This cold fusion business reminds me of this experiment. Why? The experiment showed how normal people can start acting strangely in such a setting.
If you give somebody some authority, they can abuse it. As in the experiment, this can happen even with normal people. If there is any pathology to begin with, it must be far worse.
In the case of the cold fusion study group set up by the DOE, the authority figure was the government, followed by the group, who was to pass judgment on the cold fusioneers. For each of their parts, the cold fusioneers started to act paranoid, as the "guards" started to act sadistically. Not necessarily in that order or sequence. [see Pathological Science]
It aggravates the sadistic treatment to call the cold fusioneers "Pathological", when their own sadistic treatment of them may have brought on some of the behavior in the first place.
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