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Letter to editor in bibliography

This was added to the bibliography, as "published in Nature". However, this is not an article but a letter to the editor. We shouldn't give it a place in the article unless a secondary source says that this specific letter was important for some reason.

• Gryziński, Michał (27 April 1989), "Cold fusion: what's going on?", Nature, 338: 712, doi:10.1038/338712a0

--Enric Naval (talk) 11:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I tried the link and the text is behind a paywall. It doesn't make sense to me that a "free for anyone" encyclopedia should link to sources that only people who have money can access. OTHER than that, though, the text could have been important if the Editors of Nature had replied to that letter. They represent a significant voice in the scientific community, see, especially in terms of mainstream thinking at the time such a reply was (if it was) published. V (talk) 17:24, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Disambig

Now the artist is said to be only about the Fleischmann–Pons set-up. Although the start of the history section is somewhat more general. Perhaps we should spin of the Fleischmann–Pons part to it's own article an keep this as a page about cold fusion in general. // Liftarn (talk)

Excess Heat and Energy Production

Since Scaramuzzi, F. (2000) is an accepted reference (117,119,124), I would suggest the following sentence, based on p. 9 of that source, be added to the end of the first paragraph of the section: Nevertheless, as early as 1997, at least one research group was reporting that, with the proper procedure, "...5 samples out of 6 that had undergone the whole procedure showed very clear excess heat production (4)." Aqm2241 (talk) 07:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The article should give a general overview of replicability of excess heat in the field. What's the point of giving WP:WEIGHT to this specific paper? This appear to be an isolated paper that had no repercusions in the general replicability of CF, we are giving it a lot of weight by mentioning it here, as if it was an important experiment. If the replicability of this specific experiment is so important and relevant, then why is this experiment not mentioned prominently in other sources since 2000? Why Hagelstein didn't consider it relevant enough to include it his 2004 report of the field, where he was trying to show that cold fusion was a replicable effect. Have other groups replicated it successfully? We shouldn't include specific papers unless they are really relevant for the field or they are needed to explain specific events. This paper doesn't seem to cut it. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric, are you then advocating that we delete all 3 of the present references to Scaramuzzi's paper? They have been there for as long as I remember.Aqm2241 (talk) 06:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm saying to remove the mention of the "5 samples out of 6" experiment. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

If I find 5 better references in Hagelstein, are you likely to find any of them acceptable? This paper is 'relevant' in the field because Wiki editors have accepted it and it balances an argument put forth in the previous sentence.Aqm2241 (talk) 07:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Mentioning this isolated paper gives it a lot of weight, as if it had a lot of relevance on assessing if the effect of excess heat has been reliably reproduced. I don't see any source saying that CF experiments now can be replicated reliably 5 out of 6 times, and this is the impression given to readers by citing this experiment there.

Re Hagelstein, I suppose that you mean the report that he sent to the DOE in 2004. The DOE 2004 report said, among other things, "Most reviewers, including those who accepted the evidence and those who did not, stated that the effects are not repeatable, the magnitude of the effect has not increased in over a decade of work, and that many of the reported experiments were not well documented." They don't mention the 5 out of 6 experiment. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

it should be noted that: a) by "not repeatable" they, of course, mean not _reliably_ repeatable (and some would argue to the contrary - they are experimental setups which some claim reliably repeatable), and b) if "the effect" had "increased in over a decade of work ", that would in fact be evidence that it was really experimental error, rather than some interesting physical process, as a physical process would be consistent in its magnitude. (though oddly they seem to be placing the statement so as to persuade the opposite) Kevin Baas 13:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric, your argument about the undue weight of that paper is correct. It is used 6 times (based on a single paragraph that is reviewing the arguments that have been proposed against CF. (The lead in to these statements is "It has been said that..." Here is a proponent of the field that is repeatedly quoted for anti-CF statements. Unless, at least one statement that represents the purpose of Scaramuzzi's paper is included in the Wiki article, I will have to eliminate all of the other comments on the same basis that you removed my contribution from his paper.

I have undone your revert. Aqm2241 (talk) 19:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

lenr-canr.org link in article

This website is cited or mentioned in many RS. i think it's time to accept that the wikipedia article should include it, even if it's only in the "external links" section. I propose this:

• lenr-canr.org, advocate website with bibliography.

--Enric Naval (talk) 10:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

When I search on "contributory prefix:Talk:Cold fusion" I find three archives that have discussed this site, there may be others elsewhere. Unless the search misses a resolution, I see no excuse for assuming this would not be wp:CCI.LeadSongDog come howl! 13:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be POV to call it an advocacy site. Just because through a site you can learn about research that has been done about a topic, doesn't mean said site advocates a position about said topic. It seems ppl are assuming that not allowing access to research is the "default" position and represents neutrality, and thus allowing it would be "advocacy". Both the premise and the logic of that are false. Kevin Baas 17:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I received a lengthy email from User:Abd (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) responding to the above, in which he provided links to two discussions Talk:Martin_Fleischmann/Archive_1#Lenr-canr.org_allegedly_hosts_copyright_violations and . Since he chose off-wiki communication and I do not wish to proxy for anyone I'll simply pass those links along without further comment at this time. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The difficulty with lenr-canr.org is that they publish articles with the permission of authors. However, the authors don't always have the right to republish the articles, as the copyright belongs to the journal/publisher, and in some instances lenr-canr.org distributes papers which can reasonably be seen as copyright violations. Thus there has to be care taken about linking to individual articles in order to confirm that the individual link isn't linkvio. I'm not sure what this means with linking to the site as a whole, but I think there is some cause for considering the correct position. - Bilby (talk) 00:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

That's one difficulty. Another is that some of the material hosted there has been found to contain editorialising. A third is that site owner Jed Rothwell is banned for pushing links to the site. Another is that it uncritically represents the minority view only, without adequate context (unlike mainstream science and popular science sites, which report both positive and negative results (the problem being, for cold fusionists at least, that the negative results vastly outweigh the positive). Has anyone here seen Brian Dunning's "Here Be Dragons" movie? 40 minutes well spent. For the rest - well, this is just like arguing with homeopaths. It doesn't matter how often you point out to them that their field has no credible scientific mechanism, they will still keep repeating the same assertions based on the same work by the same people. As Abd found, sometimes the only answer is to tell them to shut up and go away. If any proof emerges for the supposed field of low energy nuclear science then it will have to come fomr quantum physics, not from endless repetition of anomalous empirical results. This is what the DOE review said (and of course the CF crowd represent that as a call for further research, rather than an instruction to go away until there is a credible mechanism to support their theory). Guy (Help!) 01:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I've heard that Rothwell has actually been blocked rather than barred. But anyway, my own link, removed by someone, was to the Library page, meaning that people going to it would not see any of the editorialising/advocacy on the rest of the site but merely see strictly neutral information about the library context. Given the very positive value of the library as a reference source, and the rather nebulous objection, that a small proportion of the entries may be material to which publishers might take exception, it is a no-brainer, as they say in the US, that the library should be linked in. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:10, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

In view of the following, from WP:Copyrights:

"The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear, however. It is currently acceptable to link to internet archives such as the Wayback Machine, which host unmodified archived copies of webpages taken at various points in time. In articles about a website, it is acceptable to include a link to that website even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site.", User:LeadSongDog's addition of a 'copyright violation' tag would appear to be inappropriate and I am therefore reverting it. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is not an article about the website. This is an article about Cold Fusion. Lenr-canr.org is also not an internet archive, but a collection of published papers. - Bilby (talk) 21:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to bring newcomers up to date, the web site came up for discussion because some people wished to exclude it from the article, and that made it very relevant.

I quoted the above since it enunciates the principle that 'possible copyright violations' do not render it unacceptable to link to a site. Since no-one has produced any reason for not linking to the LENR site that passes muster I will be restoring the link. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, what is says is that there are exceptions under which it is ok to link to a site containing copyvio - the major one being where the site, itself, is the subject of the article. This is not the case here, so the exception thus outlined is not relevant in this situation. The other exception relates only to internet archives, which exist in a legal gray area. However, once, again, that's not the case here. So you are right in saying that there are times when it is acceptable to link to such sites, but there is no evidence presented thus far that this is one of those times. - Bilby (talk) 01:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Repeated removal from article

User:Brian Josephson added the lenr-canr.org link to the article, and it was removed by User:2over0 without explanation. I replaced it, asking why it was removed and referencing this discussion. 2over0 removed it again, saying, "Undid revision ... by EnergyNeutral ... contributory copyright infringement and WP:ELNO, same as it always was." I don't see the application of WP:ELNO to lenr-canr.org, and looking above, it seems this issue has been discussed before, at length, with different conclusions than 2ocer0 implies, so, unless there was something else not referenced, "same as it always was" doesn't make sense. Will 2over0 or someone else please explain this?

Above, I see that LeadSongDog has referred to WP:CCI. I thought that CCI meant "contributory copyright infringement," after the term 2over0 used, but it doesn't, it means "contributor copyright investigations," about contributors repeatedly adding copyright violations. Has this happened with lenr-canr.org? --EnergyNeutral (talk) 01:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I think this would be the policy: WP:LINKVIO. The present situation is not exactly covered. It's clear that we should never link to a page where we know that the page is copyvio. The lenr-canr.org bibliography, however, contains no copyvio, it's an original work itself. The issue would be whether the possibility that there are one or more supposed copyright violations, perhaps somewhere linked from the bibliography, should be enough to prohibit linking. While it's not specific for our situation, In articles about a website, it is acceptable to include a link to that website even if there are possible copyright violations somewhere on the site. If the possible existence of violations somewhere on a site created contributory copyright infringement by linking to the site itself, that the article was about the site itself would be no excuse. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 05:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

EnergyNeutral is correct. I used the wrong shortcut, wp:CCI when I intended wp:LINKVIO, which cautions against contributory copyright infringement. My apology for the confusion.LeadSongDog come howl! 05:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, I remain confused. What precisely is the problem with lenr.org? Can you be more specific, rather than just mouthing generalities? --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:39, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Just wondering -- do these editors advocating removal on what to my mind are tendentious grounds examine all links in articles with equal diligence? If not, this rather tends to suggest an agenda on their part. --Brian Josephson (talk) 08:59, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The motivations of editors is moot. lenr-canr.org is a notable resource for information on cold fusion, positive and negative and neutral, and is so mentioned many times in reliable source. I've restored the link. If editors think there should be some additional comment there, that would be something to consider, but we cannot just exclude this site based on the kinds of arguments that have been presented. I'm not thrilled by labels based on our original research, though "advocacy site, pro-cold fusion." The site's description of itself might be used, or how it is mentioned in reliable source, or both. Or nothing. --EnergyNeutral (talk) 16:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's how it should be. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

My complete list of contributions is open for inspection. I usually use an edit summary like cleanup external links or prune per WP:ELNO or something along those lines if you would like to evaluate and improve upon my handling of external links. Please comment on the content, not the contributor (but see Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution for dealing with non-content matters that do not belong on an article talkpage). As well, EnergyNeutral, please check your opening statement. You may have found my initial explanation insufficient, but that is an entirely different matter from failing to provide one. Longstanding editing standards hold that it is best practice to seek explanation for an edit whose motivations you do not understand before undoing it. There is no deadline here. - 2/0 (cont.) 14:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The objections against linking to lenr-canr is to some extent bound up with the past behaviour here and elsewhere of User:JedRothwell (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), who runs it. You can see here the consequences. Additionally, there is reluctance to introduce a massive selection bias. If we could trust that the contents in that library were fairly representative of the literature as a whole, I would be less reluctant to cite them. Providing convenience links there still seems a step too far in the direction of contributory copyright infringement. If the copyright owners genuinely wanted their works available on the internet they would simply make them available on their journal websites. The idea that lenr-canr has permission to republish but can't or won't show evidence of that permission is simply too farsical to credit. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

If you believe there is massive selection bias, I suggest you provide evidence. I don't believe a full investigation would support that belief. There may be a degree of selection bias, but hardly 'massive'. Your unsupported guesswork can't be considered good reason for blocking the lenr library.

Re your other argument: if whole issues were made available en masse free, requiring only going to the publisher's web site, and finding the desired article to download, that would hit sales -- one can imagine people arguing that subscriptions were really not needed. In general publishers don't object to individual articles being posted because most people who read them would not have bought the article concerned anyway. The failure in logic is to assume that one of the following must be true (i) publishers want to have their works available in toto free (ii) publishers don't want people to be able to read free anything they publish. In fact, neither of these is true; it is illegitimate to argue that if (i) is false then (ii) must be true. Case dismissed! --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Journals sell individual articles, and clearly make a proportion of their income from doing so. Furthermore, it is not relevant - whether or not they make money from individual sales, the articles concerned state that they are copyrighted and cannot be republished without the publisher's permission. Under those grounds, republishing them without such permission is copyright infringement, and linking to a copy posted without permission is a contributory copyright violation. - Bilby (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is answered by my quote above from the copyright violation page. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

If someone were to create a website dedicated to hosting reprints of my work or if I found my papers being eagerly passed around the samizdat torrent networks, I would be overjoyed. Galling though it may be at times, however, I do not have the legal authority to authorize or initiate either of these actions. Prior to publication, I signed the copyrights over to the several journals, allowing them to do things like create a digital archive without contacting me or my estate (as well as to profit from the added value publication gives my work). As a private individual, I can and do pass around copies of my papers for private use, but I may not publish them elsewhere nor authorize someone else to do so. The library at lenr-canr is a new publication of old work that has not been authorized by the copyright holders. Knowingly linking to such could be contributory infringement, even in the absence of a DMCA takedown notice.

We have a dedicated External links noticeboard for wider discussion of whether a particular link should be included. If the above remains unclear, please seek additional input there (making note here and linking this discussion). - 2/0 (cont.) 14:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This is answered by my quote above from the copyright violation page. --Brian Josephson (talk) 21:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe that you are misinterpreting the policy you quote, as by my reading those sentences do not apply to this situation, while the immediately preceding sentences do. lenr-canr.org is not analogous to the Wayback Machine website, and this article is not about the website. The first provision is primarily to allow us to use an old version of a website in a citation; while lenr-canr.org's library is an archive, it is not of the type of archived being discussed there (which is itself anyway a bit of a grey area). The second provision allows us to link to The Pirate Bay on the article about the website despite the fact that that site exists primarily to violate copyright. Neither of these provisions seem to me to obtain here.

Please also be aware that repeatedly making the same edit against the reasoned objections of your fellow volunteers is considered edit warring, and may lead to your account being blocked (note that I could not myself block anyone here, as that would contravene our policy on admin involvement). Please seek outside opinions at the External links noticeboard before inserting the link. - 2/0 (cont.) 04:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, since you request this -- I had not read your comment before I reinserted the link and have reverted it now. --Brian Josephson (talk) 07:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Now done: see External links noticeboard -- Brian Josephson (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for starting that discussion; I have added the counterarguments there. These discussions usually work best if the prior participants avoid further comment unless a major point has been omitted (we participating here are already at an impasse, so merely changing venue for more back-and-forth would be less than useful). Hopefully consensus one way or the other can be reached in a week or three. - 2/0 (cont.) 10:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Publications

The last paragraph of the article states:

"This decline of publications in cold fusion has been described as a characteristic of pathological science and of a "failed information epidemics". Cold fusion researchers occasionally succeed in publishing papers in prestigious journals; the 1993 paper in Physics Letters A is an important example because it was the last paper published by Fleischmann, and "one of the last reports to be formally challenged on technical grounds by a cold fusion skeptic".:1919"

I would suggest adding: "On the other hand, the recently released Volume 4 of the peer-reviewed Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science is a collection of 25 papers on the topic."

Since at least 4 of these papers are review articles, I would further suggest that, not being primary sources, at least these 4 papers would be legitimate references for the Wiki article.

By the way, does anyone know what the 1919 at the end of the paragraph means? Aqm2241 (talk) 07:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That means "page 1919 in reference #68".

I understand that the JCNMS journal was formed by cold fusion proponents so they could have somewhere to publish. We could mention the journal in the article, as an example of how proponents had to build their own communication channels.

The journal editors are also CF proponents, right? And editors are the ones who assign the peer reviewers to each article. Reviews published only there are not independent from the field and should be taken with a grain of salt. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Thx, I would have assumed the page number to be in the reference, not the text.

I think that a mention of the community having to publish its own journal would be excellent. Do you have a reference that is acceptable? Do you want to open the can of worms about how 'powers' above journal editors have breached contracts to overrule editors of standard physics journals and books about to be published? As you say, if any editor did not want to publish an article, he has a list of reviewers who would be happy to 'kill' the paper.

Can you think of a journal that was started by opponents of any field of interest? (Maybe Nanotechnology?) Where would be the most appropriate place to publish a review? I know that some academics would try to publish in Nature just because it has high 'impact-factor and thus higher KPI points.

Should Die Naturwissenschaften be eliminated from the list of acceptable journals on Misplaced Pages, just because it now has an editor who is pro CF? If so, would you then say that it is 'OK' prior to that date? Do you think that editor would/should ask you to be a reviewer (assuming that you were qualified)?

Would you consider this to be a valid review article? V. A. Chechin, V. A. Tsarev, M. Rabinowitz, and Y. E. Kim, “Critical Review of Theoretical Models for Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 33, No. 3, 1994 Aqm2241 (talk) 06:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Cold_fusion#Publications already mentioned having to create their own publications, I added the journal. You should find sources for that can of worms.

Saying CF people have to create their own publications is misleading since it implies that no work in the field can be published in ordinary journals such as Naturwissenschaften. The text you refer to seems to need changing. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

No opinion on that paper, I'll let others look at it. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric. Thank you for separating the two groups of journals. However, it might be important to also remove the word "fringe" in the prior sentence, since that is POV, derogatory, and perhaps libelous. Replacing 'fringe' with 'alternative energy' would be safer and more accurate. (Unless you wish to claim Bubble Fusion to be 'fringe', as an example.)

Does anyone know what happened to the reference that goes with the citation ^ a b Labinger 2005 ? Aqm2241 (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Enric, Thx for fixing the Labinger 2005 Ref. Aqm2241 (talk) 19:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Dilbert

Dilbert's take on cold fusion. Enjoy :-) Guy (Help!) 19:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Process, explanation or claim

The lede sentence contains an ambiguous phrase, which may even mislead some leaders. (It certainly misled me.)

• a proposed nuclear fusion process of unknown mechanism offered to explain . . .

What in heck is a proposed process? How can there be a "process of unknown mechanism"? And just what exactly is being explained?

More importantly, is there really a process being "explained" any where in the article? If so, it's so buried in detail that I couldn't find it. (I didn't read every sentence, so if it's there, please indicate the section or better yet post the paragraph I'm supposed to read.)

Editorially, it looks like this article is more about the cold fusion controversy than about any supposedly discovered "process". I daresay the controversy is over whether anyone has ever been able to achieve cold fusion in the laboratory.

So I would like to rename and rewrite this article accordingly. I'd like a long main section about reports by researchers who claimed to have produced cold fusion: what they did, what measurements they took, etc. Followed by efforts of other researchers to reproduce these results.

A shorter section could be about pronouncements from DOE or the patent office along with how the scientific community in general regards the supposed phenomenon. (Note: I came here from Menstrual synchrony, another "supposed phenomenon", thinking about the best way to word the intro to a topic about a phenomenon that the original researcher reported in a scientific journal, although scientists generally are unable to confirm that the phenomenon occurs.) --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

i don't think any researcher has claimed decisively that they have created cold fusion in a lab. that, from my understanding, remains a hypothesis. what numerous researchers have separately claimed in numerous reports on experimental results are a number of measurements that seem extraordinary given our current understanding of physics. while some ppl have separately put forth theories to explain these measurements, nobody (save perhaps our old friend kirk s.) has claimed that any of these have been undisputably demonstrated by experiment to be the proper explanation for the reported extraordinary results. in short, "cold fusion" is a misnomer. but "unusual results on electrolytic cells of particular metals and deuterides, gas-loading, co-deposition, and other methods involving deutrium in low energy solid state confinement, reported as outside error margins and semi-repeatable and as-yet-unexplained, though some would argue that it is explained and is categorically not fusion, though they won't tell anyone what that supposed explanation is." would be a rather awkward title for an article. Kevin Baas 20:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

It would appear you are unaware of the article published by Fleischmann and Pons, "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium" Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, 1989, 261 (2A): 301–308 that made precisely this claim in its own title, and not a few similar articles afterward including "Measurements of gamma-rays from cold fusion" published later that year in Nature. These are not obscure papers, they are rather central to the history of the alleged phenomenon. The degree of certainty expressed by those who claim to have observed this alleged phenomenon seems to have decreased over the years. In short, "cold fusion" was precisely the terminology used by the early (and most notable) proponents.--Noren (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I am aware of it. I didn't feel that exception to be notable. It's certainly had its press, but this article is not about them. Kevin Baas 17:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Ed Poor, I don't understand what you are proposing. All of the topics you say are important are already discussed in the article. Also, why is "cold fusion controversy" a better title than "cold fusion," which I would say better describes the topic and has the advantage of being concise. Is there a precedent on wikipedia to add the word "controversy" to the titles of controversial articles? Olorinish (talk) 04:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Pathological science?

I removed the following sentence because it is not sufficiently supported and because it is, at least partially, original research: "However, the ongoing significant number of publications in the field, including some in regular journals, is inconsistent with such categorisations." The article already has sourced statements supporting the reality of cold fusion, so readers can investigate them and form their own conclusions. Does anyone disagree? Olorinish (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

My statement is verifiable

(@Noren particularly, who did a second deletion after I'd added an appropriate ref.) I presumed a certain degree of diligence and intelligence in readers, enough for them (a) to realise that by going to the bibliography I quoted (see earlier version) they could get the statistics for LENR, and then that (b) by studying the literature on pathological science they'd be able to see whether or not the LENR statistics fit. Verifiability is the issue here; there is no need to fill in full details. -- Brian Josephson (talk) FRS, FInstP —Preceding undated comment added 09:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC). It is a pity when editors can't figure out this sort of thing for themselves. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The list you refer to has a lot of things on it that are not publications. It would require a lot of original research to sort out peer-reviewed publications from other things, looking at the first page I see patent applications, a "Check List for LENR Validation Experiments", several powerpoint presentations, several things listing 'LENR-CANR.org' as the location they are published in, etcetera. This is an indiscriminate list, which may have its uses but it is not a scientometric study. For a actual bibliography of the field I would recommend Dieter Britz' work, which is already linked on the page. Note in particular the graph of publications per year on the last page of his statistics summary. While there was a modest uptick in 2008, it was followed by continued decline and the volume of papers is still profoundly below what it was in the early 1990s. The recent trends do not overturn the academic secondary source as published in the journal Scientometrics, and to argue that a minor uptick for a few years as seen in raw data refutes the (far larger) overall downward trend would be original research.--Noren (talk) 15:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

You draw erroneous conclusions from the statistics provided by Britz. When there is an exciting new discovery in science it attracts a lot of people to work on it, but after a time things generally settle down, so the steep decline is normal and does not indicate pathology. Your Scientometrics reference could have confirmed your point, were it not for the fact that is is out of date, and in consequence does not take account the recent very significant increase in publication rate (a sustained increase involving a factor of more than 3, with on the order of 20 publications per year the last 3 years for which statistics are available). Because of this recent increase the appropriate comparison is probably with phenomena which were at one time disbelieved, but subsequently came to be accepted as real. While of course I can't speak for Ackermann, I suspect that if asked he would agree with this analysis. --Brian Josephson (talk) 17:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the edit is original research because it ] combines "material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." When cold fusion's reputation improves that respected authorities in nuclear reactions believe it, then this article should definitely be changed to reflect that. Until then, we should be careful to give appropriate weight to claims of cold fusion. Olorinish (talk) 17:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that what I've said above can reasonably be counted as 'original research', but will rewrite the addition appropriately when I have the time -- it is just a question of making clear something that evidently was not quite so clear to the editors concerned. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It's more a question of finding a reliable source that explicitly supports your edit. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Brian, the simple fact is, the CF "detractor" who edit this article do every single thing they can think of to prevent it from becoming up-to-date. I've been waiting more than 2 years for a secondary reference to appear, regarding the publication in major/Wikipedia-acceptable journals of the pressurized-deuterium experiments, every single one of which, so far as I know, has produced more energy than can be associated with the natural exothermic absorption of hydrogen by palladium. And I have to keep waiting, until such a reference appears, before I can edit this article to mention it. V (talk) 04:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have taken advantage of my university's site licence to see the full paper and, in the cause of informed discussion, it is appropriate to summarise the relevant points. Ackermann begins with the criteria that have been proposed in the literature for pathological science, i.e. science that did not work out. He also assumes that cold fusion and polywater fit this category, and looks at the data to see if they fit. Indeed, publication levels do fall to a low level in both cases over the interval considered, which is 1989-2001 for cold fusion. That is fine as far as it goes, but as I have already noted recent data shows a significant rise. The author's aim was not to prove from the data that CF was pathological (he states explicitly that he is not 'concerned with examining the existence and nature of pathological science, or its applicability to either the Polywater or Cold Nuclear Fusion phenomena', and were he to reconsider that paper today, in the light of current data, he would be forced to conclude that either there are cases where an unaccountable rise occurs (beyond what might be expected by chance, as any statisticians watching will no doubt agree) or, more plausibly, that CF is not a case of pathological science. Indeed, that rise provides a certain degree of support for the alternative of 'knowledge growth'.

My conclusion is that the text as it stands is misleading and in due course I will add an appropriate clarification. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

As I said above, you need to find reliable sources that directly support your edit. You might want to check Betterncourt 2009 (already present in the article). It goes up to 2005 and it was published in 2009. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Is this relevant, and if so in what way? And if it only goes up to 2005 then it misses the recent surge. --Brian Josephson (talk) 14:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, I about to add the comment, citing an existing and I believe more appropriate reference for the relevant information. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I might add that some earlier text, The publication in mainstream journals has continued to decline but has not entirely stopped; this has been interpreted variously as the work of aging proponents who refuse to abandon a dying field, or as the normal publication rate in a small field that has found its natural niche is in need of amendment also in view of this recent rise. But I've done enough for today. --Brian Josephson (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

People who can't understand my recent edit (having done a little work looking at the Britz graphs and having the ability to interpret graphs) may be well qualified for jobs such as chopping wood, but hardly come up to the intellectual standards required to edit a w'pedia article competently, and should desist from attempting to do so. They might find themselves being reported to the authorities if they continue to do this. --Brian Josephson (talk) 20:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

1. TBD

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