Scientific Dishonesty

[wooly_mammoth]

So, if you investigate something thoroughly and it doesn't work, it doesn't work because it doesn't work or because politicians are scheming behind our backs day & night? I mean, in the particular example we are discussing, having the thing work would mean that pretty much everything that is currently known about electromagnetism, atomic & molecular physics and nuclear forces is completely and utterly wrong. Which isn't impossible, mind you, but it sounds reasonably unlikely.

[Fisherking]

So, if you investigate something thoroughly and it doesn't work, it doesn't work because it doesn't work or because politicians are scheming behind our backs day & night? I mean, in the particular example we are discussing, having the thing work would mean that pretty much everything that is currently known about electromagnetism, atomic & molecular physics and nuclear forces is completely and utterly wrong. Which isn't impossible, mind you, but it sounds reasonably unlikely.

This is a red herring. As you well know.

There are any number of variables to consider. If you are still speaking of Pons and Fleischmann, the effect has been replicated and there is more than one method of achieving results.

It was not the fact that several labs failed to reproduce the effect. As I said there was no theory attached to what they reported. I do recall at least on lab reporting a reaction but of much lesser significance to the original.

It was more the reaction. They were held up to ridicule. To what scientific purpose?
Show me where ridicule fits into the scientific method. Show me where votes of consensus fits into the scientific method.

It is not the only example, naturally. There are any number of once suppressed theories which are today in the mainstream. Yet even so, some may yet be miss-proven or revised and other theories take their place. To think otherwise is to arrest development.