-Eternal Spring

Having just completed Voodoo Science by Robert Park, which inludes decisive dissections of no fewer than three "free energy" proponents' claims, I was delighted and somewhat shocked to see a new contender on BoingBoing today. I'd definitely recommend BoingBoing any day (link to your right), but go visit these earth-shakers yourself at their site.

While they've clearly spent some money on the design and back-end functions of their site, and their charming brogues might lilt the doubt out of you, these Irishmen have mostly produced nothing more than a whole lot of hot air, at least so far. Their website, and accompanying ink-and-paper notices in UK magazines, have put the scientific world on notice--as of this writing, these essential stats were available on the Steorn site:

2-days since we challenged the world's scientists to test our revolutionary free energy technology

704-scientists have expressed interest in testing our technology

8180-people have registered to receive the results

Just so it's clear, and I don't compromise my interest in this, I am both one of the scientists who will help test this (my scholarly interests are automotive and alternative fuels) and one of those registered to receive results--with bated breath, I assure you. Their pluck is admirable, if nothing else, and it remains unclear which of the two types of voodoo scientists these men are--those that drink their own kool-aid or the ones snickering at the rubes gathering outside the tent--fools or frauds by Park's reckoning.

Whichever kind they are, it seems no one has schooled them on how science works. By issuing a challenge to the world's scientists to test their theory, they've evaded responsibility to design reliable tests around a hypothesis, repeat them to verify results, then publish results for scrutiny by the community. Carl Sagan, or someone, said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". What isn't required is a video of a CEO and marketing manager of a hitherto unknown company making winky comments about their known problems with the laws of thermodynamics.
Should the white-paper I am eligible to receive as a registered scientist ever actually be sent, I'll soon it share via this forum. Should someone else beat me to it, the link will be made. I don't consider we'll learn much from the energy leprechauns.

All that being said, there is a part of me that still wants to believe that I am wrong, that hundreds of years of science and thousands of experimental results are mistaken about the nature of reality. It is impossible even to imagine a world in which the many costs of energy are dissolved in a moment.

I trolled the message boards available under Steorn's forum link, and a lot of that hopeful sentiment is there. The first topic, as of this writing, is "What will we do if they're right?". While others are as silly as "Save us From Mars!!!" or "xbox", and many of the comments stray wildly off topic, there is a decidedly optimistic thread in the postings.

What is common to my thinking, those postings and the ability of this company to generate publicity, if not power, is what Park, citing Gary Taubes, calls "Pascal's wager". Blaise Pascal recommended the path of faith saying, "Do not hesitate to wager that God exists. If you win, you win everything." I'll close with Park's words on that thought: "Needless to say, they love Pascal in Las Vegas. Some form of Pascal's wager is often invoked to justify impossible schemes." Indeed.