From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: origins of "experts"
Date: 18 Dec 92 17:06:33 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <BzEv0E.B9n@world.std.com> mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) writes:
>
>::  "If you have not done an experiment, and not even met with the
>:: people who have, then you have no business passing judgement
>::  on CF like some kind of expert.
>        [Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>]

There is a difference between not having done _an_ experiment and 
not having done a _particular_ experiment.  I trust a person who 
has done many electrochemical experiments to interpret a written 
description of an experiment they have not done.  If it is not 
possible to reproduce an experiment from the written description, 
and the person attempting same is an expert in the field, the 
person describing the experiment probably did not do their job 
very well.  Further, we who are expert in particular areas can 
tell when someone has taken due care with the little things. 

If we each could travel somewhere to see the apparatus, there would 
be no need for all those articles in Phys. Rev. and Nucl. Inst. and 
Methods, etc.  After all, the folks at MIT brought Notoya over and 
they could have learned just as much (if not more) if they had a 
description that spelled out the requirements for the setup. 

>==   "The way science is supposed to work, someone in his
>==  field should be able to be an expert just by reading all the
>==  literature.  That's the whole point of publishing.
>==  If Dieter, an expert electrochemist, can't be an expert in
>==  CF by reading the papers, and I think we'll all agree that he
>==  has :-), then there's something wrong with the way the papers
>==  have been written."
>         [colin@physci.uct.ac.za (COLIN HENDERSON)]

On the other hand, this is simply not possible.  You cannot stay 
expert without doing some of the dirty work.  The point of publishing 
is to tell other people doing some equally dirty work about what you 
have learned from your work, with enough detail that they can tell if 
it was done properly enough that the results are reliable and/or so 
they could switch over and try your approach.  One of the things 
students learn in a Ph.D. program is how much they do not know about 
Quantum Mechanics (to pick one example) until they try to use it in
a research problem.  In the process, you learn about a lot of things 
that tell you if a certain result is reliable or not. 

>    Deiter Britz has done a very credible and great service by his
> magnum opus of compilations.  Notwithstanding that, science is
> systematized knowledge.  People get education from experience. 

A colleague here, who did research in chemistry at just the right 
time to have studined polywater in some detail, got quite an education 
from that experience.  He is the most skeptical person I know with 
regard to cold fusion.  Similar skepticism resides among those here 
whose experience included a rush to judgement about the existence of
superheavy nuclei in mica inclusions from Madagascar. 

>             "Perfection is the enemy of good".

Very nice.  That goes on my wall.  Right next to "Haste makes Waste."

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion