signalnoise

I'm a little fuzzy on it myself these days. But the original issue would have been poor experimental technique, rather than fraud - impure materials, that sort of thing. That's what happens in most of the science screwups of this sort; science is a community where your standing is based on your reputation. Not many people will risk their entire professional standing on something which (by definition) everyone else is going to try to repeat.
(And I apologise if you know all this already )

My argument that "something interesting" was happening in the Pons/Fleischmann experiments is based partly on the buzz at work at the time (I worked in the nuclear industry for a long time), partly on a report I read (in New Scientist, I think) that quite a lot of quiet research funding had been provided to labs in various places by two Japanese corporations, the Japanese government, a European government (Italian, I think) and the US Navy.

I might l tell you I order in from the Medici at least once a week...
I cry and would rather take a beating when i have to order from Maravallies (sp??)
the phone call to order never takes less than 30 minutes, with me repeating, them repeating, me confirming, them confirming... *sigh*