Cold fusion, also called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) or Chemically-Assisted Nuclear Reactions (CANR) by its proponents, is the claim of nuclear reactions at relatively low temperatures, rather than at millions of degrees. It is now mainly used as a scam to dupe the unwitting out of their money.
I don’t believe in LENR either, but if you’re going to write a skeptical article on it, the factual refutation should come before the mockery. The right to mock has to be earned, not stolen.
This is not the level of info that anyone who’s read the above main article should be interested in.
The main tl;dr on the article should be something along the lines of: “Although many claims have been made and some claims continue to be made, none of the claims has ever been replicated reliably despite a very great deal of effort. There are also no good theoretical explanations for how cold fusion could be physically possible. Thus mainstream science does not currently think that cold fusion exists, and [assuming this part is true, is it and can you provide citations?] there have been several known scams aimed at extracting money from venture capitalists [or whatever alleged scam has been observed to occur].” The goal here is to quickly and accurately convey the current state of evidence, mainstream repute, and if there are scams in the wild, warn people against them in a credible fashion. Credible, in this case, means specific and documentable—calling something a scam isn’t going to successfully warn off somebody who’s paying money; being specific about a past scam and providing a footnote might.
Also note the ordering: First we mention the failure to reproduce experimental evidence, then the lack of theoretical backing, then that mainstream scientists don’t believe in it, only then that scams have occurred(?). This ordering is important: rearranging these sentences would be bad. Strong replicated experiemental evidence beats theoretical difficulties. Then, it is not at all uncommon that a bunch of scientists say one thing even though the formal theory is pointing in another direction, so I don’t want to hear about the opinion of some ‘distinguished but elderly scientists’ before I know what the actual numbers have to say. Finally, pointing out that some foolish people are being scammed is very weak evidence about a factual question before I know what credentialed scientists have to say about it. There are known scams that use the word ‘quantum’, but that is not evidence against quantum physics, just tarring something by association with bad people. There are bad and stupid people everywhere so their presence in association with a widespread concept is not good Bayesian evidence (it is almost equally likely to occur in worlds where the main theory is true as where it is false). So if you want to be convincing for sane reasons rather than bullying the reader into agreement, first you talk about the state of evidence, then you talk about the background theories and their analysis, then you cite mainstream scientific opinion. Then you show what bad things have happened to people who believe this and mock the scams so as to establish that this is a low-prestige idea and believing in it will make your friends think you’re stupid, i.e. you shouldn’t just do it for a bit of fun cheap irrationality—I do agree that this part is important but you can’t do it first and maintain any claim to being a good guy.
The tl;dr overview can with some reasonableness describe all of these points quickly and at once at the top of the article, so it’s not like you have to wait to tell people.
Thanks, Eliezer. You suggested “Although many claims have been made and some claims continue to be made, none of the claims has ever been replicated reliably despite a very great deal of effort.”
That is what the article claims. “The term was popularised with the work of Pons and Fleischmann, which gained tremendous publicity but was irreproducible.[1]
The citation is to a study on lenr-canr.org that clearly demonstrates the opposite. The entire Rational Wiki article is trolling, designed to insult and irritate, which is typical of the RatWiki approach.
I’m still an admin there, totally useless. Wikipedians came there to impose the Wikipedian view on the cold fusion article, there is a huge history (as the article points out, but doesn’t point out details), but, bottom line, when I found that RatWiki was quite willing to tolerate me being told to “go fuck your kids,” by a Wikipedian attack dog who had created the disruption on Wikipedia that led to the second cold fusion ArbCom case (where I was actually confirmed in my filing claim) I essentially gave up on the site.
David Gerard was a big part of that. Technocrat, VIP Wikipedian, and quite willing to impose his opinions instead of actually learning what is in sources. Hence the article is full of “information” that is contrary to the sources cited. Try to explain that there? Tl:dr.
Yet, at least, the article points to some sources of interest. Those have been excluded from Wikipedia. The article snark is visible on RatWiki, the Wikipedia article pretends to be neutral. Some of the same pseudoskeptical ideas prevail in both places.
The claim that cold fusion researchers are motivated by a dream of limitless energy is a common claim. It was said about me. I have no idea that cold fusion is necessarily useful for energy production, just that it is not impossible. My interest on Wikipedia was encyclopedic,” not POV-pushing. I was very careful about that, but I confronted abusive administration, twice, successfully.* That is quite enough to make a non-administrator persona non grata on Wikipedia. So then, once banned there, I actually became involved in the field, hence my published article. My goal is to promote careful research, with increased precision, and I have the support of at least one of the most notable critics of cold fusion. This is what science is about.
so their presence in association with a widespread concept is not good Bayesian evidence (it is almost equally likely to occur in worlds where the main theory is true as where it is false)
And, in fact, it isn’t even clear in which worlds it is more likely to occur. In some cases the existence of scams claiming to sell X is actually (terrible) evidence that X is possible rather than terrible evidence to the contrary.
And, in fact, it isn’t even clear in which worlds it is more likely to occur. In some cases the existence of scams claiming to sell X is actually (terrible) evidence that X is possible rather than terrible evidence to the contrary.
That’s not so much a matter of which worlds as what information you already posses.
That’s not so much a matter of which worlds as what information you already posses.
It is that too but I was actually referring about the worlds, which do matter. The details of why and how X is possible influence make a difference to whether scams will be built around it, etc.
This is a common issue with how RationalWiki is written in general. In defense of their writing style, it is written in a way that will get more people to listen. If you are already talking to the highly rational, you’d be correct. But for a lot of people if they get something with zero humor up front they’ll just click the little red x.
People will also click the little red x if they suspect they’re being mocked, which will happen in all the important cases: when the reader actually considers believing in cold fusion or what have you.
Is that obvious? The people who will consider themselves to be personally being mocked will be the people who are already strongly believe. But those people are the ones where articles like this are least likely to have any impact on anyways. If one is aiming at the potentially credulous rather than the believer, that shouldn’t be an issue.
Not my cuppa. First paragraph:
I don’t believe in LENR either, but if you’re going to write a skeptical article on it, the factual refutation should come before the mockery. The right to mock has to be earned, not stolen.
This is not the level of info that anyone who’s read the above main article should be interested in.
Rough inverted pyramid, based on the lead summary model: intro as tl;dr, then the little blue numbers in the body.
Arguably removing the “It is now mainly used” sentence would improve it. (So I just did.) Thanks!
The main tl;dr on the article should be something along the lines of: “Although many claims have been made and some claims continue to be made, none of the claims has ever been replicated reliably despite a very great deal of effort. There are also no good theoretical explanations for how cold fusion could be physically possible. Thus mainstream science does not currently think that cold fusion exists, and [assuming this part is true, is it and can you provide citations?] there have been several known scams aimed at extracting money from venture capitalists [or whatever alleged scam has been observed to occur].” The goal here is to quickly and accurately convey the current state of evidence, mainstream repute, and if there are scams in the wild, warn people against them in a credible fashion. Credible, in this case, means specific and documentable—calling something a scam isn’t going to successfully warn off somebody who’s paying money; being specific about a past scam and providing a footnote might.
Also note the ordering: First we mention the failure to reproduce experimental evidence, then the lack of theoretical backing, then that mainstream scientists don’t believe in it, only then that scams have occurred(?). This ordering is important: rearranging these sentences would be bad. Strong replicated experiemental evidence beats theoretical difficulties. Then, it is not at all uncommon that a bunch of scientists say one thing even though the formal theory is pointing in another direction, so I don’t want to hear about the opinion of some ‘distinguished but elderly scientists’ before I know what the actual numbers have to say. Finally, pointing out that some foolish people are being scammed is very weak evidence about a factual question before I know what credentialed scientists have to say about it. There are known scams that use the word ‘quantum’, but that is not evidence against quantum physics, just tarring something by association with bad people. There are bad and stupid people everywhere so their presence in association with a widespread concept is not good Bayesian evidence (it is almost equally likely to occur in worlds where the main theory is true as where it is false). So if you want to be convincing for sane reasons rather than bullying the reader into agreement, first you talk about the state of evidence, then you talk about the background theories and their analysis, then you cite mainstream scientific opinion. Then you show what bad things have happened to people who believe this and mock the scams so as to establish that this is a low-prestige idea and believing in it will make your friends think you’re stupid, i.e. you shouldn’t just do it for a bit of fun cheap irrationality—I do agree that this part is important but you can’t do it first and maintain any claim to being a good guy.
The tl;dr overview can with some reasonableness describe all of these points quickly and at once at the top of the article, so it’s not like you have to wait to tell people.
Thank you very much for giving it this much attention!
Thanks for eliminating the ‘scam’ line! That is what caused me to keep going.
The irony here is that rational wiki has an article on yudkowsky and it isn’t very flattering. Perhaps you have read it David?
I have to admit I don’t see the irony here. Am I missing some context?
EDIT: Ah, right, they were talking about a RW article.
Thanks, Eliezer. You suggested “Although many claims have been made and some claims continue to be made, none of the claims has ever been replicated reliably despite a very great deal of effort.”
That is what the article claims. “The term was popularised with the work of Pons and Fleischmann, which gained tremendous publicity but was irreproducible.[1]
The citation is to a study on lenr-canr.org that clearly demonstrates the opposite. The entire Rational Wiki article is trolling, designed to insult and irritate, which is typical of the RatWiki approach.
I’m still an admin there, totally useless. Wikipedians came there to impose the Wikipedian view on the cold fusion article, there is a huge history (as the article points out, but doesn’t point out details), but, bottom line, when I found that RatWiki was quite willing to tolerate me being told to “go fuck your kids,” by a Wikipedian attack dog who had created the disruption on Wikipedia that led to the second cold fusion ArbCom case (where I was actually confirmed in my filing claim) I essentially gave up on the site.
David Gerard was a big part of that. Technocrat, VIP Wikipedian, and quite willing to impose his opinions instead of actually learning what is in sources. Hence the article is full of “information” that is contrary to the sources cited. Try to explain that there? Tl:dr.
Yet, at least, the article points to some sources of interest. Those have been excluded from Wikipedia. The article snark is visible on RatWiki, the Wikipedia article pretends to be neutral. Some of the same pseudoskeptical ideas prevail in both places.
The claim that cold fusion researchers are motivated by a dream of limitless energy is a common claim. It was said about me. I have no idea that cold fusion is necessarily useful for energy production, just that it is not impossible. My interest on Wikipedia was encyclopedic,” not POV-pushing. I was very careful about that, but I confronted abusive administration, twice, successfully.* That is quite enough to make a non-administrator persona non grata on Wikipedia. So then, once banned there, I actually became involved in the field, hence my published article. My goal is to promote careful research, with increased precision, and I have the support of at least one of the most notable critics of cold fusion. This is what science is about.
And, in fact, it isn’t even clear in which worlds it is more likely to occur. In some cases the existence of scams claiming to sell X is actually (terrible) evidence that X is possible rather than terrible evidence to the contrary.
That’s not so much a matter of which worlds as what information you already posses.
It is that too but I was actually referring about the worlds, which do matter. The details of why and how X is possible influence make a difference to whether scams will be built around it, etc.
This is a common issue with how RationalWiki is written in general. In defense of their writing style, it is written in a way that will get more people to listen. If you are already talking to the highly rational, you’d be correct. But for a lot of people if they get something with zero humor up front they’ll just click the little red x.
I believe I may be said to know something about humorous writing. It is not necessary to violate rules of rational discourse in order to have it.
People will also click the little red x if they suspect they’re being mocked, which will happen in all the important cases: when the reader actually considers believing in cold fusion or what have you.
Is that obvious? The people who will consider themselves to be personally being mocked will be the people who are already strongly believe. But those people are the ones where articles like this are least likely to have any impact on anyways. If one is aiming at the potentially credulous rather than the believer, that shouldn’t be an issue.
I think the main point of RationalWiki is to be entertaining, rather than to be informative.