Role of the press in cold fusion saga
- Nature, Washington, DC (United States)
Press reports of cold-fusion discoveries in Utah and the pending publication of them in Nature magazine caught the associate editor of Nature, David Lindley, by surprise. Like most people, he had never heard of cold fusion. He learned that two papers, one from Steven Jones at Brigham Young University and one from Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah, had been submitted to Nature and were undergoing the magazine's peer-review process. For weeks, Lindley was bombarded by reporters wanting daily progress reports. Many of the reporters considered the peer review a fuddy-duddy procedure meant primarily to impose conformity and suppress revolutionary ideas. In the end, Nature decided to publish the paper by Jones but not the one by Pons and Fleischmann. Because of the doubts cast on Pons and Fleischmann's findings, Nature's decision created no great public stir, Lindley recalls. But it did help reinforce in the authors the belief that they were heretics whom the establishment was out to destroy. Like politicians struggling at the polls, they blamed everyone but themselves, Lindley says. Above all, they blaimed the two all-time favorites - the media and the establishment.
- OSTI ID:
- 6651933
- Journal Information:
- Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy; (United States), Journal Name: Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy; (United States) Vol. 7:4; ISSN FARPEL; ISSN 0887-8218
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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