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“Warning, Will Robinson! Warning!” – robot from TV series “Lost In Space”

In case you missed the revolution, about 10 days ago humanity’s energy problems were solved, forever. No kidding. Just leave your skepticism at the door.

Steorn, a technology company located in Dublin, Ireland, has thrown down the gauntlet to the world’s scientific community, claiming to have developed a new technology that produces “free, clean, and constant energy. They originally put a large ad in, of all places, the most recent paper copy of The Economist to announce “the challenge” as they put it. And, oh, by the way, it also violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (you know, the one that says energy can neither be created nor destroyed.)

The main page of their website is about what you’d expect from someone making such a claim. This includes a pertinent quote and lots of stuff calculated to suck you in, like a dramatic banner noting “(number of) days since we challenged…”, “(number of) scientists that have expressed interest” and “(number of) people registered to receive results (by email)”. And if that’s not enough, there’s a poll you can vote in (“do you think the scientific community should accept our challenge?”) Interestingly enough, “NO” is winning by about 2-to-1. Hmm, good – maybe there are more skeptics than I thought.

The folks over at Crooked Timber (I love that name; and don’t miss the comments!) helpfully point out that Steorn hews nicely to the seven warning signs of bogus science laid out by the Chronicle of Higher Education. What is it about stuff like this that people just WANT to believe, in spite of what we know? Why are we so willing to suspend our disbelief when the idea is attractive enough?

I’d like to conduct a quick poll. (For a decent sample size, do me a favor - tell your friends to pop over and take the poll.)

When you hear or come across a claim like this, what is YOUR immediate reaction? Select your answer below. This poll will be open for 7 days - I’ll post an update next week.

So the real question is, why do you react like you do? Do us all a favor and tell us, via comments, WHY your reaction is what it is. Thanks, all!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!