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MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW AND COLD FUSION
To its credit, MIT Technology Review published an excellent
feature review article about cold fusion by Dr. Edmund Storms
(Los Alamos National Laboratory, ret.) in the May/June 1994
issue. This might have been a turning point in media coverage
of cold fusion, had this influential magazine continued to follow
the subject. It did not.
Afirestorm of protest against the Storms article had confronted
then TR editor Dr. Steven J. Marcus, which led him to write
an editorial in the August/September 1994 issue, “Don’t Blame
the Parent.” He wrote, “. . .we’ll occasionally make people angry
for having allowed an author to present the ‘wrong’ point of
view. But reaction to the cold fusion story marks the first time in
my memory that dissenting readers criticized the magazine’s
editors not only for choosing to run this material—variously
describing it as ‘dreadful,’ ‘appalling,’ ‘pseudo-scientific,’ ‘irresponsible,’
and ‘an example of the goggle-eyed approach to science’—
but for hurting the institutional parent in the process.”
Marcus heard from so-called scientists who said that the article
“casts disgrace on MIT,” one who said that it “trashes research
at MIT,” and one who wrote that it “embarrasses the Physics
Department, MIT, and all graduates of MIT.” (MIT students are
advised to look up these articles to see for themselves what all
the commotion was about.)
There were, of course, positive responses as well, which
praised the editor for having found the courage to publish the
Storms cold fusion article, but these did not apparently reflect
the majority of the sentiments received. Marcus published six
response letters in that August/September issue, including a
positive one from cold fusion theorist and MIT Professor Keith
Johnson and a negative letter from MIT Nuclear Engineering
and Materials Science Professor Kenneth C. Russell.
Unfortunately, the protest of the Storms article in Technology
Review was not the first time MIT faculty had become upset with
Technology Review on the matter of cold fusion. The negative opinion
of MIT Physics Professor Herman Feshbach caused the previous
editor of Technology Review, Jonathan Schlefer, to back
down in the spring of 1991 from his intent to publish my cold
fusion review article. This 1991 article would have said essentially
what Storms did in 1994, but by 1994, even more confirmatory
evidence could be cited. Schlefer had accepted my article after
much editorial revision! Both positive and negative viewpoints
were presented in that approved article, plus my clearly identified
opinion that the evidence was building strongly toward
proof of the phenomenon. That was not negative enough for
Feshbach—who called all evidence for cold fusion “junk.” This
sorry episode of censorship was one of the key reasons for my
resignation from the MIT News Office in June 1991 (see Exhibit K
for more on this event).
Prof. Feshbach had told me his other reason for not wanting the
article to be published. He said that he had “. . .fifty years of experience
in nuclear physics and I
know what’s possible and
what’s not.” He later demonstrated
the same sort of monumental
arrogance and ignorance
when he appeared on
ABC Television’s Nightline
program, June 11, 1997. Even
though Feshbach admitted
that he knew absolutely nothing
about the Patterson Power
CellTM cold fusion device
which was the subject of the
program, he told viewers that
he could “categorically” state
that there were no nuclear reactions
occurring in it.—EFM