> Low Energy Nuclear Reactions have been, for a long time, the archetypal crackpot technology.
> Huge promises. Failed replication attempts. Dismissal by the academic community. Accusations of handwavey pseudoscience. Advocates generally having low status. Associations with conspiracy theorists.
> Anyone associated with it or even expressing anything less than absolute certainty that it’s an unscientific non-starter is risking not just a reputation hit, but aggressive ridicule.
> Based on my understanding of the history of science, I think that the feelings I have around talking about this, that fear of that ridicule, should be a red flag. If the incentives are stacked too strongly against an idea (for good or bad reasons), it can become impossible for respectable people to entertain the idea. Often this is a correct approach, the vast majority of amateur science with big claims is nonsense. But what if something valuable was stuck in this trap?
> If not for observations of current dramatic failures of the scientific process in nutrition and medicine, my priors against a demonstrable discovery of this magnitude being ignored would be very formidable. As it stands, this would still be shocking civilizational inadequacy, but I can see a process by which it could have occurred.
> So I decided it was worth a couple of hours of investigation. Low chance of turning up anything of value, but low investment and in the worst case I’ll know a few more things and be able to hold up a conversation using actual understanding about why it’s bunk if someone ever tries to sell me on it, rather than simply using the “experts are probably right” heuristic.
> Low Energy Nuclear Reactions have been, for a long time, the archetypal crackpot technology.
> Huge promises. Failed replication attempts. Dismissal by the academic community. Accusations of handwavey pseudoscience. Advocates generally having low status. Associations with conspiracy theorists.
> Anyone associated with it or even expressing anything less than absolute certainty that it’s an unscientific non-starter is risking not just a reputation hit, but aggressive ridicule.
> Based on my understanding of the history of science, I think that the feelings I have around talking about this, that fear of that ridicule, should be a red flag. If the incentives are stacked too strongly against an idea (for good or bad reasons), it can become impossible for respectable people to entertain the idea. Often this is a correct approach, the vast majority of amateur science with big claims is nonsense. But what if something valuable was stuck in this trap?
> If not for observations of current dramatic failures of the scientific process in nutrition and medicine, my priors against a demonstrable discovery of this magnitude being ignored would be very formidable. As it stands, this would still be shocking civilizational inadequacy, but I can see a process by which it could have occurred.
> So I decided it was worth a couple of hours of investigation. Low chance of turning up anything of value, but low investment and in the worst case I’ll know a few more things and be able to hold up a conversation using actual understanding about why it’s bunk if someone ever tries to sell me on it, rather than simply using the “experts are probably right” heuristic.
> And now.. I’m not quite sure what to think.