Rep. Rohrabacher on Cold Fusion

In defending cold-fusion chemists Pons and Fleischmann as brave challengers of the status quo, Rohrabacher misses the point of much of the criticism against them. Most scientists were excited by the reports of cold fusion, and frankly, a bit amused that two chemists working on their own could tweak the tail of the giant federal labs. What really bothered most critics is that after Pons and Fleischmann announced their claims in a press conference, they were so busy talking to reporters and testifying before Congress they had no time to publish their results in a scientific journal or defend them in scientific meetings.

Good science only emerges through the intense scrutiny of vigorous debate. Pons and Fleischmann shied from this test. When Copernicus and Galileo kept their theories to themselves, what they feared was persecution from the government (actually, the church, the same thing in those days), not criticism from other scientists. For Pons and Fleischmann, it was the reverse. They sought the refuge of reporters and politicians to avoid the scrutiny of their scientific peers.

ROBERT LEMPERT

Santa Monica