[Kevmo]

It’s interesting that you say, “When heavy-hitters like Mitsubishi and Toyota start announcing results, it’s time to grab a cup of coffee and pay attention. “ But science is true whether or not someone is a heavy hitter. The Wright brothers unlocked the secrets of controlled flight, while the heavy hitters of their day completely failed. But on in an engineering sense, rather than a scientific sense, heavy hitters are required to attract the money needed for rapid development. It is a requirement for engineering but not for science. The science behind these experiments is long established. The engineering is just at its beginning phase.

[TXnMA]

Like it or not, "heavy hitters" like industrial research labs have the capital backing to remove or minimize many of the variables with which independent "shoestring" researchers must suffer. Just a look at Iwamura's labs' equipment says, "This is solid stuff!"

Frankly, having access to such resources is one of the reasons I chose to do my research in an industrial environment, rather than as an independent. The downside is that all my patents are owned by big corporations... :-(

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Again -- like it or not -- "shoestring" lab setups tend to be cobbled together with whatever is at hand, and, frankly, look "sloppy". In fact, I just saw a video of one italian LENR lab setup with cheap, hand-held (battery powered) meters precariously resting on the platen of a drill press that had been dragged over to do duty as a lab bench.

Not only do such "lashups" hinder viewer confidence because they "look unprofessional", they do tend to produce unreliable results because things are not fixed in place to minimize deviations and instruments usually are not displaying the labels of recent calibrations. Worse, such "jury-rigs" frequently display little attention to safety, as well.

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Bottom line: shoddy-looking experiments performed by non-credentialed researchers are expected to produce less credible results. And when you add in one or two hucksters of the Rossi type, (who explain little, communicate poorly -- and [repeatedly] promise [but don't produce] miracles) it is only human to discredit the whole endeavour...

Then, when you add in vocal (but not necessarily erudite) non-professional "champions of the underdog", who belittle critics -- credibility of the subject takes off in a handbasket.

Sorry -- "Dat just de way t'ings is..."

[PapaBear3625]

It’s interesting that you say, “When heavy-hitters like Mitsubishi and Toyota start announcing results, it’s time to grab a cup of coffee and pay attention. “ But science is true whether or not someone is a heavy hitter.

I just got soured over Rossi's grandiose promises, that lead to nothing at all. Where is Rossi? What is the status of his megawatt cold-fusion system? Has he finally gotten an independent tester to validate his machine in an outside lab? I've just gotten so damn tired of him and his crap.

Large outfits, with reputations to preserve, tend to at least try to deliver on what they say.