Cold fusion reactor independently verified

They seem a long way behind ITER. I see a typical lab fusor already built and a larger unit under construction. I don't see any shielding in place, I hope they've read the memo about high energy photons and neutrons.

There's no shortage of people on the planet who believe some quite remarkable things. One such person I've had contact with most ardently believes the world is flat and no amount of proof will dissuade him. How such people manage to function must be a topic worthy of serious investigation.

It should be said that cold fusion is far from impossible, what is far from possible is using it to produce a useful amount of energy. Leave a bottle of hydrogen on your desk for long enough and one atom of hydrogen will eventually fuse into helium, the 50% probability of that happening occurs at a time large even in cosmological terms.

 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to support them...
(Sagan paraphrasing Truzzi paraphrasing Flourney paraphrasing Laplace, according to Wikipedia at least... )

 

Probably heading off topic, but it's important to know aboutcognitive dissonance and confirmation bias in the world of the internet.

Also: You can't rationally argue someone out of a belief that they didn't rationally argue themselves into.

 

Yes off topic but not entirely irrelevant to the world of science.

I am aware of both of those and neither cause me anything like the mental stress of the flat earth people. Cognitive Dissonance can be a useful thing and Confirmation Bias is kind of excusable as a normal human trait. My problem with the flat earth people and the one I've spent some time discussing his belief with is how internally inconsistent the argument is, how every contradictory fact even when it's their own evidence, is ignored that beggars belief. There's also a very strong "it cannot be" element involved.

The last point seems significant, one person has suggested these people are making a (weak) epistemological argument, that their own senses cannot be trusted when they contradicted their beliefs. On the upside coming into conflict with this group did force me to do some reading on epistemology. So far though about all I've learned is how to spell it

Much truth there.