PARADIGMS FOUND AND PARADIGMS LOST:

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PARADIGMS FOUND AND PARADIGMS LOST
EXAMPLES OF SCIENCE EXTRAORDINARY AND SCIENCE
PATHOLOGICAL (And How To Tell the Difference!)
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How Does Science Handle Extraordinary
Claims? Some Extraordinary Claims 1. Molecules
can be represented as geometric objects in 3D
space. 2. Energy is quantized. 3. A teaspoon of
oil can still the waves of an angry
pond. 4. Ordinary water polymerizes into a new
form of water upon contact with glass
surfaces. 5. Atoms can undergo nuclear fusion at
room temperature in a jam jar.
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Paradigm A characteristic set of beliefs
and/or preconceptions (theoretical,
instrumental, procedural and metaphysical) that
is shared by a community of practitioners. In a
global sense the paradigm embraces all of the
shared commitments of a scientific group. A
paradigm is what defines the scientific
community.
Thomas Kuhn. 1923-1996.
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Flow diagram for normal science
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An intellectual revolution occurs when new ideas
cause a change in the way communities think and
act.A scientific revolution occurs when new
ideas cause a change in the way scientists think
and act.The Nobel Prize is given to scientists
whose research changes the way other scientists
think and act.
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Flow diagram for revolutionary science Extraordin
ary claims that become accepted and are
integrated into normal science.
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Extraordinary claims that do not become accepted.
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"There are cases in scientific research where
dishonesty is not involved but where people are
tricked into false results by a lack of
understanding about what human beings can do to
themselves in the way of being lead astray by
subjective effects, wishful thinking or
threshold interactions.... These are examples of
pathological Science."
Irving Langmuir, Pathological Science, Physics
Today, October 1989, p. 43.
Irving Langmuir Nobel Prize, Chemistry
1932 ...for his discoveries and investigations
in surface Chemistry. Columbia Graduate, 1906.
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Flow diagram for pathological and revolutionary
science. Will an extraordinary claim become Nobel
or Ignobel science?
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Given an extraordinary scientific claim of
phenomena which are outside of the paradigm,
consider Langmuirs characteristics of
pathological science 1. The phenomena
responsible for the claim are at the limits of
statistical significance or are erratic in terms
of reproducibility. 2. The explanation of the
phenomena is not only extraordinary, but
conflicts with the governing paradigm. 3. Critic
isms of the phenomena and/or the explanation of
the phenomena by opponents are met with ad hoc
rebuttals. 4. Truly critical experiments that
discredit the phenomena or its interpretation
and which are performed by critics are dismissed
by supporters as methodological errors,
contamination or absence of key skills or
ingredients. 5. The ratio of supporters to
opponents rises to a maximum and then suddenly
drops to virtually zero.
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Law of Intellectual Closure

• Mental processes tend toward as complete,
• stable, self-consistent or closed a state as
  circumstances permit. There is a tendency to
  interpret an ambiguous figure in terms of aspects
  that are familiar to the viewer. An unfinished
  act tends to be completed an unfinished thought
  is rounded off a word, object, or situation is
  perceived in a manner that leads to the
  satisfactory feeling of closure.
• Geometry is an intellectual device which allows
  the achievement of a high degree of closure.

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The Platonic Solids. Geometry very appealing to
Chemists.
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A chemists view of the gaseous fuel, methane.
He/she thinks of a molecule of methane as a
3 dimensional geometric object consisting of a
carbon atom connected to 4 hydrogens atoms that
are directed toward the verticies of a
tetrahedron.
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H. Kolbe, J. Prakt. Chem., 15, 474 (1877)
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"In a recently published paper, I pointed out
that one of the causes of the present regression
of chemical research in Germany is the lack of
general, and at the same time thorough chemical
knowledge no small number of our professors of
chemistry, with great harm to our science, are
laboring under this lack. A consequence of this
is the spread of the weed of the apparently
scholarly and clever, but actually trivial and
stupid, natural philosophy, which was displaced
fifty years ago by exact science, but which is
now brought forth again, out of the store room
harboring the errors of the human mind by
pseudoscientists who try to smuggle it, like a
fashionably dressed and freshly rouged
prostitute, into good society, where it does not
belong."
H. Kolbe, A Sign of the Times J. Prakt. Chem.,
15, 474 (1877).
1818-1884
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A Dr. J. H. van't Hoff, of the Veterinary
School at Utrecht, has no liking, apparently,
for exact chemical investigation. He has
considered it more comfortable to mount Pegasus
(apparently borrowed from the Veterinary
School) and to proclaim in his book how the
atoms appear to him to be arranged in space,
when he is on the chemical Mt. Parnassus which
he has reached by bold flight. H. Kolbe, A
Sign of the Times J. Prakt. Chem., 15, 474 (1877).
J. H. van't Hoff (1852-1911) First Nobel Prize,
Chemistry, 1901
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At the turn of the century, Max Planck published
mathematical computations intended to resolve an
anomaly which had challenged the classical theory
of light, considered at the time to be an
unshakable paradigm of Physics. The anomaly was
termed the "ultraviolet catastrophe" (which
provides some idea of how the anomaly disturbed
the community!). Planck make the extraordinary
suggestion that light consisted of "bits" or
"quanta" of energy, rather than being a continuum
of energy. The suggestion was considered bizarre
and not physically realistic at the time, but is
now universally accepted by the scientific
community.
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"New scientific truth usually becomes accepted,
not because its opponents become convinced, but
because opponents gradually die and because the
rising generations are familiar with the new
truth at the outset." M. Planck,
Naturwissenschaften, 33, 230 (1946).
Max Planck Nobel Prize, Physics, 1918, "for the
discovery of energy quanta".
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Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to
drink. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner, 1798.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained
in water.... Its substance reaches
everywhere it touches the past and prepares the
future it moves under the poles and wanders
thinly in the heights of the air It can
assume forms of exquisite perfection in
a snowflake, or strip the living to a single
shining bone cast up by the sea. Loren
Eiseley (Anthropologist)
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In 1757, being at sea in a fleet of 6 sail
bound against Louisburg, I observed the wakes of
two of the ships to be remarkably
smooth, while all the others were ruffled by
the wind, which blew fresh. Being puzzled with
the differing appearance, I at last pointed it
out to our captain, and asked him the meaning
of it? "The cooks," says he, "have, I
suppose, been just emptying greasy water
through the scuppers, which has greased the
sides of those ships a little," and this answer
he gave me with an air of some little contempt
as to a person ignorant of what everybody else
knew. It occurred to me the learned are apt to
slight too much the knowledge of the ancients
and the vulgar. This art of smoothing the
waves with oil is an instance of both! -Benjamin
Franklin, Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of London, 1776
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Clapham Pond
"...at Clapham I observed a large pond very rough
with the wind. I fetched a cruet of oil and
dropt a little of it on the water. The oil,
though not more than a teaspoonful, produced an
instant calm over a space of several yards
square, and then spread amazingly till it filled
a quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre, as
smooth as a looking glass. .... If a drop of
oil is put on a polished marble table, or on a
looking-glass that lies horizontally, the drop
remains in place, spreading very little. But
when put on water it spreads instantly many feet
around, becoming so thin as to produce the
prismatic colors, for a considerable space, and
beyond them so much thinner as to be invisible,
except in its effect of smoothing the
waves." ---Benjamin Franklin, letter to William
Brownrigg, November 7, 1773.
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This incredibly simple experiment provides a
means of understanding fundamental facts about
molecules and the forces between them. It even
leads to a means of determining molecular size
and shape! For example, if the teaspoon were 2
cc of oil and the area of a half an acre is
approximately 2000 m2, the film thickness
(volume/area) would be ca 10-7 cm (1 nanometer,
10 Å), which is right on the molecular dimensions
of an "olive oil" molecule!!! This is clearly
within the experimental uncertainty of measuring
acreage!
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Polywater H2On Polywater is prepared by
placing freshly drawn glass capillary tubes in
an atmosphere that is nearly saturated with
water. The vapor pressure of the water
surrounding the capillary is held slightly below
saturation to deter normal condensation of water
in the tube. After a few days, a condensate
forms inside the capillary tube. Normal water
is removed from the condensate through
evaporation, leaving only the thick polywater in
the tube. Polywater freezes at 50oC and boils
at 300oC.
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A Sample of Polywater In a Thin Capillary Tube
Schematic of the Apparatus To Synthesize Polywater
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Several structures are proposed which are
consistent with the spectral data and the
remarkable properties and stability of the
material. It is concluded that the material is a
true polymer of water, and, therefore, is named
polywater.
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There are several ways in which water can freeze
so that its atoms can stack and lock in an
orderly, rigid way. Suppose this kind of ice,
lets call that sort ice-1, is only one of
several types of ice that can exist. Suppose
water on earth always froze as ice-1 because it
never had seeds to teach it how to form other
forms of ice, you know, ice-2, ice-3, ice-4, and
so on. Now suppose there was one special form of
ice, lets call it ice-9, exists somewhere and
that ice-9 is hard as a diamond and suppose that
someday a tiny seed of ice-9 was somehow got into
one of the oceans.. Paraphrased from Kurt
Vonnegut, Cats Cradle I regard this polywater
as the most dangerous substances on the face of
the earth. Treat it as the most deadly virus
until its safety is established. F. J. Donahoe,
Nature, 224, 198 (1969).
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"Our investigations led to the discovery in 1962
of what we claimed to be an anomalous new,
stable form of water with a density almost one
and a half times that of ordinary water and
which possessed a molecular structure that could
only be described as polymeric. We have now
established that there are no samples, both
free of impurity atoms and simultaneously
exhibiting anomalous properties. Attempts to
produce typical anomalous samples on a
thoroughly washed, polished surface of quartz
have failed... Consequently, the claimed
properties should be attributed to impurities in
ordinary water rather than to the existence of
polymeric water molecules..." B. Deryagin and
N. Churayev, "Anomalous Water", Nature, 232,
131, 1971.
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COLD FUSION

• The fusion of two nuclei of deuterium together
  to form helium releases an enormous amount of
  energy. The paradigm requires that a huge input
  of energy is required to overcome the strong
  repulsion between positive charges as the nuclei
  approach and attempt to fuse and lower the
  energy. This is done within the paradigm under
  the condition of high energy physics, i.e., 100
  million degrees Celsius (10,000 times hotter than
  the surface of the sun).
• Cold fusion was reported to achieve the fusion
  of deuterium at room temperature through the use
  of a simple electrochemical cell made of
  palladium, long known to adsorb deuterium. In
  effect, the electrochemical cell catalyzed
  fusion of the deuterium atoms.

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Close packing of deuterons within the atomic
matrix of metallic palladium is the proposed
mechanism of cold fusion. When a voltage is
applied to the electrodes, molecules of heavy
water split into ions which migrate to the
electrodes. Atomic deuterons accumulate in the
spaces between the palladium atoms of the
negative electrode. Somehow two deuterium atoms
get very close to one another, overcome their
mutual repulsion of their nuclei and nuclear
fusion occurs to produce helium and neutrons.
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".....Things are not hemmed in by the presence of
solid bodies in a tight mass. This is because
there is a vacuity in things... By vacuity I
mean intangible and empty space. If such empty
space did not exist, things could not move at
all. Nothing could proceed, because nothing
would give it a starting point by receding"
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"Basically, we have established a sustained
nuclear fusion reaction by means which are
considerable simpler than conventional means
which are simpler than conventional techniques.
Deuterium, which is a component of heavy water,
is driven into a metal rod-exactly like the one
that I have in my hand-to such an extent that
fusion between these components, these deuterons
in heavy water, are fused to form a single new
atom. And with his process there is a
considerable release of energy and weve
demonstrated that this can be sustained on its
own. In other words, much more energy is coming
out than we are putting in."
Fleischman and Pons, Press conference, 1989.
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Physicist's Paradigm for Fusion Princeton
Tokomak Reactor
Chemists Paradigm for Fusion Utah Tokomak
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Transmutation of Hydrogen into Helium Fritz
Paneth And Kurt Peters Ber. d. Deutschen Chem.
Ges., 59, 2039 (1926).
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The Transmutation of Hydrogen into Helium by
Fritz Paneth A few months ago, K. Peters and
I published an account of experiments we had
made in an attempt to transmute hydrogen into
heliumby passing hydrogen gas over powdered
palladium (Ber. d. Deutschen Chem. Ges., 59,
2039 1926). In this communication, as a
result of further experiments, we feel that we
are in a position to give an explanation of the
occurrence of the observed very small quantities
of helium in our experiments without having
recourse to the assumption of a synthesis of
helium. These experiments have shown that the
liberation of helium from glass is dependent on
the presence of hydrogen The source of the
helium is not in the palladium, but in the glass,
in spite of appearances to the
contrary.Nature, 119, 706, May 14, 1927.
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The New Cold Fusion?
April 8, 2002
The report by R. P. Taleyarkhan et al. of
observations of tritium decay and neutron
emissions associated with the collapse of tiny
bubbles in deuterated acetone -- and the
possibility that those observations may have
arisen from fusion reactions within the
imploding bubbles -- has generated substantial
attention. In the 8 March 2002 issue of Science.
An editorial by Science's Editor in Chief,
Donald Kennedy, is presented on why Science
decided that "publication is the best option."
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Paradigm teaches us how to rank the
following Possible Impossible Plausible Implau
sible Probable Improbable Proven Unproven
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"The main object of physical systems is not the
provision of pictures, but the formulation of
laws governing phenomena, and the application of
these laws to the discovery of new phenomena. If
a picture exists, so much the better but whether
a picture exists or not is a matter of only
secondary importance." P. M. Dirac, Principles
of Quantum Mechanics, 3rd ed, Oxford, 1961, p.
10.
P. M. Dirac, 1902-1984 Nobel Prize, Physics,
1933.
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"The human mind would not be fully satisfied with
a universe in which all phenomena are governed by
a mathematical process that is completely
coherent but totally abstract. Are we not then
in wonderland? In the situation where man is
deprived of all possibility of intellectualization
, that is, of interpreting geometrically a given
process, either he will seek to create, despite
everything, through suitable interpretation, an
intuitive justification of the process or he will
sink into resigned incomprehension. Rene Thom,
"Structural Stability and Morphogenenesis," W. A.
Benjamin, Reading, MA, 1975, p.5.
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Topological Thinking in Chemistry
To a topologist Breakfast is a Difficult
meal Because the Donut and the Cup are
identical Topological Objects.
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Topological geometry The Mathematics of Elastic
Distortions. Topological geometry is the study
of the properties of geometric shapes which do
not change (composition and constitution) when
the shapes themselves are stretched, twisted,
skrunched up or otherwise deformed from one
shape into another. Equivalent (identical)
topological figures may be of different size and
shape as long as they have the same composition
and constitution.
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• Intellectual Processing Through Structure and
  Geometry
• Topological Geometry
• Composition (Numbers and Kinds of Elements)
• Constitution (Connections of Elements to Form a
  Structural Unit)
• --------------------------------------------------
  ---------------------
• Euclidean Geometry
• Constitution (Representation of Structural Units
  in 3D Space)
• Dynamic Transformations (Change of Structural
  Unit with Time)
• Interactions Between Structural Units

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"Many, perhaps most, of the great issues
of science are qualitative not quantitative,
even in physics and chemistry. Equations
and measurements are useful when, and only
when, they are related to proof but proof
or disproof comes first and is in fact
strongest when it is absolutely convincing
without any quantitative measurement. .....yo
u can catch phenomena in a logical box or
in a mathematical box. The logical box
is coarse, but strong. The mathematical
box is fine-grained, but flimsy. The
mathematical box is a beautiful way of
wrapping up a problem, but it will not
hold the phenomena unless they have been
caught first in a logical box. John
Platt, Strong Inference, Science, 146, 347
(1964).
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The moment one has offered an original
explanation for a phenomenon which seems
satisfactory, at that moment affection for the
intellectual child springs into existence, and
as the explanation grows into a definite theory
parental affection cluster about the
offspring...There is then imminent danger of an
unconscious selection and of a magnifying of
phenomena that fall into harmony with the theory
and support it and an unconscious neglect of
phenomena that fail of coincidence. Multiple
hypotheses distribute the effort and divide the
affections....The investigator becomes parent to
a family of hypotheses and by his parental
relations to all is morally forbidden to fasten
his affections unduly on any single one. T. C.
Chamberlin, J. Geology, 5, 837 (1897)
T. C. Chamberlin (1843-1928)
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• Some advice for the Working Scientific
  Revolutionist
• Know the best available paradigms and understand
  the risks associated with departing from them.
• Always generate multiple hypotheses to explain
  observations.
• Reproduce, reproduce, reproduce.
• Collaborate with experts in other paradigms when
  going into new fields.
• Do the unthinkable Try to kill your own ideas!
  The more extraordinary the results appears, the
  more sensational the interpretation that seems to
  be required, the greater the burden of the
  investigator to run the critical experiments
  which verify or refute.

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"But of that most important kind of new
knowledge, that which does not seem to
relate to an existing field, it is harder
to speak on the basis of anything but
faith. And yet in this knowledge lies the
true seed of the future. It will come only
from the least conforming of minds, and the
discoveries of the greatest ultimate moment
are the least likely to have been favored
by official support or encouragement. They
must be like the flowers of the
poet. 'Daffodils, that come before the
swallow dares, and take the winds of March
with beauty.' We may well ask whether the
winds of future Marches may not be more
tolerant than those of the past"
C. N. Hinshelwood 1897-1967.