Being somewhat involved in leadership education and methods I recently had some kind of an insight. A well known tool for learning how the manage and recruit the right personality to the right position is the Jung Typology and MBTI test. You know, if you’re an ENTP profile your the typical “inventor” and if you’re the ISTJ you’re the typical “inspector”.
And right here, we have the conflict of pro and con LENR in a super-simplified psychological profile… In common they have an extrovert “T”, which means that this is what they both show to the outer world. They both prefer to be seen as “thinkers”. But apart from that, they are completely different. The Inventor uses “N” (iNtuition) as the main method of gathering and interpreting information about the world, while the Inspector uses “S” (Senses/facts) to do the same thing. Actually for an Inspector the facts are even more important than thinking since, being introvert, it’s their dominant function, thinking is just a tool to manage the FACTS.
Have a look at these statements to know what I’m talking about and maybe determine your preference. It’s really quite obvious.
(a) Loose speculations bore me the most, or (b) Trivial details bore me the most
(a) I prefer to focus on facts, or (b) I prefer to focus on possibilities and perspectives
Unfortunately I believe that the research community, maybe especially in physics, is overcrowded with the “S” types. And they tend to recruit other “S” types, that will continue to analyse already known facts, or maybe make tiny advancements in really specialized fields. This is the way they want it. They feel safe.
And then comes a “N” type and says: “All the facts that make up the core of your belief, is wrong…”
What will happen? Well the Inspector will fall into pure weakness, because new things are dangerous to them. And they will show feelings instead of thinking. However they are not especially good at this so they start defending and attacking, using poor value driven arguments like fraud, incompetence and personal accusations. They easily fall into pseudoskepticism. This also explains why it is fruitless to argue back using logic and quantitative reasoning. They are not listening anymore, because they are in denial. They would rather like to kill than agree on anything that threatens their world view.
The only way to handle the “S” types is for the “N” types to keep working on their own. The “S”-types will not be of much help at present, but eventually the data from more experiments will convince some of them, and then finally, all of them from pure group pressure. Time is also an important factor. They need to withdraw, analyse the experiments and figure out how the new data can be incorporated in their old world view without to much change. And eventually they will come up with the theory that explains it all, and it can be considered a fact. And then, they will feel safe again.
