Talk:Cold fusion/Archive 12

message: Should those unhappy with the current state of the Cold fusion article work incrementally from the present-day version which they believe is too long and has other unspecified problems, or should they revert to  and work from a two-year-old version which was once a Featured Article, deleting over 70 peer-reviewed references and the work of dozens of editors?
;Work incrementally from the recent version (0737,1 October 2006 by 75.35.76.29):
#Essentially every other article on Wikipedia is edited this way. GKK 00:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey (request for comment) 

message: We are going to forward from the 9/27/06 or equivalent version in an incremental way.  This is an article about science and experiment is the reality check of science.  This article is and should be about the pro and con of experiments.  The article presents the skeptics and the experimenters point of view and will continue to do so. --Ron Marshall 17:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Going Forward 

message: Is this article still totally disputed ?  If yes, what needs to be done to fix it ? Pcarbonn 08:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still disputed ? 

message: To be published on Nov 10 on New Energy Time: "Scientists at the U.S. Navy’s San Diego SPAWAR Systems Center have produced something unique in the 17-year history of the scientific drama historically known as cold fusion: simple, portable, highly repeatable, unambiguous, and permanent physical evidence of nuclear events using detectors that have a long track record of reliability and acceptance among nuclear physicists. " Pcarbonn 22:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article has been posted and it describes the use of CD-39 plastic detectors that seem to indicate the presence of nuclear reactions. There are also claims of new procedures that reduce the time for a reaction to form and improve the likelihood of a reaction. The detector stuff seems most interesting and this material hasn't been put on the page yet - is it worth being covered? Ronnotel 14:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I have seen this, and found it very convincing. Congratulations to the researchers and the journalists.  It is mentionned in the news section, and I've added a line to mention it in the overview section this morning.  Feel free to describe it more in the "nuclear products" section.  We should state however that it has not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal, nor replicated. Pcarbonn 14:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  November 10,2006 

message: I've read it and I was wondering: should not this article concentrate on cold fusion as a concept and hypothesis rather than being a discussion of a single (seemingly quite important) experiment? I'm not sure, but I believe that the experiment and the controversy surrounding it were once part of an article which got deleted. Is this really all there is on the subject: a proposition and a contested experiment? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure I understand your point, so please clarify.  Cold fusion is a field of research.  Concept, hypothesis, experiments, controversy are all part of it, I would say.  (There are many more than one experiment by the way).  What do you propose to change to the article ? Pcarbonn 16:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is this article about, exactly? 

message: Following a recent edit by ScienceApologist, I updated the intro as discussed in a past discussion. Pcarbonn 09:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On papers in the lead section 

message: I agreed some time ago to the sentence "In 1989, a panel organized by the U.S. Department of Energy concluded there was no convincing evidence that useful sources of energy would result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion, and another DoE panel reached similar conclusions in 2004", but I now think it was a mistake.
How could the 2004 DOE review reach such a conclusion when the question was not asked to the reviewers, and none expressed comments in their review [] ?  The report itself never mentions "source of energy".  In addition, the "similar conclusions" in the 2004 DOE conclusion does not mean that they are identical.  So what are the sources to justify the statement we made ?
One could argue instead that both reviews reached the similar conclusion to not fund a major federally-funded program.  One could argue that they reached that conclusion because they did not believe that it has the potential to become a source of energy, but until we find a source, this would be considered original research.  Better to say what the report said. I updated the lead section accordingly.  Pcarbonn 08:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  2004 DOE did not conclude on the potential as a source of energy 

message: This article appears to be heavily biased in favour of cold fusion being a proven phenomenon, which, as I understand it, does not represent the consensus of scientifc opinion.
:Heavily biased in favour of cold fusion ?  Please clarify where this is the case, so that we can correct.  The article tries to represent the view of the 2004 DOE review and other knowledgeable sources, and was heavily debated on wikipedia in the recent past.  The current version is thus the result of a consensus of editors, based on available sources, but let us know if we missed something.   Pcarbonn 21:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Biased article

message: Given the apparent significance of the CR-39 evidence, I'd like to propose that it's picture be moved from the nuclear products section to the top of the article, replacing the picture of the cold fusion cell. Ronnotel 15:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What apparent significance?  As far as I can tell, it's appeared in a talk and in an article in New Energy Times (not exactly a mainstream media outlet).  By this measure, it's not particularly notable in either the press or the scientific community.  --Noren 23:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, what part of cold fusion is notable in the press or scientific community? Ronnotel 01:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I personally find the CR-39 evidences very convincing, I would recommend to wait till they are published in a peer-reviewed journal. Pcarbonn 21:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Indeed, claims of cold fusion are rarely notable in the press or scientific community, and this article should reflect that. --Noren 02:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability depends on where in the world one is, and whom one talks to. In the light of a 15-year ban on the publishing of anything by the name of Cold Fusion by all but two recognised scientific journals, and the US Patent Office not even considering anything by that name, it turns out to be a Catch 22 situation for US researchers. But the papers about the phenomena associated with what was first described as "Cold Fusion" are being published at a steadily increasing stream, with some aspects quite far removed from those first steps. With the exception of the few US Navy researchers, it seems that the USA is trailing quite far behind Italy and Japan, with China catching up rapidly from behind. I am awaiting the progress reports from the Galileo project with great interest. The use of CR-39 or TASTRAK sensors is central to that protocol. Success in that endeavor could mean great opportunities for young researchers. Therefore the use of images of clean and used detectors is symbolic of the new knowledge being gained. I agree with the suggestion of a CR-39 detector picture at the top of the page, with a more informative caption than the one presently used. I do not see that any peer review can change the fact that these particle tracks occur - explaining them is another matter. -- Seejyb 00:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What would be the gain of promoting a report that has not gone through peer review and independent replication ?  What good would it do ?  Cold fusion has suffered already a lot from "science by press conference" and the bypass of the scientific process, wouldn't you think ?  Promoting the CR-39 image to the lead would be falling in the old trap again.  Why not wait a couple of weeks / months, just to show that this is a scientific endeavour ? Now, that would be a strong signal.  Pcarbonn 22:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, looking at the matter from your perspective, I agree that it would do no harm to wait a while. -- Seejyb 19:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Promote CR-39 image?

message: Given the relative lack of references that are skeptical of Cold Fusion, does the pseudoscience tag still apply? Either more evidence of official skepticism should be cited or the tag should be removed. Ronnotel 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Psuedoscience classification

message: I requested that this talk page be protected from anonymous edits due to on-going link-spam vandalism. Hopefully we can unprotect in a few weeks and see if the vandalism reoccurs. Ronnotel 19:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected