A new article by astrophysicist Ethan Siegel has been published on the Forbes website in which he holds again Andrea Rossi and the E-Cat as examples of what is wrong with science.
The title of the article is “You Don’t Need A Scientific Hero To Love Science”, and the gist of the article seems to be that we should not look to a single scientist as providing the answer to our questions about the univers, but to the body of science as a whole. He writes:
We know what every macroscopic object is composed of, right down to the smallest indivisible particles that exist in nature. We understand the way they interact and can accurately describe the forces that arise between them.
We know where the Universe came from, how it evolved to be the way it is today, and where it’s headed in the future. We know how planets form around stars, what the conditions are for life to arise, and once it begins, how it persists and evolves over billions of years. For the first time in human history, the question of where our physical reality comes from — a long-time question for philosophers, poets, and theologians — has been definitively answered: by science.
These achievements didn’t come about from just one person, no matter how intellectually gifted they were. Neither Newton nor Einstein nor Feynman nor Hawking knew it all. Moreover, all had serious flaws when it came to both their professional careers and their interpersonal conduct. While there are a great many figures who may be inspirational to you, personally, none of them can stand up to the wonders achieved by the enterprise of science itself.
Siegel’s thesis that the body of scientific knowledge is bigger than individual scientists is not something I would argue with. I would take issue with his opinion that we know all there is to know about the universe and how it all came to be.
And for some reason he again brings Andrea Rossi and the E-Cat into his article. As in his previous article, Siegel does not mention Rossi, LENR, or the E-Cat in the body of the article, but shows an illustration (same one as before) of Andrea Rossi showing an E-Cat to professors Essen and Kullander with this caption: “There are, no doubt, charlatans and frauds who would exploit the ignorance and gullibility of others for their own gain, such as convicted fraud Andrea Rossi, shown with his highly-suspect device: the e-Cat. Wanting to believe in an outcome or conclusion is no substitute for the robust conclusions brought about by the full suite of scientific evidence.”
Once again, the author is warning people to be suspicious and wary about the E-Cat, implying that people who take it seriously are ignorant and gullible. I believe in thinking for yourself, coming to your own conclusions according to your best judgment based on available information. And for this reason, I think it is logicial and reasonable to take Andrea Rossi and the E-Cat seriously.
