Here’s a fine example of why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - North Korea claims they’ve developed fusion power:
Is it likely that an incredibly poor country with a lousy record of technological achievements has made this breakthrough? No, not really. Given NK’s history of nutty pronouncements in the past, does it make sense to examine any such claim very carefully? Yes.
But is it possible that they’ve done what they claim? Yes. It’s possible that they’ve made some breakthrough that has evaded every other country working on this for the last several decades, but before rushing out to invest your money in North Korean Fusion Co, I think you’d want to see an actual working fusion reactor and you’d want to see tests by impartial experts in the field demonstrating that it’s actually a practical fusion reactor.
I haven’t posted here in a long time. Your post is amazing, wonderful, astute and accurate. Is it available on a bumper sticker? t-shirt? newsletter? Can I quote you?
If that’s the way you think how much time do you think I should spend investigating this intriguing offer I was emailed today (note, all formatting sic)"
You don’t see the problems with the experimental design here? Like, the guy claims to never drink water. Oh, he GARGLES water, but he doesn’t drink it. Hmm.
Now, maybe this just hadn’t occured to you, but perhaps when this man is gargling water, he swallows–accidentally, mind you–a bit of that water? Or maybe when he’s taking a bath, he pees in the bath? Or maybe when he’s taking a bath, he says, “Look over there, what’s that???” and when the guys turn around he takes a sip of water?
See, the experimental design is crap. And it’s got the typical crap folderol of MRIs and cameras and body scans. None of which mean crap. Those things are included because they’re science-y. I bet they had a Jacob’s Ladder too.
The problem is that it is trivially easy for a confederate to pass this guy low-residue food. It’s dead easy. It’s so easy that any further discussion about this guy is pointless, except to illustrate how credulous people can be.
On the one hand, you have the possibility of a guy who drinks when he gargles, pees in the bath, and gets handed a few biscuits on the sly by a helper. On the other hand, you’ve got a guy who is a perpetual motion machine, and violates the laws of physics, which if true would be very exciting. (On the third hand, the entire story is made up out of whole cloth by a bored reporter on a deadline, but let’s discount that for a moment).
So, given that if true this story would be tremendously exciting, why aren’t I interested in further investigation? Because the first possibility is so enormously overwhelmingly likely that considering any other possibility is pointless. As pointless as considering that letter from Benin (NOT Nigeria!) I posted earlier. If you can see why I don’t investigate that letter, you’ll see why I’m not excited about this story either.
