There can be no denying that since Andrea Rossi first introduced the E-Cat to the world in 2011 there has been a huge amount of skepticism expressed about his work and himself personally. Skepticism is not at all uncommon in the scientific world, especially when some new discovery is claimed — but in Rossi’s case there seems to have been an unusual amount of criticism and ridicule generated — some of it very harsh and personal.
Yesterday on the Journal of Nuclear Physics, Rossi wrote a long post in response to a commenter who asked how he responded to different charges. In it he included some interesting comments on how he deals with sketpicism, and how he he makes use of it in his work.
“The E-Cat detractors are making a wonderful work: they do not know, but I read carefully all they say and write. Their critics sometimes are right, sometimes are not, but in both cases we learn from them. You have noticed that the more they fight against us the more we grow up and a scientific observation should put a ratio cause-effect between the criticism and our growth. . .
“You ask: what they will come up with next ? Whatever it will be, we will take advantage of it. In my life I had to overcome many, many, many very, very negative events and to survive I developed a skill to turn into positive a negative event: for example, when I have been put in prison for crimes I never made, I told to myself: ” what a wonderful occasion to study the LENR: now I lost everything I had, all my time can be dedicated to this”. It worked.”
From this response it sounds like Rossi feels that his detractors are doing him a favor. I find it interesting that he says he reads carefully all the comments of the skeptics, and finds much useful information in them. One would think it might be less time consuming to simply ignore what the detractors are saying, and focus on the R&D at hand.
It would be interesting to take Rossi up on his scientific study proposal — Eventually we might be able to figure out the Criticism: E-Cat growth ratio, but at the moment only the criticism side of the equation is readily available.
