Anecdotal Evidence

[bennyboy]

I do think that your take on things, provides an interesting twist on the Burden of Proof. 

Concerning your lab fire, and the cold fusion machine.  Do you think that there is a difference, between demonstrating, that cold fusion was achieved, and that one know's how to produce cold fusion (or can do it again)?

I used this example, because it's one of the neat cases where apparently sincere scientists have been eluded by what they thought they had in this way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion

This has actually happened in our lifetimes, and I can remember it-- fairly legit scientists claimed they had produced a low level cold fusion using (I believe) materials extracted from sea water or something like that. They shared their data with other institutions, who were all unable to reproduce the results.

This case is particularly interesting, because Martin Fleischmann, one of the scientists involved, had achieved many useful results, and was a highly respected and decorated chemist already at that time. If you were looking for an authority whose word you might trust at face value, he'd probably be one that you'd say, "Well. . . if Martin Fleischmann says it happened, it probably did."

It's a testament to the scientists involved, to the scientific community, and to science itself, that we don't go around talking about the miracle of cold fusion today, just because we accept the "testimony" of a well-known member of the scientific community.