as many authors. This spring, one of them, Dr. Shkedi joined our company. Last month, Dr. Shanahan paid us a visit. How many more will come ? How many of them will want their work to be "properly" presented in our article ?

Four paragraphs. Dr. Shanahan has insisted that it takes 4 paragraphs to present his speculation on cold fusion. No other paper has had so much coverage in our article. Not even the original article of Fleischmann and Pons. Four paragraphs for a paper that was ignored by the DOE panel, 2 years after its publication. Four paragraphs for a paper that only had a mention in passing in Storms book, 5 years later. Four paragraphs missing from a 300-page book, an oversight that Dr. Britz qualified as a minor weakness of the book. And now, according to Dr. Shanahan, our one-page article could not do without these paragraphs ? Who is to believe him ? Who is to accept his presumptuousness ? Who would accept such presumptuousness from any of the 3,000 authors ?

Dr. Shanahan has recently shown his righteous interest in the WP:Reliable policy. Isn't it time that he look at the WP:DUE policy ? Joining the 2 policies together, he will surely realize that a reliable source is needed to demonstrate the extreme notability of his four paragraphs. He has not provided any.

Many public figures have already been tempted to write about themselves on Wikipedia. Jim Wales himself contributed to his own article. He was quickly frowned upon. How long do we still need to accept authors writing about their work ? How many of the 3,000 will we accept ? How much time will we spend arguing with them, for so little ?

Scientists are welcome on Wikipedia, but they should refrain from writing about their work. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn, you mention that your company recently hired a cold fusion researcher. Does your company have any interest in promoting cold fusion? If there is even a small chance that your company would profit from increased attention to cold fusion, you should disclose it. Olorinish (talk) 16:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

How could I have ever said that ?? Here is what I said about what I had at stakes. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Allow me to rephrase my question. Pcarbonn wrote "By some accounts, there are over 3,000 scientific papers on cold fusion, and probably as many authors. This spring, one of them, Dr. Shkedi joined our company. Last month, Dr. Shanahan paid us a visit.", which implies that his company is using its employees working on company time to investigate cold fusion. Is that true, Pcarbonn? 209.253.120.214 (talk) 16:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

LOL. Sorry for the confusion. I meant : "Dr. Shkedi joined our company of wikipedia editors. Dr. Shanahan paid us a visit on wikipedia" But if they want to come to Belgium, they are welcome... Feel free to look at the talk archive for Dr. Shkedi's contributions. Or rather, in the mediation talk page, I believe. We had the same issue with him as with Dr. Shanahan. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Pierre, you were among those who welcomed Kirk when he arrived. It's difficult all round when editors are very close to the topics they edit on. But on the other hand you'll agree that my contribution is limited by the fact I have only basic scientific knowledge. We have to strike a balance. Let us continue to work in a reasonably civil manner and leave a note at the conflict of interest noticeboard to get some supportive - I stress supportive - intervention from someone who has experience of such situations. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I do welcome him. I have thanked him for his contributions, eg. on Clarke. I have reacted to his correct request to improve the references in the article. I have not reacted when he incorrectly called me a "fanatic". I have directed him to the relevant guidelines when needed. On his talk page, I have warned him against writing about oneself on wikipedia. Who has done as much as me towards him ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

In response to these ludicrous charges against what I wrote, I'd like to start by noting that no one else seems to have the desire to cover the criticisms. It is difficult to write NON_SCIENCE articles about oneself without introducting undue bias, however in this case, there's no such problem. The original additions I made may have been too wordy (but I think not in reality), but the stripped down version of what we HAD in the article certainly wasn't. It covered the facts very succinctly, probably too much so. Those facts are:*KLS published a critical article in 2002,*there were three propositions made in that publication,*those propositions were...,*SMMF published a 2005 paper deriding the KLS 2002 publication,*KLS responded, challenging the relevance of the SMMF comments,*Storms published a 2006 paper,*KLS responded back to back to all points raised,*Storms' published a 2007 book that ignored the KLS 2006 rebuttal. You can't get much more abbreviated than that and still get the message across. Further, the writing was totally in the third person, and would have been identical if someone else had published the Shanahan papers. (Try substituting 'Pcarbon' in for 'Shanahan' in what was written and see if that isn't true.) The idea that I am somehow self-promoting is unsupportable. Pcarbon has followed the path of many of the cold fusioneers. They seek to detract from my publications (because it requires them to redo their experiments to show no CCS effect) by intially attacking the message, but when finding out there is no valid way to do that, then attack the person (and the tenacity with which he does this clearly makes athe label 'fanatic' applicable). I thought Wiki frowned on this. In any case, in order to get even a minimalist version of the counterclaims into the Wiki article I have had to spend inordinate amount of time in a battel that in the end does doe nothing but label me as a fanatic too, clearly illustrating the old adage about what happens when you fight with pigs. I am done. I have added the primary criticisms and they have been deleted by the fanatics. So be it, science isn't done via the pages of Wikipedia. Bye. Kirk shanahan (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC).

Shanahan's non-electrochemical recombination

Kirk, I want to thank you for trying to express your views. I know it can be exasperating here. Especially since trying to write in a tertiary source about one's own work is very hard even for the most prominent experts -- like trying to perform surgery on oneself, is one analogy I've heard. While that is clearly hyperbole, you don't have to look around Wikipedia too hard to find plenty of examples which support it. The fact remains that yours is the leading alternative hypothesis explaining cold fusion data, so we should be supportive of your attempts to contribute here, not dismissive. The encyclopedia will suffer if we don't support both sides of the argument as well and as fairly as possible. I'm not at all sure that people who are predisposed to reject your work are any better at summarizing it. I don't yet have enough subject matter understanding yet to say whether Pcarbonn's rewording of what I thought was my neutral summary of your recombination idea and its rejoinder was done fairly.

I'm also very concerned that statements about recombination are being convolved too closely with statements about the calibration constant shift. If the former can cause the latter, then they both deserve separate descriptions followed by an explanation of their relationship, along with the rebuttal from the other side, when it exists in the literature.

So, my question to you from the above section: What is meant by "non-electrochemical recombination"? Do you mean catalytic and/or some other form of spontaneous recombination? IwRnHaA (talk) 08:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. I'd like to repeat a couple of things that I've said in case you haven't caught up on the last 50 pages or so of this talk page.  ;-) I think the Wiki article is best served by having 3 major sections: a historical account of the field, which should be pretty neutral; a presentation of the claims of success, which people like me will have trouble with; and a presentation of the primary criticisms, which people like Pcarbonn will have trouble with. I proposed that those of us who edit either the claims or criticisms be required not to edit the other part, just to comment on the Talk page. Also, I proposed that the criticisms section mirror the claims section in that it should also have short sections on excess heat, He, heavy metal transmutation, and theory (and note that the excess heat part has a couple of different subsections). My intent was always to provide the balance to the article that would explain to the reader why the vast majority of scientists are justified in considering cold fusion unproven at this time. However, my attempts at this have been subverted by Pcarbonn's selective application of what he considers to be Wiki policies. So I agree with you comment above on that subject.

The convolution that you see occurring is a standard tactic of the cold fusioeers. Their response to criticism over the years has been to withdraw from the standard scientific process. Instead of listening to their critics, discussing their criticisms, and then folding in what survives that process into their theories on what's happening in an F&P cell, they find what they consider a flaw anywhere in the proposal, and trash the whole thing so they don't have to deal with any good parts of the criticism. In my papers, I clearly proposed 3 things. The first is the CCS, that's just mathematics at work, and that has never been challenged. Second was the fact that one way to get a CCS was to have the heat distribution in the cell/calorimeter change. That also is simple math and has never been challenged. Finally, I proposed a possible chemical/physical mechanism to get this heat distribution shift. The point in that was to give the CFers something to go and test. However, they settled on the third point, which was admittedly the most speculative, disagreed with it, and without considering my objections to their objections, declared _all_ of what I proposed invalid. Clearly this is not right, and I agree with your comment above about separating out the two. The fact is that wherever a CCS comes from, it has great potential to explain apparent excess heat. Really, after that it's up to the CFers to figure out how to improve their experiments to eliminate a CCS problem. But instead, they just want us to accept what they say, no questions asked. That is _also_ a criticism of their work and behavior, above and beyond the CCS itself.

Recombination is the reburning of the H2 with O2 to make water. It can occur by two mechanisms (at least). The first is electrochemical, where the reaction that results in net water formation is driven by the electrolysis power supply. In other words, electrons from the power supply run the reaction. The second way is simple 'burning', i.e. H2 gets together with O2 in the presence of an initiator (like a recombination catalyst, which is just a metal surface) and 'burns' to form water, just like carbon (logs) burn to form CO2. That requires no external power supply, etc. The recombination I propose to be the cause of the CCS in F&P cells is the second type. The only wrinkle that I introduced was that this has to occur at the electrode while it is still submerged in electrolyte, but therer is good evidence from Szpak, et al, that this is possible. So in the end, yes, this is catalytic, spontaneous recombination. The key point is that the electrochemical recombination has been studied and I agreed in my papers that it was not relevant in most CF studies, yet since I use the word 'recombination', the CFers say "Oh, we've taken care of that." to get to the point where they can do their block rejection (just like Pcarbonn and his block deletions). Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

For your information, the summary I wrote is largely based on Shanahan's (see 2nd paragraph here). Pcarbonn (talk) 08:56, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

You say: "The fact remains that yours is the leading alternative hypothesis explaining cold fusion data". I'm curious to know what makes you think that. Pcarbonn (talk) 09:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it is the only relevant explanation out there that has not been shown to be unimportant maybe?? Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Kirk, thanks again for a detailed explanation. I want to direct your attention to my questions at the end of the previous section, please. IwRnHaA (talk) 04:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Courtesy link for Hubler paper

I want to provide this courtesy link for Hubler's 2007 review and the slides that accompany Hubler's corresponding lecture in the article text. Neither are registered with the Internet Archive yet, and so I am stating my intent to do so here in advance, because there is no way to tell whether the publisher has given redistribution permission under a nondisclosure agreement.

If anyone has questions about whether they are faithfully-reproduced copies, please raise them with the reasons so that if necessary, the documents can be authenticated by Hubler or a neutral third party. IwRnHaA (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Why remove well-sourced statements from the "Recent development" section ?

Several well-sourced statements have been removed from the "Recent development" section (see the original here). Could they be reinserted ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Here are some other statements that have been removed recently, although well sourced (except possibly for Mallove's.) Pcarbonn (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Jed Rothwell on editing Wikipedia and Kirk Shanahan on electrolysis product recombination

Just for the sentimental (or the one curious in Wikipedia history): 293) Jed Rothwell comments on some accusations - a saved deleted version of this article. No opinions on Cold fusion intended. Said: Rursus (☻) 10:39, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe this is the item that I mentioned previously here, where Kowalski (although I guess it's really Rothwell) repeats the Storms tactic of ignoring my third publication, which rebutted all point raised by Storms against my conventional explanation. I note that McKubre is quoted as saying "What I objected to was you raising Shanahan's dead horse " (where 'you' is Dieter Britz). Funny, I am still riding my horse, and its far from dead... I further note that they are STILL equating my proposed cause for the FPHE with the Faradaic efficiency problem, which I clearly stated in my publications is not what I proposed. This does illustrate though that the CF community has designated my idea as dead without ever successfully explaining why. A clear sign of pathological science. The other funny thing is that they are dicussing the page I also worked on back in 2005 (I think it was '05), which has now completely disappeared from Wikipedia. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Is this your third publication: Shanahan, K. (2005) "Comments on 'Thermal behavior of polarized Pd/D electrodes prepared by co-deposition,'" Thermochimica Acta, 428(1-2) p. 207? Is there a courtesy link so that people who are interested can read it? I found http://sti.srs.gov/fulltext/ms2004528/ms2004528.pdf -- thank you! IwRnHaA (talk) 06:51, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Please disregard that question, I see now that your other 2005 article must be your third publication. IwRnHaA (talk) 07:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I have summarized your argument thusly:

The excess heat observed in cold fusion cells may be from the chemical recombination of the products of electrolysis. Cold fusion skeptic Kirk Shanahan suggests that the effect measured by proponent and fellow chemist Edmund Storms can be explained by "a 17% recombination in the cell in the absence of the calibration constant shift ratio impact (which would nominally reduce the amount of recombination required to get the observed apparent excess heat)."

• Shanahan, Kirk (2005b), "Reply to 'Comment on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explain anomalous heat generated by cold fusion', E. Storms, Thermochim. Acta (2005)", Thermochimica Acta, 441 (2): 210–214.

Please let me know whether or not you agree this is the main point of your argument. I corrected the spelling of "amount" in that quote. I also see that Szpak, Boss, and Fleishmann (2004) have claimed that the measurement of the volume yeilded from recombination of the evolved gasses does not support your suspicion. (Section 2.3 on page 102, citing S. Szpak, P.A. Mosier-Boss, R.D. Boss, J.J. Smith, Fusion Technol. 33 (1998) 38.) Is there any reason to doubt that? Does measurement of the volume yielded from recombination of the evolved gasses say anything about the possibility of the excess heat being from in-cell recombination? IwRnHaA (talk) 08:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I hate leaving the new guy to flounder about, so I will answer IwRnHaA's questions. Your summary is correct as far as it goes, but the problem is that the chemical recombination explanation of the FPHE is not experimentally proven yet. I had so much difficulty adding facts to the article that I was being very careful about what I wrote. The actual sequence is that I 'reverse engineered' some data that Storms used to 'prove' cold fusion, and found that a calibation constant shift could easily explain it. That is nothing but mathematics and has never been challenged. Next, I did some more math to show that a shift could occur from a heat redistribution in a cell/calorimeter. That also is just math and has never been challenged. Then, I _speculated_ that such a redistribution could arise due to H2+O2 recombination moving from the gas space of the cell to the electrode surface, which was implied by an Szpak, et al infrared video recording of an 'active' electrode. (All of this was published in my 2002 publication.) That hypothesis was attacked twice in the literature, once by Szpak and Fleischmann and coworkers, and once by Storms. I responded to both (Szpak in 2005, Storms in 2006), and in both pointed out that their complaints were ill-founded. The Szpak complaint focused on the idea that 'recombination' had been dealt with (see the Shkedi-Jones issue which used to be in the main article and now is in the stub), but that issue involves _electrochemical_ recombination, i.e. H2+O2 occurring via the power source that runs the electrolysis. It's a parasitic reaction which can impact your results if you use low current. However, the recombination I was talking about is the same as that which occurs at the recombination catalyst in closed F&P cell, i.e. _non-electrochemical recombination_. The CFers seem to have great difficulty understanding this. So, if I am correct in my speculation, then the CCS is likely caused by chemical recombination, but that is unproven speculation at this point in time. What is proven is that a CCS _can_ explain apparent excess heat signals in a F&P-type cell. Of course, excess heat represents the largest block of 'evidence' for nuclear cold fusion, so providing a conventional, non-nuclear explanation is quite a blow to those committed to the nuclear explanation. They respond by 'throwing the baby out with the bath water' by completely rejecting all my results. However, that is not good, as whether or not my speculative mechanism is proven true, the CCS mechanism can explain at least some of the excess heat results, and may explain all. One has to check their results against the CCS proposal to eliminate it, which is what has never been done to date.

My abbreviated summary would thus be: "It was shown that a calibration constant shift has the potential to explain apparent excess heat signals, and that such a shift can occur, at least in one way, by a redistribution of heat in a F&P cell. It was further speculated that such a redistribution would occur if recombination at the electrode became active, which is implied by available data, but is as of yet not experimentally proven." That would maintain the certainties as predominant and point out that experimentation is required to prove the speculation.

I've noticed you are using my 'papers' from the OSTI database. Be aware that these are the manuscript versions that were submitteed to journals for the peer review process. There usually are minor changes made due to that process. It would be best to get the real papers to be completely sure, but in general, the net changes I made were only cosmetic. No facts/conclusions were changed due to peer review. The manuscript version of my first paper can be found on the LENR-CANR website as well.

And finally, I won't be doing any more editing of the article, even though it badly needs it, as every attempt to do so is reverted by Pcarbon. Kirk shanahan (talk) 12:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that we quote directly from the paper's conclusion as much as possible, rather than propose a summary that differs significantly from it. Also, we should say that the analysis was done on only one set of experiments: one cannot draw general conclusions on very different experiments.

That is incorrect. The derivation I present is generalizable to any calibration equation. This is an example of inductive reasoning. Furthermore, the summary is of the literature debate, not just one paper, and is valid. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me correct myself. The abbreviated summary above, which was for IwRnHaA, does not address the literature situation. The CF article should, as the unwillingness of the CFers to deal with the issues raised is a criticism in itself. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

We'll add that one when we'll have a verifiable source saying that "CFers are unwilling to deal with the issues raised". Pcarbonn (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

You say: "The derivation I present is generalizable to any calibration equation." Indeed, any model with enough parameters can be made to fit any particular experiment. Whether the found parameters corresponds to the physical reality, and can be used in other experiments, is not garanteed though. In the Storms experiment you analyzed, the excess heat was less than 5%, which is not surprising when Platinum is used instead of Palladium. Your approach can then find plausible parameters for CCS or recombination. Not so when excess heat is much higher. Hubler (2007) said: "Most of the research groups have reported occasionally seeing 50-200% excess heat for hours to days." You would then need to accept a Calibration Constant Shift so large that it would discredit any calorimetric study, including Joule's experiment demonstrating the law of conservation of energy. Same for the recombination rate : the recombination rate would be inconsistent with the Faradaic efficiency that is measured, and you would have to explain how control cells with regular water would bring results so radically different (a chemical effect like recombination is not known to be significantly sensitive to isotope varieties). Pcarbonn (talk) 06:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

What we have here is a highly suggestive post by Pcarbonn. It suggests he went back to his CF friends and got 'the straight scoop'. Otherwise, it suggests he can't read, and I don't quite believe that. What makes this post a 'giveaway'? The mention of Faradaic efficiency. We have never brought that concept up before, yet here it is. What is the problem with that? Well, it refers back to the _electrochemical_ recombination issue I discuss in my 2005 response to Szpak, Fleischmann, et al, and in the explanation to IwRnHaA posted right above here. Now, if you are doing _open_ cell work, you probably could detect the CCS problem by measuring Faradaic efficiency, but that won't work in a closed cell, as the total recombination therein is always 100% (hopefully, otherwise pressure builds up and the cell can rupture), so it is clear that by moving to this argument, the experimental details now become important to consider, which is well outside the scope of the Wiki article. In fact this whole discussion should be of spf, not here. But to repeat, the Faradaic efficiency issue typically brought up by CFers IS NOT RELEVANT. In OPEN cells, you could potentially detect the CCS that way, BUT NOBODY DOES THAT MEASUREMENT.

I would also like to point out, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE _SPECULATIVE_ MECHANISM NOW. The CCS, as I note above (hmmmm....maybe P actually can't read...) is unchallenged, as is the possibility that heat distribution changes can cause a CCS. I really don't care if my GUESS as to what caused the CCS turns out to be right. The CCS is a real possibility that must be accounted for by the CFer who wants his work accepted by mainstream science.

As a chemist who determines isotope effects on a routine basis, do you think I am really unaware of them?? There is at least one clear example of them in the thermoneutral voltage. It is different for H2O vs D2O. In my speculative mechanism, they would be present also in the adhesiveness of bubbles to the electrode (surface tension). As I noted in my publication, the viscosity of H2O is different from D2O. Besides affecting the amount of force applied to adhering bubbles, it would affect mass transport of bubbles in the cell. So much for no isotope effects...

Regarding the size of the CCS' effect: As the total heat capture efficiency of the calorimeter improves, the CCS will decrease, because (as per TA 428(2005)209) the efficiencies of the different regions in the calorimeter/cell have less difference. To put a limit percent-wise on the maximum possible excess heat signal obtainabbe by a CCS, I would need detailed instrument information, which is never supplied. So, I refuse to put any limit on the CCS effect on a percentage basis. It potentially could be limited by the available energy present vis the P=I*V calculation using the thermoneutral voltage and applied current, when combined with the magnification factor that arises from the Pex equation I derived and published. Personally, I don't find 50-200% immediately outlandish, because I have no basis to judge that. Also note: just because one error (the CCS) has been shown to be inactive in a given experiment (some day in the future we all hope), ALL the OTHER errors can still be present. Separately, I looked at the 25,000% claims of the Patterson Power Cell and the 20,000% claims of Mengoli, et al, and found OTHER reasons to doubt their veracity. EACH EXPERIMENT must be judged clear of error before it is used in promotoing a conclusion, a fact the CFers never conform to (because it limits their useable results severely). They prefer to uncritically lump it all together and say, "See, the sheer mass of positive results proves it!" Well, no, it doesn't.

I also find it amusing that you need the word of a complete neophyte to the field to justify CF. Normally, newbies aren't trusted that much because they don't have the experience base to make unbiased judgements. (That's why you 'go to the expert', not to 'the newbie'.) Hubler doesn't reference me, and I doubt he's even considered my work, which is an endemic problem to the CF field.

You wrote, quoting me: "You say: "The derivation I present is generalizable to any calibration equation." Indeed, any model with enough parameters can be made to fit any particular experiment. " You have completely misunderstood, again. A calibration equation can be any form you desire. Its job is to translate a signal into an understandable number through the medium of adjustable parameters, the calibration constants. If you measure 3 whifflestompers, and you know that translates to 6 watts by multiplying by the calibration constant 2, then multiplying by 2.5 will give you the wrong watts. That is true with any calibration equation anywhere. All the CCS problem says is that your system has changed between the time you determined the constants and the time you measured your unknown. There is nothing complex about this. All this does is illustrate a 'truism' from experimental science that: "You can't calibrate an unstable system."

You mentioned that I wrote "CFers are unwilling to deal with the issues raised" and somehow implied it should be in the Wiki article. I didn't imply that. With the summary that WAS present in the article, I was satified. I am content to let the astute reader go to the literature and end up drawing that conclusion him- or herself.

BTW, all of this discussion is outside of the WIki article scope and doesn't impact the summation of my work or the summation of the way it has been handled in the literature. It amazes me the level Pcarbonn will go to to prevent my work from being included in the article. That's why I give up, I don't have the time to fight a fanatic word-for-word, line-by line. Kirk shanahan (talk) 14:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

For the record, Faradaic efficiency is mentionned in the second paragraph of this thread, so I did not bring it up. It was also discussed at length with Shkedi some months ago.

Mea culpa. Still your regurgitating the very argument I showed was invalid is indicative. Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It amazes me the level you will go to get your work published on wikipedia, instead of getting it accepted in scientific forums. So far, neither the skeptics nor the proponents seem to care for your work. Hopefully, now that you quit wikipedia again, you will have the time to promote it. When it's done, we'll give it the credit it deserves here. As for the CF proponents, they are doing just fine, so you don't need to give them advice on what they should do to get their work accepted. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Ummm...my work is _already_ published, the last nearly 2 years ago... And of course, since it is done, when are you going to give the credit I deserve, which you promise right above? Kirk shanahan (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

We already have given it credit. Our article has one paragraph on it. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

And if you had been paying attemtion, you would realize that my opinion of the paragraph is that it is incomplete and presents the work in such a fashion as to come to the wrong conclusion, which of course is what you favor. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

You say: "I did some more math to show that a shift could occur from a heat redistribution in a cell/calorimeter". I don't recall reading this: which article are you refering too ? Pcarbonn (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

TA 428(2005)209 Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Would you please elaborate? Thank you. IwRnHaA (talk) 04:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

He is referring to Shanahan 2005, published in Thermochemica Acta and listed in our article. This article takes an hypothetical calorimeter and does some math on it to show how a change of place of the heat source can change the calorimeter constant. It does not use any experimental data to test whether this hypothesis applies to the calorimeter actually used by Storms. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

That is correct. It is one possible general way a CCS could occur, and I simply showed how it would work with some simple mathematics. It does however provide a testable hypothesis, namely that the heat distribution has changed. This led McKubre to conclude my theory is a 'dead horse' because he had recorded the temperature near the recombination catalyst in some studies done in the '93-'94 time frame that were reported in a '98 EPRI report (private document, not easily obtainable), and the recombination catalyst T sensor didn't show a change when the apparent excess heat signal was present. So it's possible my theoretical idea is the wrong one on this point , or it's possible that the T sensor was misplaced to deteect the shift I propose. To test it, more work has to be done, but that's not going to happen when McKubre thinks my work is a 'dead horse'. Also, even if my hypothesis is wrong, it doesn't negate the CCS as an explanation of the apparent excess heat, it just requires a different base explanation for the CCS itself. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

We agree on one point: a lot more work needs to be done to understand the cold fusion phenomena. There is enough scientific evidence to show that something strange needs to be understood. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Does the volume yeilded from recombination of evolved output gases exclude in-cell recombination?

Kirk, would you please answer my earlier question, "Does measurement of the volume yielded from recombination of the evolved gasses say anything about the possibility of the excess heat being from in-cell recombination?" It seems to me that if the output gases are recombined, and the produced volume of water measured, that could serve, along with the amount of power applied, to measure the amount of gas produced.

This is only possible in 'open cells', where the electrolysis gases are allowed to escape the cell, supposedly without recombining. That means the electrolyte has to be periodically refreshed to make up for the loss. In the 'closed cell' the gases are trapped inside the cell an recombined at a catalyst so they don't build up pressure and explode or rupture the cell. In theory, if one could accuately and precisely measure the amount of escaping gases in an open cell, one could account for any in-cell recombination. I note in my 2005 comment on Szpack and Fleishmann, et el, that they make such an attempt but the error on that measurement is larger than the one needed to explain the excess heat signal, i.e., they weren't accurate and precise enough. I haven't found a case where they have done it properly, nor are we likely to see one, since they have decided that my ideas are a 'dead horse' and not worthy of discussion (a la Storms 2007 book). Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

In the Szpak et al paper at TA(410)102, they say, "The frequently cited D₂ + O₂ recombination reaction, as being responsible for excess enthalpy generation, is not supported by experiment (recombination of evolving gases yielded volumes that were better than 1.0% of those calculated assuming 100.0% Faradaic efficiency [citing S. Szpak, P.A. Mosier-Boss, R.D. Boss, J.J. Smith, Fusion Technol. 33 (1998) 38], or theoretical considerations [citing F. Will, J. Electroanal. Chem. 426 (1997) 177])."

If 1.0% isn't good enough, what would be? IwRnHaA (talk) 15:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

(I tried to keep this short but it didn’t work, sorry.) I reply specifically to that comment in my rebuttal (2005), but today I can’t find my FT version of the paper. There is a version on the LENR-CANR Website, which I have perused, and for the moment I will assume it is identical to that published, as it is listed at the Website as being the FT vol 38 paper. In my rebuttal, sec 2.3, pg. 210, I state that the 1998 reference has no excess enthalpy numbers in it, nor any discussion of accuracy issues (i.e. it is a bogus reference). The Will ref is good, and is to the model Storms used when combining the Jones-Hansen data with his own to show electrochemical recomb. is not important at high currents. However, in 2006 I comment upon the plot Storms made for this, stating that it showed several data points where 15-25% (guessing at the numbers right now) unexpected recombination over the Will model line, the excess I called evidence for the nonelectrochemical recombination. In Szpak’s 1998 paper, I can only find the word recombination twice, both in reference to the recombination catalyst used in the cell, i.e., it is about a closed cell, where you can’t measure Faradic efficiency (FE). So it _really_ isn’t applicable.

In any case, in the 2004 paper they measure 7.7 cc of collected water vs the theoretical value of 7.2cc, a 6.5% excess water volume overage (maybe they are creating matter as well?? (no, try thinking about entrainment)), but claim that is within experimental error, but I point out that is greater than that needed in Storms case to produce an ~0.8W excess heat signal (maybe not quite if the .8W came from a 3 sigma shift). (Szpak, et al, report an ~0.3W excess with what looks like ~4.5V at .3 and .4A. P=IV so that is 1.35 and 1.8W, so that means the excess is 16.7 and 22%, right in the ballpark of where the Storms excesses were.) The point is I address these comments in my rebuttal, and point out lots of problems with them. With respect to the 1.0% comment, the question is now where it comes from. Is it even real?

However, more to the point, would a measurement of FE accurate to 1.0% suffice. The answer is that it depends on several things. First, what is the excess being claimed and how does it relate to the input power (see above, where a 1-2 sigma of 1-1.5% CCS would explain the observed excess heat). Second, when was the measurement made. CFers have a bad habit of measuring FE when no CF event is active, and then just saying that value applies when a CF event is working. That is clearly bogus, as the contention would be that the FE measured in the open cell _would_ show the CF event is recombination. But nobody ever does this well. Instead I get a 6.5% error (the wrong way!) on an .3W signal that is ~20% of the input, right in line with Storms’ data. If I could get a 1% accurate/precise FE I would probably be happy as that tends to be about as accurate as a chemical measurement gets. It would need to be made during a CF event, and it would have to be much less than expected by the size of the CF event. Also note, there needs to be some method refinement on the part of Szpak, et al, to be able to prove they can do this, assuming they were actually referring to some other work they did somewhere else. Otherwise, the 6.5% is probably a good estimate for 1 sigma on their FE measurements. All of this would have to be published of course, as no one is just going to take their assertions as fact. Kirk shanahan (talk) 21:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered telephoning Pam Boss and asking her whether the measurements are the same during CF events? IwRnHaA (talk) 21:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, I note that you removed the words "Cold fusion skeptic" from before your name.[1]. Would you please elaborate your thoughts on that matter? IwRnHaA (talk) 09:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I took that out because it was a label that triggers a knee-jerk response in CFers. It goes like this: "skeptic"="pathological skeptic"->'illegitimate skepticism'->'safely ignored'. This comes about because the field has been highly polarized to the point where the participants are usually incapable of making graduated decisions, gravitating instead towards absolutes, i.e. "You're either for me or against me." (This is one reason why the label pseudoscience is applicable to the field.) I'd prefer not to label anyone if possible, even to the point that if I slipped up and somehow triggered a similar response in the CFers mind about the opposite phrase "True Believer", then that phrase ahould also be deleted. Kirk shanahan (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I see. I thought we had skeptics and proponents. IwRnHaA (talk) 15:42, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Cold Fusion is Neither

Cold fusion is not fusion. It's LENR. So many of you are arguing needlessly. http://newenergytimes.com/news/2008/NET30-jgk39gh12f.htm#looklike StevenBKrivit (talk) 05:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Steve. We'll report this when it is published in a peer reviewed journal. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

ScienceApologist's edits and others' conflicts of interest

I undid these edits made by ScienceApologist. The statements he removed are well sourced from peer-reviewed scientific journals. Since cold fusion is not pseudoscience, it deserves fair representation. This is what the ArbComm unanimously said about significant alternative to scientific orthodoxies : "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience." See also the recent comment of another editor that the DOE is notable, but not reliable because not peer-reviewed. Wikipedia policies is to base articles on peer-reviewed journals when possible. Pcarbonn (talk) 14:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Since cold fusion is pseudoscience, it does not deserve a fair representation. Arbcomm never said that cold fusion was not pseudoscience. It isn't a significant alternative to scientific orthodoxy because too few researchers work in cold fusion. There is no legitimate scientific disagreement since cold fusion is generally ignored. Peer-review is not the be-all and end all of reliability and in fact, we can only verify that it is the opinions of the authors subject to some oversight by editorial boards. Pcarbonn is shilling for his cold fusion interests in which he has money invested (he has invested in a cold fusion startup) and so should recuse himself from editing this article due to his conflict of interest. Therefore, I will be fighting him consistently here on out: here is the new case on the matter. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:06, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

How many researchers work on cold fusion? How many is too few? Since Kirk Shanahan and Pierre Carbonnelle are both editing, I think the conflict of interest tag should stay. Deleting sourced statements about the state of the peer-reviewed literature, however, is abominable. A declaration that one will "be fighting him consistently here on out" is contrary to the core policies of Wikipedia, and will be until Wikipedia:Hold grudges is approved. ScienceApologist has been involved with reverts back to a featured version that would never pass featured muster because it is so out of date, which led to the mediation of this article. I think all three parties should not edit this article: Science Apologist, Pcarbonn, and Kirk Shanahan, but they should be welcomed on this talk page as long as they can stay within the norms of acceptable behavior here. IwRnHaA (talk) 04:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I accept your proposal. I'm ready to refrain from editing the article if ScienceApologist and Shanahan refrains from doing it too. I believe the article stands on its merit, and I believe that the wikipedia community recognizes it.

If we think that the ArbComm should decide on Cold fusion status as pseudoscience, which I don't believe it should, I can accept that too. In the meantime, we should request ScienceApologist to show a source saying that cold fusion is pseudoscience. Failing to do that, we should remember that a majority of editors did not want cold fusion to be placed in the pseudoscience category. (see RfC)Pcarbonn (talk) 10:08, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Would anybody be willing to remove the COI tag, please. The COI request has been rejected. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see this edit stand until its section is archived before doing so. It seems to me that there has certainly been COI editing on one side if not both. However, I see the point that people generally do not have conflicts of interests with entire fields. I wonder if anyone will challenge that view. IwRnHaA (talk) 09:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept that for the moment. However, at the end, I'd like the record to be clear on whether I have POV-pushed anything, and whether the COI accusation stands. (I guess that expecting a thank you for my dedication at improving the article would be asking too much). Pcarbonn (talk) 10:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The COI has been rejected. All the controversial edits that I defended still stand. So, I'm vindicated. I don't see any reason for me to stop contributing to the article. Does anybody have a problem if I contribute again ? If so, please explain. Pcarbonn (talk) 05:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Introduction inclusion of recent developments

Recently, IwRnHaA placed these sentences back in the introduction: "In 2007, a peer-reviewed literature review[7] and update[8] 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 stated that although many explanations have been proposed, several of which do not use new physics, none is yet satisfactory. The author of the review has proposed a series of experiments to resolve the controversy.[9]"

These sentences are true, but they are not notable and reliable enough to be in the introduction. They are described in very minor journals compared to the main journals in the field (Physical Review, Science, and Nature). Placing them there implies to wikipedia readers a legitimacy that is not justified considering the current reputation of the field. If at all, this information should be placed in the "Recent Developments" section. Does anyone disagree? Olorinish (talk) 06:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

IwRnHaA recently posted the question: "Olorinish: if these are the views of a very small minority, why hasn't there been any peer-reviewed opposition since Shanahan's"? My response is that scientists very rarely write articles criticizing other scientists. There was some of that just after the 1989 announcements because cold fusion was such a special case, but very little since then. I have inserted a few comments along those lines in the article which show that the reputation of the field among professional scientists remains low. The absence of peer-reviewed criticism since 1989 DOES NOT mean that the reputation of the field has improved. Olorinish (talk) 06:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Those are two independent peer-reviewed reviews of the scientific literature on the subject, one by an author who had already published a review (thus it's an "update") and one who hadn't done any work on cold fusion before in his long career at the Naval Research Laboratory. They present both sides of the issue faithfully. There is no evidence of peer-reviewed opposition to cold fusion since Shanahan's work from 2006. The Hubler work explains why reproduction was so difficult early on: most people weren't able to achieve high deuterium loadings within paladium. Have you read the review or the update? Are you familiar with the current and former state of opposition in the field? IwRnHaA (talk) 06:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

"They present both sides of the issue faithfully." No, they don't. Check the reference lists. There is no mention of my criticism of apparent excess heat, or of Clarke's criticism of experimental caliber in He detection. Both are published, key criticisms. If both sides were presented fairly, these publications and their implications would be discussed. Further, the Biberian paper has 16 refs, and the Hubler one has 23. These are not 'reviews' in any real sense of the word. What Storms did in his 2007 book was an attempt at a review (with hundreds of refs), but he failed to do so in an unbiased fashion. Reviews usually have many references, not just the handful B and H give. Good reviews review the criticisms also.

"There is no evidence of peer-reviewed opposition to cold fusion since Shanahan's work from 2006." And there is no evidence the applicable criticisms have even been noted by the CFers. Criticisms don't have an expiration date on them. If they are valid, they stand forever. If not, CF researchers should show how they are invalid and we'll all move on.

"most people weren't able to achieve high deuterium loadings within paladium" Of course, Storms and Dash were able to get 'CF' with platinum, which does NOT hydride at any obtainable pressure, so the whole 'got to be greater than .9' claim is wrong and misleading. As Hubler is a 'newbie', his ignorance might be excuseable, but not so with the primary CF crowd. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia can only do with what is available. If you have a better source for an overview of the field, please provide it so that we can include it in the lead. In the meantime, we'll use the ones we have found. Its title says that it is a review. The abstract explains that it cites selected data to summarize what has been published, hence the limited list of citations. Pcarbonn (talk) 15:03, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I have followed this topic closely for over a year, and have edited frequently as Olorinish, 209.253.120.204, 209.253.120.158, and 209.253.120.198. I have seen those reviews and have read about the deuterium loading issues. I object to including these articles being used as support of such a controversial claim in the introduction because they are published in very minor journals. One is in the "Journal of Science Coatings and Technology," which is not a normal venue for discussing nuclear reactions, while the other journal is only a few years old has nearly zero articles from american authors. On a more subjective note, I do not find them very convincing. We are here to discuss the wikipedia article on cold fusion, which means that when analyzing claims we should emphasize the plausibility that NUCLEAR reactions are present in the experiments. By that standard, these articles are not impressive enough for the introduction. Olorinish (talk) 07:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem to say that you are objecting to them because of where they are published, not what they say. Do you believe that they present both sides of the controversy fairly? If not, why not? While the Journal of Science Coatings and Technology is not the usual venue for papers of this type, the emphasis in that journal on the analysis of electrolysis methods is clear. I disagree that we should try to emphasize the plausibility of nuclear reactions; that would not be neutral since whether there are or are not nuclear reactions is part of the controversy. We are here to write a tertiary source, and these reviews are the only reviews in the past several years. All of the criticism, the most recent of which has appeared in the peer-reviewed literature by Shanahan, has been directly addressed. For example, by measuring the volume of recombined evolved gases along with the other parameters of the cell to exclude the possibility of in-cell recombination. If detractors are claiming a violation of the conservation of mass, then they should say so. IwRnHaA (talk) 07:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

We are writing an encyclopedia, which is a place that people with little understanding of a topic go to get a quick summary on a topic. We have a responsibility to those readers to filter the information, giving proper weight to sources according to notability and reliability. Of course reasonable people can disagree on the details. I am saying that since the scientific establishment has an extremely low opinion of cold fusion research, that should be reflected in the decisions we make about sources. The notability and reliability of these sources is not zero, but compared to the success of conventional nuclear physics (as demonstrated by the fission electricity we used today), the journal choices and the data shown do not present a very convincing case that cold fusion is taking place.

To put it another way, the people who run your nuclear power plants and scan incoming ships for radioactive weapons almost all believe the cold fusion researchers are incompetent. To show they are wrong would require some very impressive results. Olorinish (talk) 08:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Since we are talking COI, why the hell do you want to ask those who run nuclear power plants if cold fusion is real ? You should ask that to scientists. Why did you forgot to mention that the second review is from 'International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology'? And why did you remove a recent quote from Naturwissenschaften? Surely this is a reputable journal. The many other reputable journals listed in the article do show that this is a valid, if controversial, subject of science, not pseudoscience, and should therefore be fairly presented. Let the reader then make his own decision: you don't have to decide for him. Pcarbonn (talk) 10:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Which quote from Naturwissenschaften was deleted? IwRnHaA (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

this one. Pcarbonn (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The opinion of scientists or industrialists in the field should have no bearing on the sources we select, other than that we select the opinions from the most reputable sources. Reputability is, among other things, reliability. The reliable source criteria are part of WP:V and WP:RS. They indicate that reports in the peer-reviewed scientific literature are preferable to, for example, government technical reports, such as the 2004 DOE report. The U.S. government hasn't done any more work, except at the Navy. They are very interested and positive on the subject and have proposed a series of experiments to address the controversy and, with luck, resolve it. And at least the Navy researchers submit their work to peer-reviewed journals. If the DOE did, the 2004 review hasn't been accepted or published yet as far as I know. IwRnHaA (talk) 10:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

"Let the reader then make his own decision: you don't have to decide for him." My point is that we, as wikipedia editors, have an obligation to decide for him what is in the introduction and elsewhere. An encyclopedia has value because it does not leave all the decisions for the reader; it emphasizes the most accurate and useful information on the topic. Keep in mind that I am not proposing that the Biberian, Hubler, or Mosier-Boss articles should be removed from the article, I am proposing that they be given appropriate weight. Olorinish (talk) 13:12, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Situating a government technical report in a position of greater authority within the article than the most recent peer-reviewed literature reviews (e.g., by deleting the last paragraph of the intro) isn't letting the reader decide. It is deciding for the reader that the reliable source policies don't apply. There are occasional exceptions to the reliable source criteria, but which of them, if any, are justified here? IwRnHaA (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The wikipedia page on reliable sources states: "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made..."

The 1989 and 2004 DOE conclusion documents satisfy all these conditions. This kind of document a special case because it is not published in a journal, but cold fusion is a very special case. Cold fusion was so important that the US government convened two expert panels to study the issues. Since the production of these documents involved many reviewers and government endorsement, and they satisfy the conditions above, they should be given more weight than a journal article. Olorinish (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem to like the DOE report. The 2004 panel concluded that the field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with submission to archival journals. Now that it does, why don't you want to follow their advice ? Also, it can be concluded from the ArbCom decision mentionned above that cold fusion deserves a fair representation : it does not support obscuring relevant, well-sourced content. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:43, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The DOE technical reports are perhaps more reliable than an ordinary government technical report, but they are a long way from being a reliable source on par with peer-reviewed literature, because

• there was no "reliable publication process" -- both reports were ad-hoc, and poorly convened. The DOE didn't even bother to invite Navy researchers who were actively publishing in the field at the time;
• there was no independent fact checking. The reports are nothing more than the conglomerated opinions of the committee members, with nothing like the coherence of an independently reviewed literature review;
• there was no scrutiny prior to publication. Comments on drafts were not included in the final reports, nor did they even influence them; and
• there was absolutely no support of the DOE panelists' judgement from specific sources, it was just a judgment call in each of their cases.

Moreover, Olorinish, who claims to support the DOE studies, removed the summary of the 2004 report's conclusions which was approved during mediation. IwRnHaA (talk) 09:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I stand by the summary I gave when deleting those sentences: "These sentences do not contribute signifcant information to the introduction. The benefits of further study, peer review, and article publication apply to all scientific topics." Why should they be included? If they should, why should they be in the introduction? Olorinish (talk) 11:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

You said it all. This sentence demonstrates that cold fusion is a scientific topic. Most uninformed people believe it is not. Our article says: "As of 2007, the scientific community did not acknowledge this field as a genuine scientific research theme." Hence, this well-sourced sentence from the 2004 DOE that you like is very relevant to the article, and informative to most reader. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Nobody believes cold fusion is not a science topic, so including these sentences is not necessary. What most scientists believe is that it is a topic researched by incompetent scientists. I think what Pcarbonn and IwRnHaA want the introduction to say is that some scientists are still working on cold fusion after 2004. Therefore, I have added a relevant sentence to the introduction.

Also, "not a genuine scientific research theme" is not standard english phrasing, so including it just adds confusion. Therefore I have removed it.

I ask that people let this version stand for a while, while we discuss it here on the talk page. Olorinish (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Funny that you ask that this version be left unchanged, and then be the first one to change it. Could you reinstate the original version until we agree ? Thanks. Pcarbonn (talk) 22:34, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

PCarbonn, I don't understand your comment. How am I "first?" What are you talking about? Olorinish (talk) 03:52, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was mistaken. When I access the history page of Cold fusion, I see a timestamp exactly 2 hours older than the timestamp of your post here. This is probably due to timezone differences. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Which series of experiment to cite in intro : DOE's or Hubler's

The current introduction says that Hubler identified a series of experiment to resolve the controversy. This can be said also of the 2004 DOE, who concluded : "The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field". Which one should we cite ? Or both ? I would tend to favor both. Any comments ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:06, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

What experiments did the DoE propose? I don't remember anything in DOE 2004 beyond a recommendation that scientists continue to apply for grants and publication. Hubler, on the other hand, has several specific experiments, which are described textually in his review and diagrammed in more detail in his slides. IwRnHaA (talk) 21:27, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

You can't miss it. It's right in their conclusion: "The current reviewers identified a number of basic science research areas that could be helpful in resolving some of the controversies in the field, two of which were: 1) material science aspects of deuterated metals using modern characterization techniques, and 2) the study of particles reportedly emitted from deuterated foils using state-of-the-art apparatus and methods." Pcarbonn (talk) 06:44, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Intro problems

I have removed references to review articles stored at LENR-CANR (a notoriously unreliable source) and pandering to Cold Fusion True Believers that has made its way into the Intro. Please do not revert without explanation for why we should include review articles by cold fusion advocates in the intro. I believe Pcarbonn's revert is an example of POV-pushing.

ScienceApologist (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, other people's reverts always are aren't they? Reversion should only be used for vandalism or edits that are very close to vandalism. See Help:reverting for details. --John (talk) 18:37, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Please let Pcarbonn know. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:47, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The reversions I did are justified per WP:BRD. I don't mind removing the LENR-CANR links, but the original sources have no reasons to be deleted. They are from peer-reviewed journals. Pcarbonn (talk) 18:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Just because something is in a peer-reviewed journal does not mean it belongs in a lead. I think that including reviews written by cold fusion advocates should not be included as neutral demarcations of the subject. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

These reviews are written by CF experts, as would any other review. That they happen to promote cold fusion is not relevant: their papers have been peer-reviewed after all, by people that are obviously neutral to the subject. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

John, you may want to have a look at the history of this page, and of SA's involvement, here.

These reviews are written by people who do not have a very good reputation outside of the CF community. We do not need to include them in the lead, for godsakes. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a source for "These reviews are written by people who do not have a very good reputation outside of the CF community." Pcarbonn (talk) 20:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a third-party source that is not a CF advocate who lists these reviews as "good". ScienceApologist (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Or, you may wish to purview the fact that Pcarbonn just blatantly violated 3RR and you didn't bother to warn him. Hmm. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:23, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought we had consensus not to link to LENR-CANR for copyright reasons? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no way to know whether anyone has redistribution permission under a nondisclosure agreement. We are allowed to provide such courtesy links when they appear in web.archive.org. I was using web.archive.org, and saw some recent work which seemed to me would make the encyclopedia better. Please see Talk:Cold_fusion#Courtesy_link_for_Hubler_paper. IwRnHaA (talk) 06:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The forth section of the intro should be moved to the recent development section. The intro could say "There have been more recent developments in cold fusion as discussed below." The two non-represent reviews should not be elevated on wikipedia. We are not trying to "brake" scientific news, we seek to represent consensus science. Problems begin with the "SURFACE AND COATINGS TECHNOLOGY" review, this journal has an impact factor of 1.68. This is compared to a serious review journal like "Chem Rev" which has an impact factor of 22.76. I'm not saying that an article in "Chem Rev" is about 20 times as representative as something in "SURFACE AND COATINGS TECHNOLOGY". Sometimes the article from the "lesser" journal is more important and sometimes its beyond inconsequential. I also don't want to imply that an impact factor of 20 is normal, perhaps the most important journal for original chemistry research is "J Am Chem Soc" which has a impact factor of 7.89. This 7.68 is still a huge leap over 1.68 but it gives the scale the proper context. Context and placement is also important, for example "J Am Chem Soc" publishes on everything related to chemistry but most journals are more specialized. "SURFACE AND COATINGS TECHNOLOGY" as the name implies is an example of a specialized journal and it doesn't seem the best place to get something concerning nuclear physics/electrochemistry reviewed or read. In fact Wikipedia has cited this paper before anyone in the scientific community according to "Web of Science" and "SciFinder". The value of that review is doubtful and not up to the standards for a wikipeida intro of such a heavily cited subject. In contrast the DOE reports are in the right weight class. Now the review in the "International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology" is published in the right place but its a young journal and so it doesn't have an established impact factor. Again here its just important to keep this articles perspective balanced against the literature as a whole. The minority does not get to choose the light in which its presented. The fact there is no timely responses countering this reviews most likely means these reviews don't deserve timely responses. The old critiques are still more than sufficient. My point is that this "recent" stuff shouldn't be mentioned in the intro. This would also be true if a review came out tomorrow discrediting cold fusion. Its too "new" for an encyclopedia.--OMCV (talk) 11:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem to like the J of Am Chem Soc. How about a book that they published ? What do you think of Marwan, Jan and Krivit, Steven B., editors, Low energy nuclear reactions sourcebook, American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-8412-6966-8  ? Is that good enough for a mainstream source ? Aren't the Am Chem Soc and Oxford university Press notable and reliable enough for you ? Where is "the literature as a whole" that we have missed ? Would it be an option for you to replace the 2 reviews in the intro by a summary of the ACS book ? Pcarbonn (talk) 15:58, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that book has not been vetted nor has it received good reviews from anyone who is not a cold fusion proponent. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:12, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

So you are saying that the Am Chem Soc and Oxford University Press are CF proponents ? I would agree. Hence the need to represent their view properly. You seem to forget that they have a review process. This is not a self-published book. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:17, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Publishing companies are not the groups which have the opinions of the books they publish. Rather, the authors are. Publishing companies publish when they think there is a market. It doesn't matter if they have a review process if no third-party groups refer to the book. You have basically raised a primary source to the status of a third-party secondary source. Inappropriate and obvious POV-pushing. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The American Chemical Society is not a publishing company, so what's your point ? If there is a market, it means that a significant share of scientists view CF favorably, so what's your point ? Pcarbonn (talk) 16:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The American Chemical Society is NOT the author of the review so attempting to attach the positions taken by the author of the review to ACS is akin to attaching the positions of a speaker at a conference to the conference organizer. Poor form, indeed. I agree that there are enough people desperately trying to prove CF true that provide a market for pro-CF books, but this does not mean that such books are reliable, neutral, or anything better than opinion-written screeds by CF proponents. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Anything published by Oxford University Press is RS unless there is a very good indication to the contrary. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Reliabe source for what? I'm not saying it's a bad source for the opinions of the authors, but it is clearly not a neutral source. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You are right: we need to attribute the statement to its author. ACS / OUP bring it the notability you were asking. So, the way forward is to quote from that book, attributing statements to its authors. Agreed ? Pcarbonn (talk) 23:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This is bald POV-Pushing since no one thinks these books represent anything other than the flights-of-fancy of cold fusion true believers. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to see my concerns were addressed in the article. I would like to point out the above exchange doesn't address anything I said. My personal feelings about JACS were never an issue. JACS was only mentioned as an example in an attempt to explain the peer-review process to help laymen editors who most likely only have a theoretical understanding of the process. It would do everyone well to develop better understanding of the peer-review process if they are going to edit scientific subjects.

I will also take a moment to clarify some of the misconceptions raised above. The conclusion, that texts (even specialty texts) should be attributed to the authors is a correct conclusion. The ACS is the "world's largest scientific society" to quote their web page is many things. They are involved in many areas related to chemistry including publishing as well as CAS (which it an interesting organization/system in its own right). Regardless, the editors of this article should know, the only acceptable venue for presenting original research in the current scientific community (especially chemistry and physics) is the article or communication (sometimes known as a letter) in a reputable peer-review journal. Books are often intended to be reviews that don't include any original research although some synthesis, word coinage, and editorializing (to put it in wp terms) can slip into the texts. Other texts are pure history or editorializing. Either ways these books are teaching instruments (indoctrinations devices) and not directly part of the research literature. I repeat, they not part of the scientific canonical of knowledge. This is a much longer explanation of what SA's succinctly stated as "(the) book has not been vetted". But since his point wasn't hear I feel the need to fully explain science and the scientific process especially while Pcarbonn and others attempt to misrepresent and subvert the process and results of science.

Finally, Pcarbonn, the fact that you thought SA implied the ACS is NOT a publishing group is very strange. You came to this conclusion when it was obviously not SA's point. You missed my point in a similar way. How these misunderstanding happened can be explained in two ways (as I see it). Either you are unable to keep up with the concerns raised by the other or you are willfully misunderstanding editors to manipulate the conversation. Either way you have no place editing this subject. To put it bluntly Pcarbonn your efforts to willfully misunderstand other editors and disrupting this talk page must stop.--OMCV (talk) 03:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Despite what is implied above, the peer-reviewed journals that have published favorable articles on cold fusion are not at the bottom of the Impact Factor list, but in the top third or better, overall or within their category. Here is what I found on the ISI website:

• Natuurwissenchaften: 7th among 50 journals in the MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES category. Impact factor: 1.955
• European Physical Journal C : 9th among 24 journals in the PHYSICS, PARTICLES & FIELDS. Impact factor: 3.255
• International Journal of Hydrogen: 8th among 32 journals in the PHYSICS, ATOMIC, MOLECULAR & CHEMICAL. Impact factor: 2.725
• Surface & Coatings technology: 31st among 94 journals in PHYSICS, APPLIED. Impact factor: 1.678
• Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry: 21st among 70 journals in CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL. Impact factor: 2.580

The lowest impact factor of these, 1.678, is in the 2291st place overall, just a shade below one third overall (6417 journals in total --> 1/3 = 2139) So, these journals should be seen as reliable and notable for wikipedia. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Pcarbonn just demonstrated that he does not understand the points about subfield management and how impact factors are ranked. The point that these are out-of-the-way sources stands and the POV-pushing by Pcarbonn is unacceptable. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:32, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course these journals are notable and worth mentioning as long as they are balanced by all the critical reports found in those and similar journals. Further more these articles are less notable than the DOE reports for reasons I've already explained. Its also important to remember that that the significance of a journal falls off quickly. I'm shocked that there are "70 journals in CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL". Also the ISI web page is (A) session based so you can't share your searches and (B) a subscription service so someone at an ip without an subscription can't replicate your searches. Finally as I mentioned before please don't intentionally misunderstand what other editors are writing, it is disruptive. I was very specific with what I said and as a result rather long winded. I never "implied" what you have claimed.--OMCV (talk) 01:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, going beyond the first four or five journals in small subfields is likely to yield journals that either are not usually relevant to the subfield or, worse, journals specifically targeted for subterfuge. IEEE Plasma Transactions' impact factor for cosmology comes to mind as an example for the latter. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Plans to restore a better version

I fully intend to restore this version after a 24-hour-cooling-off period unless someone gives me a good reason not to. This version removes a lot of the WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE problems. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You have it wrong. This is a page representing the consensus. Many, if not all, of the changes you dispute have been done by others, not by me. YOU have to provide the arguments for your edits. YOU have to show that the article has POV or Fringe problems. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:08, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You are making false claims of consensus. Find me an editor who is not a cold-fusion supporter who thinks your activities here are above the board and represent the best policies of Wikipedia. Just one. I'll wait. In fact, what we have is a coordinated effort of ownership that you have been engineering over years to try to get Wikipedia to slant in favor of cold fusion proponents. It's outrageous and I'm tired of it. I have demonstrated what the problems are by presenting an alternative. I am saying that the article relies too much on cold fusion proponents to make claims about evidence and about acceptance. I'm simply trying to move the bar back toward WP:NPOV. Since you cannot understand that, I suggest you move out of the way and let people who do not share your pathological attachment toward violating Wikipdia standards and practices have a chance to edit. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:23, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, instead of personal attacks, you should provide evidence that the article has problems. Getting ownership of any controversial subject on wikipedia is impossible. Just look at how many archives have been written already. If there were real issues with my editing of the article, I would have been blocked or ejected a long time ago. I have never been. Others have judged the article to be a good article recently, further proof that it represents consensus. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I see this as more posturing without substance. The facts speak for themselves. I have provided an improvement to this article which you reject out-of-hand due to a dogged support for sources that are sympathetic to the position that cold fusion exists as an observed phenomenon. Your continued advocacy of this tack is not subject to blocking or banning simply because the enforcement mechanisms on Wikipedia have become more cautious in the last two years due to a lack of competence in positions of power and a crisis-of-confidence in administrators who have shown the resolve and the judgment to make difficult decisions. Don't worry, if you keep up your current practices, a bad end will result. It may take a while, but I've seen it happen across the board. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I really think we need to work line-by-line and not revert changes en-masse. Will be pleased to read any of your suggestions for how NPOV can be improved, SA. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:20, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Please see my contribution which is my line-by-line suggestion. Do you think it's okay? ScienceApologist (talk) 16:13, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. I thought you reverted to an old version? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:42, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The proposed edit obviously does not have consensus. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You are notoriously awful at judging consensus and when it exists. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I have requested an WP:RFF and I myself will take a look.--Ipatrol (talk) 23:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• per RFF: looking at the diff of the two versions (what SA pointed to above, and the current version, if those are correct) it seems that the main difference is changing 'researchers' to 'advocates', changing additional supporting results in peer-reviewed journals to what they contend are additional supporting results including some in peer-reviewed , and adding a a skepticism disclaimer at the end. right? the first change seems clearly wrong (these people in fact seem to be professional researchers), and the second change is loaded with weasel wording. the disclaimer might be a valid point, if there's some sourcing that indicates it's true. 2 cents worth; I'll read a bit more deeply as I get the chance. --Ludwigs2 03:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, a lot of them are not "researchers" in the professional sense since they are not employed as cold fusion investigators but do their work independently. The second change is on-the-face correct and doesn't violate any part of WP:WEASEL whereas the previous version makes a biased claim that there exist supporting results which is denied by many independent evaluators. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Please remember that the DOE was evenly split on the issue of excess heat. So, if many denied that claims, many others did not. Our article should reflect that. My dictionary does not say that a researcher must be employed to do his research, but if you prefer, we could use "scientists". Pcarbonn (talk) 17:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

SA - cold fusion is not the kind of thing where some guy can whip together a bunch of tin cans and some tap water in his garage and do experiments. this 'working independently' thing can only mean that they are employed at universities or corporations and doing cold fusion research as secondary projects to their main work, which makes them researchers. I mean really: if some physicist were working on an unsolved mathematics theorem, would you call him an advocate rather than a researcher because he's not a mathematician? and the phrase including some in... is pure weasel, using the word 'some' to give an appearance of minimal support. If I said "Einstein's theory of relativity has what proponents contend are additional supporting results, including some in peer-reviewed journals", you'd scream weasel-wording at me; would you accept it if I said it wasn't weasel wording because it doesn't violate any part of WP:WEASEL? --Ludwigs2 18:17, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

What is with this rhetoric, Ludwigs? Have you made a detailed investigation of the sources? Do you have a degree in physics or chemistry? What is causing you to be so didactic about this subject? Where are you getting your high-horse? If some mathematician had claimed to have solved Fermat's Last Theorem before Wiles but had been unable to get anyone to pay attention to him, we would definitely not be calling this person a "Fermat's Last Theorem Solution researcher". "Advocate" is far more appropriate. "Including some in...." is fact since most cold fusion claims happen in less than reputable locations (the F-P press conference, e.g.). Minimal support is exactly what cold fusion enjoys. I would "scream" weasel wording at you with respect to relativity because unlike relativity, cold fusion is fringe and marginalized: not accepted by the mainstream and we need to treat it differently accordingly. I am confident that weasel wording only makes sense when the wording falsely gives the impression of marginality or falsely gives the impression of greater acceptance. In this case the person advocating for weasel wording is manifestly you and the cold fusion proponents with whom you have unsurprisingly allied yourself. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

SA - there are two error in logic in the above post:

• ad hominem arguments have no bearing on the discussion. in particular, two responses to an RfF do not in any way make me 'didactic'.
• arguing from consequents to antecedents is a nono. the fact that CF is fringe in no way reflects back on the subject or researchers who investigate it. it is fringe because it fails to produce consistent, usable results; it does not fail to produce consistent, usable results because it's fringe. I have no problem recognizing that the no useable results have been produced, but I see no reason to attack the status or professionalism of people who are earnestly involved in researching the topic. if they've been published in peer-reviewed journals, give them their props, and then point out that nothing significant has come of it. leave the task of judging them and their work to their peers. --Ludwigs2 20:28, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Your attempt to explain to me what "kind of thing" cold fusion "is not" comes across as pedantic and didactic in a very rude way. It's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it. No one is saying that cold fusion's fringe status reflects on the researchers. We're saying that people who advocate for cold fusion are cold fusion advocates. It's very simple. We're also saying that cold fusion is held to a different standard than relativity. We're also saying that the "props" are appropriately given despite your complaints. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

sorry you feel that way, and you're perfectly welcome to your interpretation, regardless of its validity. I'll bow out now, since I've said my piece on the RfF, and have no real interest in this article. --Ludwigs2 03:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Which significant points of view are not represented?

I just changed the "totally-disputed" template to "npov" because I couldn't find any examples of charges of factual inaccuracies here on this talk page. Have there been any lately?

I'm confused about which significant points of view are not represented. Which are they? IwRnHaA (talk) 06:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that SA's edit is vandalism, in view of his past contributions here. Besides your previous comment, I'd be happy to see any evidence or justification for :

• [The article] needs sources or references that appear in third-party publications.
• Its quality may be compromised by peacock terms.
• Its introduction provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject.
• It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
• Its introduction may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines.

Pcarbonn (talk) 08:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's vandalism. Who doesn't expect tags on controversial subjects? But you are right, the policy is that if there isn't a specific objection, then the tags can be removed. If there are specific objections, they need to be discussed. IwRnHaA (talk) 10:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

If SA is unwilling to discuss the specifics of what he is wanting to convey through the mass-application of the tags, then the tags will be removed. The burden of evidence lies on the applicator -- SA, not others to guess at to what the issue is. seicer | talk | contribs 13:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. We're well past the point to WP:MOVEON. Ronnotel (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done And this is not what I call giving rationale. seicer | talk | contribs 15:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back, Seicer. See your vendetta hasn't let up none. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Rejected This is a snowjob false-claim-of-consensus by Cold Fusion True believers. When the cooling-off period is up, I will be reverting the tags back in as well as the edits above. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Currently not in the article is a good discussion of the criticisms of the supposed eveidences for cold fusion. I have atempted to add them in the past, but have had them block deleted by Pcarbonn with what I consider the flimsiest of excuses. For balance, something of what I added on Sept. 17 should be put back into the 'Criticisms' section. All the rationales are there in the Talk pages, and I am short on time to participate at this point. I won't be editing anymore, unless I see a problem with biased labeling such as my last edit, so it's up to you al;l to get the article balanced at tis point. Kirk shanahan (talk) 16:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that cold fusion afficianados need to remember that cold fusion has not been proven, and at this point is tenuously called a "science". •Jim62sch•^dissera! 16:40, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see, our article does not say that "cold fusion has been proven". For your second point, all the peer-reviewed papers published in reputed scientific journals say the contrary. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

As much as I LOVE peer-review, it is flatly the case that cold fusion proponents publish in out-of-the-way journals and have been blacklisted from the major journals. More than this, the pro-CF case is not subject to independent review, something which we require per WP:RS and WP:FRINGE. The continual insistence of WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT is tiring to say the least. ScienceApologist (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep, the journal that publishes the studies really does matter. If a parpsycholgy journal publishes a study that is peer-reviewed by parapsyclogists ... well ... •Jim62sch•^dissera! 18:03, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Here are some journals that published several articles favorable to CF: Naturwissenschaften, Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, European Physical Journal A, European Physical Journal C, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Journal of Solid State Phenomena, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, and Journal of Fusion Energy. See the article for details. Not bad, isn't it ? Pcarbonn (talk) 18:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The impact factors for these journals are abysmal. Yawn. ScienceApologist (talk) 18:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, the tactic currently in use by the CFers is to hop around to new journals (from their point of view) to get published since they feel they are barred from the traditional ones. What this does is present an editor with an unexpected article for his/her journal on what is known to be a controversial topic. In that situation, the inherent leniency of the peer-review system comes into play and the editor accepts the paper for consideration in order to not be too restrictive. Unfortunately, the editor then finds that there are no competent reviewers to pick from in his normal pool. Of course the CFer submitting the article is asked for suggested reviewers, but one has to wonder if any skeptics are ever submitted (since any skeptic is automatically 'pathological' to the CFers). In the end, the review obtained is either biased favorably or inadequate due to lack of expertise. The prime journals from the cold fusion field's history are Fusion Science and Technology (formerly Fusion Techology) and J. of Electroanalytical Chemistry. You should suspect an end run if the paper in question appears elsewhere. One journal that would be right on target but is never used is J. of Alloys and Compounds (formerly J. of the Less Common Metals). That is where the hydride chemists and physicists publish, and where an expert pool of reviewers exists, since they do related work to the things the CFers do, including electrochemistry (think nickel-metal hydride batteries). I wonder why the CFers never go there...NOT! Kirk shanahan (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 11:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC).

Beware, SA, a stalker is lurking ... •Jim62sch•^dissera! 19:50, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Re EPJ: "During the early 20th century, it was considered one of the most prestigious journals in physics". This is the early 21st. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 19:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I also note that my point re "peers" was missed. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 19:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

We've discussed impact factors/citation indices before. The academic discussion has identified that impact factors may have a bias towards US publications. Die Naturwissenschaften and European Journal of Physics were founded by Albert Einstein and Max Planck. They cannot be carelessly dismissed. Indeed they were not when I raised this on RSN. Take it back to RSN if you like. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:11, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is an instance of WP:CCC. In this case, we're saying that these journals simply do not measure up to better journals and we've described the particular instance relating to cold fusion why this is the case. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Tags

I've restored the tags, given that there is indeed discussion here on them. My take:

• Cleanup - The article is getting very large. I see only one sub-article at this time. Anyone see something that could be made into another sub-article? Pre-1989 DOE? --Ronz (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
• Primary sources - Generally, I find that focusing on what's written in the highest-quality, independent, secondary sources resolves most content disputes. --Ronz (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
• Recentism - I think this tags sums up much of what's being disputed. --Ronz (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
• Intro - The last paragraph doesn't meet WP:LEDE --Ronz (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph has now been moved to the "Recent developments" section. It should be merged in better, but at least it's out of the introduction. Are there any other concerns with the intro? --Ronz (talk) 20:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the current intro, per my suggestions above. I've also removed some of the more pandering "results" that were found in the cold fusion evidence section. Kirk Shanahan's additions should be included in this article too. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• POV - Obviously, there's a great temptation to summarize and over-emphasize more recent and potentially more promising research. Best to follow WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:FRINGE carefully. --Ronz (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

• It urgently need demoting from "good article" as even the supposedly "good" version was a self-admitted POV-push. Guy (Help!) 18:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

PhysicsWorld on pathological science

For those who like to qualify cold fusion as pathological science, I invite them to look at what PhysicsWorld said here in May 2008:

These days the mainstream science media wouldn’t touch cold-fusion experiments with a barge pole. They have learnt their lesson from 1989, and now treat “cold fusion” as a byword for bad science. Most scientists* agree, and some even go so far as to brand cold fusion a “pathological science” — science that is plagued by falsehood but practiced nonetheless.

[*CORRECTION 29/05/08: It has been brought to my attention that part of this last sentence appears to be unsubstantiated. After searching through past articles I have to admit that, despite it being written frequently, I can find no factual basis that “most scientists” think cold fusion is bad science (although public scepticism is evidently rife). However, there have been surveys to suggest that scientific opinion is more likely divided. According to a 2004 report by the DOE, which you can read here, ten out of 18 scientists thought that the hitherto results of cold-fusion experiments warranted further investigation.]

(His last sentence is not correct by the way: that conclusion was nearly unanimous. See the last page of the report). (Funny that he links to lenr-canr.org, and that we can't...) Pcarbonn (talk) 22:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Does anybody have a problem with any of the following statements :

1. the pathological science tag is unsubstantiated (source: PhysicsWorld, numerous papers in peer reviewed journal)
2. cold fusion is a scientific controversy (source: DOE 2004)
3. WP policy says that all significant side of a controversy deserve a fair representation
4. therefore both proponents and skeptics of cold fusion deserve a fair representation

Thanks. Pcarbonn (talk) 08:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This is blatant POV-pushing. You have removed a statement which had three references as "unsourced", and you propose here to replace it with a reference to a blog (blogs are not reliable sources). Wikipedia policies and guidelines say that fringe theories (such as cold fusion) should not be given weight which is disproportionate to their level of acceptance. Hut 8.5 11:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There is this continual revisionist sentiment getting shoved down our throats through appeals to recentism (as though cold fusion research is on the cutting edge and the dotty old establishment scientists just have no chance of keepin' up.) We need to guard against these kinds of cheap ploys. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:02, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what either of you are talking about. Did you accidentally comment in the wrong section? Kevin Baas^talk 18:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not have any problems with any of those statements, Pcarbonn. Kevin Baas^talk 18:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Bookkeeping

Someone removed GA from the articlehistory template,[2] without delisting the article at GA and recording the event correctly in articlehistory. I Don't Do GA: I do clean up the articlehistory error category. Please get a GA person to delist it correctly and update the Template:Articlehistory correctly, thanks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

It hasn't beeen delisted, just submitted for reassessment - the reassessment banner was placed in the wrong place on the talk too, so took a while to find.Yobmod (talk) 11:05, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent sources

I'm also concerned with the activities of CF proponents here, but I would actually like to know what the current state-of-art. In particular, I think it is inappropriate that we are relying on Wikipedia editors interpretations of technical articles rather than coverage in science magazines. So I wonder, what do editors on both sides of this debate think about the following article:

• Cold fusion rides again. By: Daviss, Bennett, New Scientist, 02624079, 5/5/2007, Vol. 194, Issue 2602

From the second paragraph:

Gordon's plastic wafer is the product of the latest in a long line of "cold fusion" experiments conducted at the US navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, California. What makes this one stand out is that it has been published in the respected peer-reviewed journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Konrad Lorenz among its eminent past authors (DOI: 10.1007/s00114-007-0221-7). Could it really be true that nuclear fusion can be coaxed into action at room temperature, using only simple lab equipment? Most nuclear physicists don't think so, and dismiss Gordon's pitted piece of plastic as nothing more than the result of a badly conceived experiment. So who is right?

As you can see, the coverage seems quite balanced. According to this article, there is a renewed interest in cold fusion as there does seem to some reputable labs coming up with anomalies, but the following is worth noting:

The science writer and debunker Shawn Carlson, who in the past has done research in nuclear physics, listened to Gordon and Mosier-Boss make their case at the National Defense Industrial Association conference in Washington DC last year. He was not convinced. "A collection of disjoint anomalies is more consistent with bad experimental technique than a great discovery," he says. "It would take independent verification from a number of labs to swing the tide in favour of cold fusion."

Anyway, it seemed like an interesting and fair article that should be used here. I wonder what the experts here think about Benett Daviss' article. Vesal (talk) 18:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

It is proabably an OK article, but I can't get the whole thing to read. Typically, these science writers don't seek out the technical skeptics like myself and Brian Clarke when he was alive. We both received calls on occassion, but as we are 'wet blankets' to the sensationalism of the 'new' discoveries, they rarely follow up.

The first report using CR39 was by Oriani I think in 2002. I posted some comments on it in spf showing how my speculative mechanism for the CCS could also explain the pits, but I was ignored as usual. Then there is the work by Scott Little that traced Oriani's pits back to contaminated O-rings, an explanation I forgot to bring up. So there are conventional explanations out there for the observations, a fact most of the science writers miss. They prefer to focus on the screaming skeptics like Robert Park, who probably hasn't looked at the actual CF papers or claims recently. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I raised the New Scientist article a while back. Consensus seemed to be that the magazine is too "tabloid"-ish to be worth bothering with. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Presumably you mean /Archive_17#New Scientist. If so, that's hardly a convincing demonstration of concensus to entirely dismiss a publication of New Scientist's stature. It was a brief discussion in a backwater talk page. Try Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard instead.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

More than happy for this to be reconsidered and further opinions sought. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

New Scientist is a fairly problematic publication: hit or miss on accuracy and substance. Better mainstream popular-level science journalist sites exist. This, in my estimation, is a better article. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:50, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad that you like New Scientist. Here is their update on cold fusion in 2007 (see item 13) : "After 16 years, it's back. In fact, cold fusion never really went away. Over a 10-year period from 1989, US navy labs ran more than 200 experiments to investigate whether nuclear reactions generating more energy than they consume - supposedly only possible inside stars - can occur at room temperature. Numerous researchers have since pronounced themselves believers.[...] In December 2004, after a lengthy review of the evidence, [the DOE] said it was open to receiving proposals for new cold fusion experiments. That's quite a turnaround. " Pcarbonn (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Note the article's title, "13 things that do not make sense". LeadSongDog (talk) 22:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah ah. Lol. Pcarbonn (talk) 22:22, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I've bought the corresponding book, published by DoubleDay. I can't wait for the moment I receive it. I'll have a reliable source to support what I found on his blog. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Proper title in front of M.R. Srinivasan ?

In this edit, LeadSongDog removed "Dr." in front of M.R. Srinivasan. Could you explain why ? I quickly looked at WP policies, but could not find any guideline for these questions. Any help welcome. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Convention. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. Thanks.Pcarbonn (talk) 22:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Did the 1990's book convince scientists that CF was bogus ?

I think it is a big stretch to suggest that the books of Huizenga or Taubes are the reason for the rejection. More significant are the statements made at the March 1989 APS meeting, the 1989 editorials in Nature, or the 1989 DOE. The books came after the decision was reached, as far as I'm concerned. Pcarbonn (talk) 22:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think removing mention of the book is particularly problematic. We should make it clear that the majority of the scientific community accepted the criticism camp over the pro-CF camp, and we can source that to the new book coming out tomorrow. ScienceApologist (talk) 14:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I can agree with that if we also say that these statements are disputed, with the latest book on "13 things that don't make sense" as a source. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Disputed is too weak. Rejected is closer to what the preponderance of sources say. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

New book coming out for answer to certain cf-proponents' recentist claims

Seife, Charles (2008), Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking, New York: Viking, ISBN 0670020338. On October 30, this book will be released. I have access to an advance copy here where I work and it confirms much of what Shanahan has written in the intro. How should we proceed in using this source as a citation?

ScienceApologist (talk) 22:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

What makes you believe that this book is more reliable and/or notable than the ACS / Oxford University Press book discussed above ? Who is the "Viking adult" publisher ? Where is the review that establishes its notability ? You do not want to apply double standards, do you ? Pcarbonn (talk) 23:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Viking Penguin, one of the world's largest publishers. We do have to be very consistent about sourcing and I can't see any reason to reject this one. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Just as you did not reject the ACS/OUP book. Also, "13 things that don't make sense", a book from DoubleDay, will qualify, I suppose. Here is what Anahad O'Connor, with The New York Times, says about this book: "That may have something to do with the notion that cold fusion has been unfairly maligned and ridiculed by scientists despite its continuing promise, an argument Mr. Brooks lays out well." Pcarbonn (talk) 06:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

on the use of "advocates"

Hut 8.5 disputes the well-source edits I made to replace the use of "advocates" by "scientists" and "proponents", based on their use by the 2004 DOE. May I ask that he provides one source using the word "advocate", with a level of reliability as high as the 2004 DOE as we agreed above ? Also, "advocate" imply the defense on behalf of someone else, in my dictionary. That does not seem to apply here. Pcarbonn (talk) 11:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, if the DOE 2004 is using "scientists" 4 times, could you explain why we can't ? Pcarbonn (talk) 11:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The terms "scientists" and "cold fusion scientists" are much broader than "cold fusion advocates" since the former includes cold fusion skeptics whereas the latter does not. The DOE report refers to people who believe cold fusion has been observed as "a group of scientists" or "The scientists who made this request", which are much more specific than the overly broad "scientists". We could plausibly use "Scientist advocates of cold fusion" but that seems overly long when "cold fusion advocates" does the same thing. Wiktionary lists a meaning of "advocate" as "A person who speaks in support of something", which is correct here. I don't mind replacing "advocate" with "proponent" since they mean the same thing. Hut 8.5 13:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not "advocate" that's the problem, it's the phrase "cold fusion advocate". These people aren't trying to pursuade the nuclei to fuse, they're trying to pursuade funders to support their research. Hence the appropriate characterization would be "advocate of cold fusion research funding". Ditto for "opponent".LeadSongDog (talk) 17:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. Kevin Baas^talk 18:30, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

is "conclusively demonstrated" a weasel word ?

There is a disagreement over whether we should quote the 2004 DOE verbatim when it said : "that the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions had not been conclusively demonstrated." The argument proposed is that "conclusively" is a WP:WEASEL word. In a nutshell, the Weasel guideline says : "Avoid using phrases such as "some people say" without providing sources." I really don't see how this applies here at all. Furthermore, conclusively is not given as an example in that policy.

This is one of the critical questions they had to answer, because that conclusion drives whether a federally-funded program should be set-up, or whether existing funding agencies are enough. I'm sure that they choose their words carefully. This word changes the meaning of the sentence. So, it is better to stick to what they said (or find another, more reliable source). Pcarbonn (talk) 16:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The current use indicates a "well, maybe not conclusively, but..." which is definitely not in the DOE report. I would go with "not conclusive" (as in the comment in charge 1) or "not demonstrated", which much better reflects the tone of the review. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree when you say "...which is definitely not in the DOE report". So, do you prefer that we say : "Two-thirds of the reviewers did not feel the evidence was conclusive for low energy nuclear reactions" (charge element 1), as you suggest ? Again, sticking to the wording of the report avoids inserting our own opinions. Pcarbonn (talk) 16:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I would be fine with "Only one of the 18 reviewers found the evidence for low energy nuclear reactions convincing". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

How about "1/3 were somewhat convinced" ? Surely this is consistent with "well, maybe not conclusively demonstrated, but..." There is certainly a doubt in a significant number of reviewers, hence their choice of "not conclusively demonstrated" over "not demonstrated". Pcarbonn (talk) 17:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a classic example of equivocation tactic that will be resisted. We are talking about writing a lead in summary style. To do this, we need no equivocation. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Journal of Scientific Exploration

Epstein citation has an url linking to a WP:SELFPUB claim to have been originally in J. Sci. Expl. Vol 8 No 1, but their archive has no such article in that issue. Flagged as dubious.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Further, http://www.scientificexploration.org lists as the editor one P.A. Sturrock, yet has a number of articles with him as lead author. Not a good sign.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

JSE is definitely NOT a reliable source. Thanks for removing it. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Not me. I flagged it as dubious, but here is the removal edit.LeadSongDog (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Reading of the DOE 2004 recommendations

I think there are some different interpretations as to the recommendations in the DOE review. Some seem to read it as an encouragement. But in fact, scientists are usually polite. I would translate them roughly as follows:

DOE 2003	Plain English
Several reviewers specifically stated that more experiments similar in nature to those that have been carried out for the past fifteen years are unlikely to advance knowledge this area.	Stop fuzzing around with calorimeters and electrodes. The effects are so small that statistical noise and confirmation bias will mislead true believers anyways.
Reviewers identified two areas where additional research could address specific issues. One is the investigation of the properties of deuterated metals including possible effects of alloying and dislocations. These studies should take advantage of the modern tools for material characterization.	Have you ever even looked at other possible explanations? Maybe you should. See confirmation bias above.
A second area of investigation is the use of state-of-the-art apparatus and techniques to search for fusion events in thin deuterated foils.	If there really are fusion events, find them. Our apparatus is good enough. Put up or shut up.

--Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Everybody is free to have his own opinion. You seem to forget that a not-insignificant number of reviewers were actually convinced by the evidence. By providing the original statements from the source, we allow the readers to make his own opinion. Pcarbonn (talk) 17:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, I hope you do not want Wikipedia to be impolite. Pcarbonn (talk) 19:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

You left one out:

DOE 2004	Plain English
The reviewers believed that this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.	The way we were asked to go about this review is not the usual way we do science. We trust the peer-reviewed literature instead, and you should too.

IwRnHaA (talk) 19:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Stephan has a point here: the interpretation he offers is much better than the stretches of the imagination promoted by Pcarbonn and IwRnHaA. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's my interpretation:

DOE 2003	Plain English
Several reviewers specifically stated that more experiments similar in nature to those that have been carried out for the past fifteen years are unlikely to advance knowledge this area.	Instead of repeating the same experiments over and over again, you should try some different experimental setups,
Reviewers identified two areas where additional research could address specific issues. One is the investigation of the properties of deuterated metals including possible effects of alloying and dislocations. These studies should take advantage of the modern tools for material characterization.	for instance, maybe you can examine the physical/spatial characteristics of the material before and after dueterization,
A second area of investigation is the use of state-of-the-art apparatus and techniques to search for fusion events in thin deuterated foils.	or use really thin films and advanced techniques so you can get a close look at what's going on while it's happening.

Kevin Baas^talk 17:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think they've been trying to figure out how to make the phenomena happen reliably. Reason being is that they need to do that before they can reliably discover the cause of it. So that's why they've been doing the same type of experiments - they've been making minor adjustments to try to improve the "yield" so to speak, so that they can get a larger sample (/hit-rate) to do tests/experiments with. Though fortunately some scientists have tried radically different approaches like using pressured gas instead of electrolysis to deuterize the metal, or to dueterize the metal as it is being made (co-deposition), which produced not only a giant leap in reliability, but a lot of new and interesting information about the phenomena. Which I guess just gives credence to the reviewers' suggestion: "try different things." Kevin Baas^talk 18:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

U.S. Dept. of Energy theory vs. U.S. Navy empericism

Are there any reasons that the as yet un-reviewed committee opinion of a government department which has not yet performed any empirical work on cold fusion (the DoE) is a more reliable source than the peer-reviewed literature review of a neutral reviewer from the Navy Research Laboratory (i.e., Hubler) and the peer-reviewed scientific literature of U.S. Navy SPAWAR researchers who have actually been performing empirical experiments (e.g., Szpak and Mosier-Boss)? Why didn't DoE solicit opinions from the Navy in their 2004 committee polling review? Why didn't the DoE submit their findings to a peer-reviewed publication? IwRnHaA (talk) 18:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

“Are there any reasons that …is a more reliable source than …” No, not really. The DOE review was more of a thesis defense. A group of CFers presented their best case to a panel of written and oral reviewers, and the net result was a wash. They came up with the same conclusions as in 1989. So in 15 years, nothing was produced that led to a change in the consensus opinion. That’s an interesting historical point, but has little scientific value.

“the peer-reviewed literature review of a neutral reviewer from the Navy Research Laboratory (i.e., Hubler) “ Actually, this paper was presented at a conference. The journal issue is the proceedings of that conference. See: http://www.smmib05.net/EN/ABOUT/abo_invspeakers.asp, http://www.smmib05.net/EN/ABOUT/abo_program.asp, http://www.smmib05.net/EN/ABOUT/CommiteeProfile.asp?fId=30, for some insight into the situation. I wonder about the 'neutrality'. Pcarbonn has been adamant about NOT using Proceedings, at least in what I write, he’s a little lax on that in what he writes. So by his standards, we should be deleting this reference anyway.

“and the peer-reviewed scientific literature of U.S. Navy SPAWAR researchers who have actually been performing empirical experiments (e.g., Szpak and Mosier-Boss)? “ I’ve already commented on the fact that these folks are publishing in obscure journals, but that doesn’t disqualify them I guess.

“Why didn't DoE solicit opinions from the Navy in their 2004 committee polling review?” The DOE didn’t choose what was discussed, that was up to the CFers, who prepared the whitepaper on what they were to talk about. Guess you need to ask them why they didn’t include the Navy.

“Why didn't the DoE submit their findings to a peer-reviewed publication?” The purpose was to determine if DOE should fund CF research. That goal was met. You generally don’t publish ‘thesis defenses’. After all, these were just the opinions of a few scientists who had listened to a few hours of talks and probably knew little more about the subject. They would have had to do a much better job to get published. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Your exchange with Szpak and Storms took place in Thermochimica Acta -- is that an obscure journal? Don't sell yourself short. When are you going to pick up the phone to Pam Mosier-Boss and ask for evolved gas recombination volume data plotted against power input/output? IwRnHaA (talk) 20:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Please abide by talk page guidelines. Your comment in no way helps advance the cause of writing the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

No real problem SA. I posted a comment on the story in 2001 in spf (Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 13:04:59 +0000 (UTC); Local: Fri, Nov 9 2001 9:04 am; Subject: Re: Mass Flow Calorimetry Paper). I originally submitted to Fus. Sci. and Tech., but because of the system, the CFers were able to block its publication (NOT on technical grounds, I replied to all review comments and rebutted every one) since the editor was going strictly on votes and not watching for the psuedoscience. I then moved to a less relevant journal, but one that focused on thermal chemistry, and discovered that the editor was one of the prior reviewers. Yes, TA was less relevant than FST. But since that time there have been two more sets of papers and comments on this specific aspect of CF research, so TA's 'impact factor' for CF calorimetry has gone up a bit. Again, the problem with publishing in journals who haven't been involved in the fray previously is that it is unlikely that they can muster a competent review team. But that doesn't impact the Wiki policy of course.

When am I going to call Mosier-Boss? Probably never. Their 2005 paper, which negatively comments on my work, was published without ANY contact with me. They therefore chose the mode of interaction to be stricly through the literature. So, if they have supporting data that clarifies the issue, they should publish it. Hopefully they will inform me of such a publication (as I did with Storms), and I will prepare a response if warranted. And in fact, that's the only valid approach at this time. My conventional explanation is in the literature, as are my comments on the inaccuracies of their experimental work, and the only way to definitively reply is via publication. Kirk shanahan (talk) 13:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

To the anonymous editor who seems to imply that I'm not discussing my changes on talk, which one of these sets of two intro paragraphs from my recent series of edits best upholds Wikipedia's reliable source criteria as specified in WP:V and WP:RS? IwRnHaA (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Cold fusion gained a reputation as pathological science after critical books were published in the 1990-1993 time frame detailing the experiences of those who investigated the field early on. These books and the surrounding events led most scientists to conclude there was no substance to the reports of cold fusion, a position which is still held by the majority of scientists today. Some of the criticisms put forth in these sources were ill-founded, and some direct charges of fabrication on the part of one of the authors allowed cold fusion researchers to discount their overall validity with the result that they have formed a core group that still pursues proof of cold fusion to this day. Numerous pro-cold fusion books have also been written from the 1990’s to present (see D. Britz Bibliography for a list and brief reviews ). As well, cold fusion proponents have reported what they contend are additional supporting results including some in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences, but most scientists have met these reports with skepticism. In late 2003, a group of scientists requested that the US DOE revisit the question of scientific evidence for low energy nuclear reactions. In 2004, the US DOE organized another review panel which—like the one in 1989—found that the occurrence of low energy nuclear reactions had not been demonstrated. None of the reviewers recommended a focused federally-funded program for low energy nuclear reactions. They were nearly unanimous in their recommendation that scientists apply for research grants from funding agencies. Several reviewers stated that the current lines of experiments are unlikely to advance knowledge. It suggested research into the properties of deuterated metals and the search for individual fusion events using modern material science tools, to help resolve some of the controversies in the field. The panel believed that the field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submissions to agencies and paper submissions to journals. Since then, additional papers have been published in peer reviewed journals.

Cold fusion gained a reputation as pathological science after critical books were published in the 1990-1993 time frame detailing the experiences of those who investigated the field early on. These books and the surrounding events led most scientists to conclude there was no substance to the reports of cold fusion. Numerous pro-cold fusion peer-reviewed academic journal papers and books have also been written from the 1990’s to present (see D. Britz Bibliography[α].) Cold fusion proponents have also reported what they contend are additional supporting results including some at conferences, but most scientists have met these reports with skepticism. Additional supporting results have been reported in peer-reviewed journals. Two peer-reviewed literature reviews in 2007 concluded that anomalous effects have been demonstrated by experiments that result in excess heat production and nuclear reaction products such as helium-4. Both reviews say that although many explanations have been proposed, several of which do not use new physics, none is yet satisfactory. The author of one of the reviews stated that the failure to attain replications was due to the inability to achieve sufficiently dense deuterium loading, and proposed a series of experiments to reveal the underlying mechanism(s) of the effect.

Since our IP editor and I are now both up against 3RR, I ask for a third party to resolve our differences. IwRnHaA (talk) 19:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you in agreement on the reference list change and just reverting because of the text differences or do the two have to go together?LeadSongDog (talk) 19:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I support the version on the right because of what WP:V says: "the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses." "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science." Pcarbonn (talk) 20:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Kirk raises an excellent point that the Hubler review is an invited paper from a conference proceedings. Until we know whether (and how, because Hubler is a member of) the scientific committee of the conference juried the abstracts, the manuscripts, or both, we can not consider it a peer-reviewed publication, and thus I must support including descriptions of both DOE 2004 and the Hubler and Biberian reviews in the introduction to uphold WP:NPOV. IwRnHaA (talk) 21:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the argument. The paper we cite in the article comes from Surface & Coatings Technology 201 (2007) p. 8568–8573. This is a respectable peer-reviewed journal. Whether it has also been presented in a proceedings or not is irrelevant. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

When the editors of a respectable, peer-reviewed journal turn their reins over to a conference committee, it is up to us to insure that the papers were still reviewed anonymously by an impartial jury before they rise to the same standard of a usual peer-reviewed publication. I'm not sure we can keep calling Hubler's paper peer-reviewed because he was on the conference's scientific committee and his was an invited paper. Even if the invited manuscripts were juried at the same time as the submitted manuscripts, the scientific committee probably all had access to the invited abstracts, and so they would know which was from their fellow committee-member Hubler. IwRnHaA (talk) 21:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

This is borderline with original research, in my view. It has been published, and we can rely on S&CT to have done its work properly: it's their responsibility after all, and their reputation is on the line. What hard evidence do we have that they did not review it themselves ? What evidence do we have that they turned the review to the conference committee ? I would think that it is their standard practice that one does not review his own paper. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If the journal's editorial board reviewed the conference papers before publishing the proceedings, there would be a note to that effect in the issue. It would be very unusual. IwRnHaA (talk) 21:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, aside from the link to the reference list I see

On the left but not the right:

“ , a position which is still held by the majority of scientists today. Some of the criticisms put forth in these sources were ill-founded, and some direct charges of fabrication on the part of one of the authors allowed cold fusion researchers to discount their overall validity with the result that they have formed a core group that still pursues proof of cold fusion to this day. ”

On the left but not the right:

“ in peer-reviewed journals and ”

And then the final para of each is quite different. Do I have it correct?LeadSongDog (talk) 20:55, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

LeadSongDog, as the section title suggests, I believe that the main issue here is whether the last paragraph should be based on 2004 DOE or the reviews published in peer reviewed journals. Pcarbonn (talk) 21:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

At this point, I'm in favor of going with the DOE 2004 review and concluding with Biberian's update, making sure that we mention Biberian's prior publications on the subject. I no longer care to see Hubler in the intro. I would certainly support having the Szpak-Shanahan volume-of-recombined-gases controversy in the lead, as it's such an interesting question which really does bear directly on the controversy surrounding the criticism of the calorimetry, which has stood for so long. We owe it to our readers to include the main points of controversy up front. WP:LEAD specifically says we should include, "any notable controversies that may exist." IwRnHaA (talk) 21:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:LEAD also calls for the lead to summarize things said elsewhere in the article in a proportionate fashion. A really good lead shouldn't even need its own citations. Get the discussion agreed on in the body first and the lead almost writes itself.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

{[{GASP!!}]} You mean we are supposed to have sections of the article with NO CITATIONS!?!?! Kirk shanahan (talk) 18:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so I overgeneralized a bit. See WP:LEAD#Citations for the exact wording.LeadSongDog (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

---

I have returned the lead to a state that is much more in keeping with the standards, policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. It needs some sourcing that will be forthcoming. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)