From Fax to Facts: Communication in the Cold Fusion Saga

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 25, Issue 3, 1995, Pages 403-436

  Lewenstein, Bruce V ^a  

^a Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84970759675     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: 14603659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631295025003001     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. See, for example, Sharon M. Friedman, Sharon Dunwoody and Carol L. Rogers (eds), Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News (New York: Free Press, 1986);
2. Dorothy Nelkin, Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology (New York: W.H. Freeman, rev. edn, 1985);
3. Hillier Krieghbaum (ed.), ‘Special Section on Science News’, Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 40 (1963), 291–338;
4. Krieghbaum, Science and the Mass Media (New York: New York University Press, 1967);
5. Wilbur Schramm, Science and the Public Mind (Washington, DC: AAAS Miscellaneous Publication No. 62–3, 1962);
6. Percy H. Tannenbaum, ‘Communication of Science Information’, Science, Vol. 140 (10 May 1963), 579–83.
7. Terry Shinn and Richard Whitley (eds), Expository Science: Forms and Functions of Popularisation (Dordrecht, Lancaster & Boston, MA: D. Reidel, 1985).
8. For work on the rhetoric of science, see Charles Bazerman, Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988);
9. Greg Myers, Writing Biology: Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990);
10. and Alan G. Gross, The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
11. At least four articles looking explicitly at rhetoric in the cold fusion case have appeared: Thomas F. Gieryn, ‘The Ballad of Pons and Fleischmann: Experiment and Narrative in the (Un)Making of Cold Fusion’, in Ernan McMullin (ed.), The Social Dimensions of Science (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 217–43;
12. Alan Gross, ‘Renewing Aristotelian Theory: The Cold Fusion Controversy as a Test Case’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. 81 (1995), 48–62;
13. Dale L. Sullivan, ‘Exclusionary Epideictic: NOVA's Narrative Excommunication of Fleischmann and Pons’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 19 (1994), 283–306;
14. and Charles Alan Taylor, ‘Defining the Scientific Community: A Rhetorical Perspective on Demarcation’, Communication Monographs, Vol. 58 (1991), 402–20.
15. Christopher Dornan, ‘The “Problem” of Science and the Media: A Few Seminal Texts in Their Context, 1956–1965’, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 12 (1988), 53–70;
16. Dornan, ‘Some Problems in Conceptualizing the Issue of “Science and the Media” ’ Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Vol. 7 (1990), 48–71;
17. and Stephen Hilgartner, ‘The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 20 (1990), 519–39.
18. Bruce V. Lewenstein et al., ‘Truisms About Science and the Mass Media: The Case of Cold Fusion’, paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Boston, MA, 7 August 1991;
19. Shannon E. Martin, ‘Using Expert Sources in Breaking Science Stories’, Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 68 (1991), 179–87.
20. Harold D. Lasswell, ‘The Structure and Function of Communication in Society’, in Lyman Bryson (ed.), The Communication of Ideas (New York: Harper & Row, 1948), 37–51.
21. Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
22. David Berlo, The Process of Communication (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960).
23. Em Griffen, Communication: A First Look at Communication Theory (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991).
24. More sophisticated presentations of general communication theories appear in Werner J. Severin and James W. Tankard, Jr., Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, Uses (New York: Longman, 2nd edn, 1988), as well as other textbooks.
25. Key texts include: Robert K. Merton, The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, ed. Norman W. Storer (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1973);
26. Warren Hagstrom, The Scientific Community (New York: Basic Books, 1965);
27. Jonathan Cole and Stephen Cole, Social Stratification in Science (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1973).
28. John M. Ziman, Public Knowledge: An Essay Concerning the Social Dimension of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).
29. Garvey's work was compiled as William D. Garvey, Communication:The Essence of Science - Facilitating Information Exchange among Librarians, Scientists, Engineers and Students (Oxford & New York: Pergamon Press, 1979).
30. Key texts of the period included the two by Krieghbaum, both. Historical analyses of this period appear in Bruce V. Lewenstein, ‘The Meaning of “Public Understanding of Science” in the United States after World War II’, Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 1 (1992), 42–68;
31. and John Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987).
32. Bruce V. Lewenstein, ‘Science and the Media’, in Sheila Jasanoff et al. (eds), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995), 343–60.
33. See, for example, Barry Barnes, Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974);
34. David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976);
35. Michael Mulkay, Science and Sociology of Knowledge (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979);
36. Jerome R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971);
37. and Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979).
38. CBS Evening News, 23 March 1989, on ‘Vanderbilt TV Archives’ videotape, CCFA. Unless otherwise indicated, all sources (including tapes of interviews) are available in the Cornell Cold Fusion Archive, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA (hereafter, ‘CCFA’).
39. Jerry E. Bishop, ‘Breakthrough in Fusion May Be Announced’, Wall Street Journal (23 March 1989), Bl. The ‘thermonuclear’ quotation was taken from the University of Utah's press release itself;
40. ‘“Simple Experiment” Results in Sustained N-Fusion at Room Temperature for First Time’ (press release, 23 March 1989, ‘Pamela Fogle’ folder, CCFA).
41. Jerry Bishop, ‘Utah Scientists Claim Breakthrough in Quest for Fusion Energy’, Wall Street Journal (24 March 1989), Al.
42. Histories of cold fusion appear in various sources. See especially Bruce V. Lewenstein and Wolfgang Baur, ‘A Cold Fusion Chronology’, Journal of Radio-analytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 152 (1991), 279–98;
43. Lewenstein, ‘Cold Fusion and Hot History’, Osiris, Vol. 7 (1992), 135–63;
44. Frank Close, Too Hot to Handle: The Race for Cold Fusion (London: W.H. Allen; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991);
45. John Huizenga, Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century, revised and updated edition (Oxford, New York & Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1993);
46. Eugene Mallove, Fire from Ice: Searching for the Truth Behind the Cold Fusion Furor (New York: John Wiley, 1991);
47. and Gary Taubes, Bad Science: The Short Life and Very Hard Times of Cold Fusion (New York: Random House, 1993).
48. Michael H. Salamon et al., ‘Limits on the Emission of Neutrons, Gamma Rays, Electrons and Protons from Pons/Fleischmann Electrolytic Cells’, Nature, Vol. 344 (29 March 1990), 401–05.
49. Fritz Will et al. (eds), The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion: Conference Proceedings (Salt Lake City, UT: NCFI, 1990).
50. Gary Taubes, ‘Cold Fusion Conundrum at Texas A&M’, Science, Vol. 248 (15 June 1990), 1299.
51. Interview with Eugene Mallove, 8 November 1989, CCFA.
52. Steven Koonin interview, 16 November 1989, CCFA. Given the well-known phenomenon that people can recall precisely the circumstances in which they heard dramatic news, these examples may be anomalies. Other cold fusion participants recall with greater certainty how they heard of the new claims.
53. The sci.physics bulletin board is one of thousands of bulletin boards available through the USENET computer network, a worldwide collection of ‘newsgroups’ used in the early 1990s by at least 1.4 million people. A rapidly expanding literature deals with the Internet and issues in ‘computer-mediated communication’ (CMC); useful introductions to and overviews of the status of the Internet and CMC in the early 1990s can be found in John S. Quarterman, The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide (Bedford, MA: Digital Press, 1990);
54. Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991);
55. and Ed Krol, The Whole Internet: User's Guide and Catalog (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1992).
56. ‘Off the Record‘ videotape, CCFA.
57. ‘Simple Experiment’.
58. Douglas Smith, ‘Quest for Fusion’, [Caltech]Engineering and Science (Summer 1989), 3–15.
59. All of these are in the ‘Preprints’ folders, CCFA. The Jones article is S.E. Jones et al., ‘Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter’, Nature, Vol. 338 (27 April 1989), 737–40.
60. Ron Dagani, ‘Hopes for Cold Fusion Diminish as Ranks of Disbelievers Swell’, Chemical & Engineering News (22 May 1989), 8–20, on 13.
61. Garwin's referee report is in the ’Richard Garwin’ folder, CCFA. His article was Richard Garwin, ‘Consensus on Cold Fusion Still Elusive’, Nature, Vol. 338 (20 April 1989), 616–17.
62. Jennings Bryant and Richard L. Street, Jr., ‘From Reactivity to Activity and Action: An Evolving Concept and Weltanschauung in Mass and Interpersonal Communication’, in Robert P. Hawkins, John M. Wiemann and Suzanne Pingree (eds), Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Process (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988), 162–90;
63. and Brenda Dervin, ‘Audience as Listener and Learner, Teacher and Confidante: The Sense Making Approach’, in Ronald E. Rice and Charles K. Atkin (eds), Public Communication Campaigns (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 2nd edn, 1989), 67–86.
64. David Ansley, taped interview, 18 November 1989, CCFA.
65. See also Ivan Amato, taped interview, 11 August 1989, CCFA;
66. and Kelvin Lynn, taped interview, 12 July 1989, CCFA.
67. Enzo Bertolini to D. Mead, 8 May 1989, ‘Dennis Manos’ folder, CCFA.
68. NBC Nightly News, 13 April 1989, on ‘Vanderbilt TV Archives’ videotape, CCFA.
69. Lee Dye, ‘Stanford Lab Adds Support to Table-Top Fusion Claims’, Los Angeles Times (19 April 1989), 3, 17;
70. Dye, ‘Fusion Scientists Delay Publication of Research’, Los Angeles Times (21 April 1989), 3, 28;
71. and Dye, ‘Scientists Grow Frustrated Over Fusion Claim’, Los Angeles Times (23 April 1989), 1, 43. According to the physicist Frank Close, a series of previously scheduled meetings held around the country on 23–24 April played a major role in creating a social consensus about what had been individual doubts regarding the experiments;
72. ‘APS Press Conference’, audiotapes, CCFA;
73. ‘APS, TV news excerpts’, videotapes, CCFA;
74. Associated Press, ‘More Scientists Cool to Fusion Claims’, San Jose Mercury News (3 May 1989), 7A;
75. and Malcolm W. Browne, ‘Fusion Claim is Greeted with Scorn by Physicists’, New York Times (3 May 1989), A1.
76. Richard Petrasso et al., ‘Problems with the Gamma-Ray Spectrum in the Fleischmann et al. Experiments’, Nature, Vol. 339 (18 May 1989), 183–85.
77. Time (8 May 1989);
78. Newsweek (8 May 1989). Both major newsmagazines are dated at the end of the week in which they appear.
79. Robert Pool, ‘Cold Fusion: End of Act I’, Science, Vol. 245 (2 June 1989), 1039–40.
80. Draft interim report of the Cold Fusion Panel to the Energy Research Advisory Board, typescript, 13 July 1989, ‘Steven Jones’ folder, CCFA.
81. Brookhaven National Laboratory, ‘Seminar notes’ folder, CCFA.
82. ‘Morrison newsletter’ folder, CCFA.
83. David Williams, taped interview, 11 April 1990, CCFA.
84. Charles Martin, taped interview, 17 July 1989, CCFA.
85. P.K. Iyengar and M. Srinivasan (eds), BARC Studies in Cold Fusion (Trombay, Bombay, India: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, December 1989) (copy in ‘Papers’ folder, CCFA);
86. M. Fleischmann et al., ‘Calorimetry of the Palladium-Deuterium-Heavy Water System’, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and Inter facial Electrochemistry, Vol. 287 (25 July 1990), 293–348.
87. David P. Phillips et al., ‘Importance of the Lay Press in the Transmission of Medical Knowledge to the Scientific Community’, New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 325 (17 October 1991), 1180–83;
88. Elizabeth S. Clemens, ‘Of Asteroids and Dinosaurs: The Role of the Press in the Shaping of Scientific Debate’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 16 (1986), 421–56;
89. William Glen (ed.), The Mass Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994).
90. Robert M. Hazen, The Breakthrough (New York: Summit Books, 1988);
91. Bruce Schechter, The Path of No Resistance (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989);
92. Ulrike Felt, ‘Fabricating Scientific Success Stories,’ Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 2 (1993), 375–90;
93. Helga Nowotny and Ulrike Felt, High Temperature Superconductivity: A Research Field in the Making (forthcoming).
94. Bruce V. Lewenstein and Lisa Heinz, Changing Culture of Research: Processes of Knowledge Transfer, contractor report to US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, December 1992;
95. Teresa M. Harrison and Timothy D. Stephen (eds), Computer Networking and Scholarship in the 21st Century University (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994).
96. Bruce V. Lewenstein, ‘Do Public Electronic Bulletin Boards Help Create Scientific Knowledge? The Cold Fusion Case’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring 1995), 123–49.
97. Marcel C. LaFollette, ‘Scientists and the Media: In Search of a Healthier Symbiosis’, The Scientist (9 July 1990), 13, 15.