[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Well I think the usual implication of a "search for anomalies" is that any unexplained correlation is used as evidence of ?. Really, ? is not more an anomaly than radium was in the days before a theory of radioactivity.

You have said that "psi" is non-physical and now you compare it with radiation? Alpha, beta and gamma rays can all be detected. They can be blocked by different materials.

String theory is far more untestable than ?, which can be tested with a dog, a video camera, and a random number generator

Comparing "psi" with string theory isn't going to bolster your case. String theory does not currently make any testable predictions but it is not predictionless by definition. If "psi" is defined something that cannot be explained by physcial processes then it's one and only prediction is that it can't be explained by physical processes. It is just an empty vacuous label for our ignorance.

In the case of "dogs that know" only natural explanations can be tested explicitly. You can't do some trials with psi and some without.

I think if he reported that he had some preliminary candidate events, but was still studying them before publishing, absolutely nobody would bat an eyelid. Cern has made tentative announcements like that in the past without any problem at all. in stating how far their evidence goes.

BTW, Fleischman and Pons went rather overboard in their announcement, but not as overboard as the reaction against them. Even now - nearly 20 years on - there seem to be some evidence that some nuclear reactions are happening inside the Pd electrodes.

Science is a communal project which involves mutual trust between scientists. A scientist will use criteria such as the ranking of the journal and the reputation of a group to decide how much credence to give a paper. Ultimately other scientists have to place some amount of trust in other scientists. You can't read every paper and you can't always judge the results from only what is written in the paper. When other scientists abuse that trust by falsifying data or by distorting data then they will be attacked. If scientists make grandiose claims in press releases that are completely out of proportion to the available evidence then they will be attacked.