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ericwelch's review
5.0
Taubes, one of the best science writers out there, describes the scientific confusion (pun intended) and hard feelings between two universities after the announcement that some researchers had successfully harnessed cold fusion.
Steve Jones at BYU was also working on what he thought was cold fusion. Antagonism developed between the two universities as to who came up with the idea, first and consequently deserved the credit, not to mention the patents with associated royalties estimated by local optimists to be in the billions.
What was certain was that university administrators and the researchers themselves, using a Pascalian logic, took the position that they had little to lose: "You get burned if cold fusion doesn't work, but you sure get burned if you don't do anything about it and it does work. So you've just got to be smart," said the University of Utah president later. He also ignored the advice of an eminent physicist who suggested he let BYU makes fools of themselves. The rush was on.
Cold fusion tempted scientists to break the rules. It became another 'Utah Effect' (a phrase derived from' the notorious X-ray laser affair of 1972 and used to describe any public relations disaster originating in Utah). The original Pons and Fleischmann study did not use a control. How, . critics asked, could they draw any conclusions from their scanty data without some sort of control to compare it against. "As E. Bright Wilson phrased it in An Introduction to Scientific Research thirty-seven years before cold fusion: 'If one doubts the necessity for controls, reflect on the statement: "It has been conclusively demonstrated by hundreds of experiments that the beating of tom-toms will restore the sun after an eclipse." , "
At several scientific meetings the Asch effect was beginning to show. The Asch effect describes studies done by Solomon Asch, a psychologist, who would seat a genuine experimental subject with six confederates who were primed to give a' false answer to a question regarding which of severa1lines was longer. Before long, the experimental subject, who knew he had the right answer, wquld begin to doubt himself Three out of four subjects would side with the group's incorrect conclusion despite knowing the answer to be wrong.
Other experimenters were also learning the effects of mixing speed with the press. Several who thought they had confirmed Pons' data, discovered after their preliminary confinnations were reported at press conferences were widely reported, that their hasty experiments, thrown together in order to be the first to confirm cold fusion, had been tainted or not done correctly. Chuck Martin, at Texas A&M, was one of these unfortunates: "Talking to the press is wrong, very wrong," he said, "It's too easy. And the press can't filter. They can't tell whether the 'thing I've said is bullshit or right."
Taubes writes, "What cold fusion had proven, nonetheless, was that the nonexistence of a phenomenon is by no means a fatal impediment to continued research. As long as financial support could be found, the -research would continue. And that support might always be found so 'long as the researchers could continue to obtain positive results. In fact, the few researchers still working in the field would have little incentive to acknowledge negative results as valid, because such recognition would only cut off their funds. It promised to be an endless loop."
Steve Jones at BYU was also working on what he thought was cold fusion. Antagonism developed between the two universities as to who came up with the idea, first and consequently deserved the credit, not to mention the patents with associated royalties estimated by local optimists to be in the billions.
What was certain was that university administrators and the researchers themselves, using a Pascalian logic, took the position that they had little to lose: "You get burned if cold fusion doesn't work, but you sure get burned if you don't do anything about it and it does work. So you've just got to be smart," said the University of Utah president later. He also ignored the advice of an eminent physicist who suggested he let BYU makes fools of themselves. The rush was on.
Cold fusion tempted scientists to break the rules. It became another 'Utah Effect' (a phrase derived from' the notorious X-ray laser affair of 1972 and used to describe any public relations disaster originating in Utah). The original Pons and Fleischmann study did not use a control. How, . critics asked, could they draw any conclusions from their scanty data without some sort of control to compare it against. "As E. Bright Wilson phrased it in An Introduction to Scientific Research thirty-seven years before cold fusion: 'If one doubts the necessity for controls, reflect on the statement: "It has been conclusively demonstrated by hundreds of experiments that the beating of tom-toms will restore the sun after an eclipse." , "
At several scientific meetings the Asch effect was beginning to show. The Asch effect describes studies done by Solomon Asch, a psychologist, who would seat a genuine experimental subject with six confederates who were primed to give a' false answer to a question regarding which of severa1lines was longer. Before long, the experimental subject, who knew he had the right answer, wquld begin to doubt himself Three out of four subjects would side with the group's incorrect conclusion despite knowing the answer to be wrong.
Other experimenters were also learning the effects of mixing speed with the press. Several who thought they had confirmed Pons' data, discovered after their preliminary confinnations were reported at press conferences were widely reported, that their hasty experiments, thrown together in order to be the first to confirm cold fusion, had been tainted or not done correctly. Chuck Martin, at Texas A&M, was one of these unfortunates: "Talking to the press is wrong, very wrong," he said, "It's too easy. And the press can't filter. They can't tell whether the 'thing I've said is bullshit or right."
Taubes writes, "What cold fusion had proven, nonetheless, was that the nonexistence of a phenomenon is by no means a fatal impediment to continued research. As long as financial support could be found, the -research would continue. And that support might always be found so 'long as the researchers could continue to obtain positive results. In fact, the few researchers still working in the field would have little incentive to acknowledge negative results as valid, because such recognition would only cut off their funds. It promised to be an endless loop."
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