Well, as far as I can tell, the hard part is accepting that 14,700 figure.
The only thing Rossi did was come up with something that made the effect easier to replicate.
Jing-tang He
• Nuclear fusion inside condense matters
• Frontiers of Physics in China
Volume 2, Number 1, 96-102, DOI: 10.1007/s11467-007-0005-8
This article describes in detail the nuclear fusion inside condense matters—the Fleischmann-Pons effect, the reproducibility of cold fusions, self-consistency of cold fusions and the possible applications
http://www.boliven.com/publication/10.1007~s11467-007-0005-8?q=(%22David%20J.%20Nagel%22)
Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-scientists-sin
1. Jed Rothwell
11:52 AM 6/20/10
Shermer says that Goodstein concluded that cold fusion was most likely a case of scientists who “convince themselves that they are in the possession of knowledge that does not in fact exist.”
Cold fusion has been replicated in over 180 major laboratories, by roughly 1,500 professional scientists. These replications have been published in roughly 800 papers in mainstream, peer reviewed journals such as J. Electroanal. Chem. and Japanese J. of Applied Physcis. J. He of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the effect has been observed in roughly 14,000 experimental runs (Front. Phys. China (2007) 1: 96 102).
Many of the results were at low signal to noise ratio, but others were high, such as heat from 10 to 100 W, and tritium at 50 times background (Los Alamos, Texas A&M) up to several million times (BARC).
Most of the researchers who have reported positive results are senior, distinguished experts, such as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, government of India, and the experts at Los Alamos in charge of the Tritium Systems Test Assembly and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princton. Only senior researchers can get funding because of academic politics.
When a result has been widely replicated at high signal to noise ratios and reported in the literature, that result is real, by definition. There is no other standard of reality in science. If it were possible for hundreds of scientists in hundreds of laboratories to be wrong, the experimental method would not work, and no result would be meaningful, and science itself would not work. If Shermer and Goodstein would substitute some other standard of truth, and ignore replication and peer-review, they are engaged in some form of faith-based religion or a popularity contest, not science.
And I still recommend it to skeptics. I believe that material is a fair an honest presentation by the author. It contains all of the information I thought I needed plus a wealth of observation and some pretty cool pictures. The analysis of possible fake energy sources looks to first order to be pretty complete. On the whole the document looks like a pretty competent effort by somebody trying to be objective. He does gush a bit to much in places to be taken seriously by some but the material is exciting if true so a little gush can be forgiven.
I have thoughts about the technical content. I'd like to ask you some questions about it after I sleep on it. I realize that you are not the source of the information, just the conduit. But you appear to be a rational and well informed conduit and I promise to try to ask interesting questions. Again, thanks for the pointer.
Inability to lift the output above the noise band seems a major source of doubt for many.
Some observations. The calorimetry appears to be generally awful. I'd throw right out all of the phase change ones simply because you can have non-phase change measurements that aren't subject to dispute. That still leaves experiments where the excess energy relative to the input is interesting without having taken a detailed look at the possible stored energy. A detailed look is possible since that data is provided. Better heat measurements would be nice.
On a PR note, I'd lose all arguments of the form "how could your fool n scientists". As a scientist I would say that we are fooled pretty damn easily as a class. Nature is subtle, not deceptive and we aren't inclined to look for the lie. If I were an investor and could send one guy to examine the apparatus it would be the magician Penn Gillette. I'd tag along too of course, it's Italy.
Another thing I'd lose is the Conan-Doyle quote. When I have actually found myself in that situation in the past, having though I'd eliminated the possible, it was usually a failure of imagination. The more common error is to fail to see a possibility as existing at all and thus miss it.
Generally I'd avoid all appeals to authority as a form of argumentation. Some of the data looks pretty good. What is needed is more and better data to make the case. I trust the guys currently running the independent tests to do them honestly. Cases of individuals committing scientific fraud occur often enough that I have personally seen more than one. Groups of three I haven't seen or heard of yet so I am in principal happy with three guys doing independent testing. Most likely they are not colluding. Are there any plans to do more tests with better calorimetry?