Slashdot Mirror
News Media Scammed by 'Free Energy' Hoax
The General Electric corporate empire was scammed - they modified the story with a skeptical headline but otherwise left it alone. The AOL/TimeWarner corporate empire didn't have any problem with the story. The Environmental News Network, which probably should know better, didn't.
Now I know that wire stories are often run with minimal verification - each paper or website assumes that Reuters, or UPI, or AP has checked the story for veracity before it went out. And I know that reporters and editors can't be experts on every field of endeavor that they report on.
But this is Basic Science. The Three Laws (everyone loves the Second Law[1]) are not a new thing, and they're not going away any time soon. This should have been taught in junior high. There's a simple, well-known test that Reuters could have applied to this story: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof". This claim is the most extraordinary of all - free energy, perpetual motion, whatever you want to call it, and it demands proof beyond question. Reuters is running this story based on an anonymous inventor. Is that extraordinary proof?
But wait, I said perpetual motion. The phrase "perpetual motion" is one which sets off alarm bells in people's heads, so the anonymous inventor was quick to head off that thought process:
"But he is keen to head off the notion that he has tapped into the age-old myth of perpetual motion. ``Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a self-sustaining unit which at the same time provides surplus electrical energy,'' he said."
This quote is simply embarassing. It parses to "Perpetual motion is impossible. This is a perpetual motion unit." The inventor must be snickering in his Guinness right now to have snuck that one past.
The story gets better when you read it several times. Three 100 Watt light bulbs created a drain of 4500 Watts, according to the nameless inventor. That would be an impressive feat all by itself, except that it's total nonsense.
The piece would have made a good humor article. A properly skeptical and properly educated Reuters reporter could have examined these claims, poked holes in them, and published a story that simultaneously reported on the claims and educated the public about why they are a load of hogwash. Too bad that's not what happened.
Maybe you'd like to take a crack at evaluating their claims? You think you can examine their device a little more critically than Reuters? Give them a call.
And I have a second task as well. Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary. My theory is that the difference between Slashdot and other media is that they never correct themselves, no matter how inaccurate, so readers are left with a false picture of accuracy. To test this claim, I'll send a Thinkgeek t-shirt to the first person who finds a retraction of this 'free energy' story published by Reuters or any of the newspapers/media outlets that ran the original story. *Any* of them. I don't expect to pay out.
Update: 01/24 16:38 GMT by M : CNN has updated their story with a new headline and several new paragraphs at the end, which qualifies. A couple of people also noted that ZDNet appears to have taken their copy of the wire story down. Lucas Garsha was the first to email, so he gets a t-shirt. I wasn't clear whether the claim should be email or in the comments, so I'll also send a t-shirt to the first commenter noting this, which appears to be skia.
[1] This is a fine world that we live in, where I can find a website devoted to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Drat! Some domain squatter already snapped up secondlawofthermodynamics.com!!
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
You know, am I the only person here who swears up and down I've seen Jasker on BattleBots ?!
Slashdot is occasionally criticized for getting a story wrong, even though we diligently correct ourselves when necessary.
So are we ever going to see a retraction of "Yahoo News Posts Advertisements as News", which was widely debunked by commenters? Or how about "Message from Kabul", where Jon Katz claimed to know a boy in Afghanistan who was downloading movies off the Internet using a Commodore 64?
Uh, Northen Ireland is the same thing. Ireland is a different country.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
Hey Heather,
Don't you have email at wired? Did they cut on spendings that much?
Ah, you're of course referring to the classic Schrodinger's Drunken Irishman quandary. Will he be drunk or not at the end of 24 hours? Until we open the box, he's both drunk AND sober!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
its true its true.
Articles like this get published all the time on slow news days...
The article takes an extremely skeptical stance, and despite what michael said about non-humor, there ARE bits of humor in there (Guiness reference).
This proves that MICHAEL is an incompetant boob, not that Reuters is.
The biggest beer producers in the world meet for a conference, and at the end of the day, the presidents of all the beer companies decide to have a drink together at a bar.
The president of Budweiser naturally orders a Bud, the president of Miller orders a Miller, Adolph Coors orders a Coors, and so on down the list. Then the bartender asks Arthur Guinness what he wants to drink, and to everybody's amazement, he orders tea!
"Why don't you order a Guinness?" his colleagues ask suspiciously, wondering if they've stumbled on an embarrassing secret.
"Naaaah," replies Guinness. "If you guys aren't going to drink beer, then neither will I."
--Metrollica
Are you serious?
Money for nothing, pix for free