APS Takes Exception to Its Role as Portrayed in the 60 Minutes Cold Fusion Story

The American Physical Society issued a press statement today (April 22) refuting its role as described in the 60 Minutes report on cold fusion.

In full, their press statement reads as follows:

On April 19, CBS aired a “60 Minutes” segment on “cold fusion,” a process that proponents claim could solve the world’s energy problems. The script stated that “… [‘60 Minutes’] asked the American Physical Society, the top physics organization in America, to recommend an independent scientist. They gave us Rob Duncan, vice chancellor of research at the University of Missouri and an expert in measuring energy.” That statement is false.

None of the American Physical Society’s (APS) authorized spokespersons, including the president, president-elect, executive officer, director of public affairs, head of media relations and press secretary, provided CBS with the names of any experts. APS has learned that “60 Minutes” did receive a long list of names - that included Rob Duncan’s - from University of Minnesota Professor Allen Goldman, who states unequivocally that he never claimed to be acting in the name of APS.

APS does not, as an organization, endorse particular experiments or their results. That can only be done through publication in peer-reviewed journals, and by independent replication by other researchers. The APS does not endorse the cold fusion experiments featured in the April 19 “60 Minutes” news program. Any suggestion by the CBS journalists to the contrary is misleading and false.

The American Physical Society is the leading professional organization of physicists, representing over 46,000 physicists in academia and industry in the United States and internationally. APS has offices in College Park, MD (Headquarters), Ridge, NY, and Washington, D.C.

Is this simply correcting the record as far as the American Physical Society’s position on recommending or promoting any technology outside the peer-review process as they say? Or is there more going on here behind the scenes? Are we going to see more efforts to chip away at the credibility of the CBS 60 Minutes report to again call into question whether something significant is happening in cold fusion experiments?

Time will tell.

CBS 60 Minutes Cold Fusion Update: April 25, 2005

CBS subsequently took the online video of the show off-line. It looks like they are correcting how they describe the APS’s role in the show.

According to a CBS statement on the removal of the video:

“We will have the video back up as soon as we can make the change to it that we already made to the text version.” — Kevin Tedesco, Communications Director, CBSNews - 60 MINUTES (April 24, 2009 11:09 AM Mountain)

– Blake Harris

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