From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Subject: Re: Risk and Dysfunctional Thinking
Organization: New Mexico Tech
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 23:25:16 GMT

In article <921216170326_72240.1256_EHL68-1@CompuServe.COM> Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com> writes:

>You go on to say, "you are asking for a MAJOR humdinger of a violation of
>physics." This is totally irrelevant. Ten Million Major Humdingers would not
>make one iota of difference. The only scientifically valid questions are:
>
>1. What do the instruments show?
>
>2. What is the signal to noise ratio?
>
>The instruments show Delta T temperature differences as high as 50 C, at sigma
>levels greater than 90, therefore CF exists. Nothing else matters, and no
>theory can have any effect on the conclusion that the heat is real, and far
>beyond the limits of chemistry. Theory plays no role in this conclusion
>whatsoever, and cannot be used to attack or defend it. Please stop confusing
>the roles of theory and evidence. These roles were firmly established by
>Kepler, Galileo, and other early scientists, and they have not changed one
>bit. Science is built upon observation, evidence and data. In all cases, when
>data of sufficiently high sigma conflicts with theory, theory is wrong.

	Yes,  but we often wonder what the real value for sigma in many of
these experiments are.  Joseph Newman tells us that he has a motor that
charges the batteries that it runs off.  There are people out there who
still believe that Uri Geller can bend spoons with the power of his mind.
There are many claims of over-unity devices.

	I happen to believe that Beyesian statistics provides the best
framework for us to analyze information.  To take an informal example,  if
you come by my office and you have a suitcase and I ask you what is in
it,  I would be much more likely to believe you if you say "a tuna fish
sandwich" than if you say "a million dollars in cash".  As such,  any kind
of experimental result that deviates far from the dominant paradigm will and
should be subject to more scrutiny than a result that is closer.  If an
undergraduate does NMR in senior lab and announces that the gyromagnetic
ratio of the proton is 5.57 +- .02 nuclear magnetons,  we are more likely
to take this seriously than if he measures it to be 12.211 +- .002 nuclear
magnetons.

	The history of science is full of examples of pathological science.
The people who worked with the Allison effect,  N-Rays,  and polywater and
ESP all made extraordinary claims and they all took them absolutely seriously;
they found explanations for all their critics.  It is still too early to
tell,  but cold fusion shows almost all of the scientific and sociological
danger signs of being pathological science.  This doesn't mean that it's
bogus,  but I am suspect about it.  Think of all the false results (such
as monojets) at particle accelerators that have produced a flurry of
theoretical papers that are utterly irrelevant to real-world physics.  The
proliferation of very extreme theories to explain cold-fusion is a warning
sign.  The fact is that the vast majority of results that are "inexplicable"
in a given paradigm are indeed wrong.

	When you add big money to the equation, things get even worse.
To take an example, this Joe Newman character came to New Mexico Tech
because these real-estate investors from Albuquerque were smart enough
to know that they are scientifically illiterate and wanted to check
with some real scientists about it before they give Joe $2 million
dollars for his free energy motor.  Anyway,  the professors all come in
and say that this is crazy and the school can't have anything to do with
it and it violates the laws of thermodynamics,  so the only people left
are some undergrads and lab technicians.  That night I borrowed the keys
to one of the labs and set up a demonstration that would show exactly
why Newman's measurement techniques were invalid,  but because these
technicians had such a great plan about how to measure the performance of
the machine,  I didn't show it.  They move to a psychology student's
garage and essentially repeat Newman's demonstration (which just shows that
the motor makes alot of RF noise and that it befuddles clip-on and power
company wattmeters) without taking any valid measurements.  They get some
"people" to come down from Sandia National labs (who might have been
janitors for all I know) who were impressed,  so these investors decide
they are going to give Joe the money.

	Problem is,  Joe is an inventive paranoid schizophrenic.  The
investors finally realized this because they had to keep calming him
down so he could talk to people.  They decide to try to screw Joe and
give $1 million to the lab technician who saw the inside of the motor to
build a new one.  Anyway,  he tells Joe because he is "the most honest\
and brilliant person in the world".  Joe calls the deal off.  That
lab technican has since had a religious conversion (now he listens to
christian heavy metal instead of the good stuff (Jeff Beck,  Yes)) that
he used to listen to),  thinks that his phone is tapped,  that the CIA
and the school administration is trying to kill him,  and is planning
to go to missippi to make a pilgrimate to the Gyro master's workshop.

	The moral is that I won't take cold fusion seriously as
science because people are willing to spend money on it.  Lots of
people spend lots of money on Dianetics and Scientology.  Does it mean
that those are valid?  Of course not.  I am not impressed that NTT is
spending money on it or "offering a kit" -- why don't they just
publish a paper?  I am not impressed any more that MITI is funding
Pons and Fleischman than I would be that thousands of elderly ladies
are giving their life savings to Oral Roberts.

-- 
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