Dear Mr. Mad Scientist:

You’ve written standard internet polemics, but have not written a scientific paper. Manna of Utah will succeed and hire people here, or it won’t. The outcome will matter, but the pre-outcome debate won’t. I’m not offended that you have an opinion, and have no reason to think you’re wrong or right, but I do wish you wouldn’t make science look bad by claiming more than you’re doing.

A scientific writing has three parts. Part one is to write a testable hypothesis. You’ve done the hypothesis part for Manna’s generators, but it could be tough to do a real test without having either a working generator or some help from Manna.

Part two of a scientific paper is to describe the hypothesis test methods and results. I think you’ve given us three bits of evidence, none of them scientifically valid. One of the evidences in your links is that many people agree with your hypothesis, but that’s not really evidence; many people also once agreed that night air caused malaria.

Your other tests allege violations of the accepted thermodynamic principle that it isn’t possible to create energy. One of the ways you come at that is to say Manna people claim the generator isn’t a perpetual motion machine, so therefore it must be. That notion requires an assumption you didn’t prove. You also say that because you can’t think of any way the machine could work without creating energy, it can’t work. But pure ignorance isn’t a test. I don’t understand how computers work either, but we know they do.

After writing a hypothesis and describing test results, a scientific paper will discuss possible conclusions that can be based on the results. Since you have neither real tests nor real results, you’re left with an unproven hypothesis, or an opinion.

Finally, it’s fine for you to have an opinion and to express it. It isn’t fine to confuse opinion with science.

Unfortunately I don’t seem to be able to find any free searches for patents pending. Freepatents has the publications online, but who could possibly search those volumes without a computer? It’s unfortunate that the newspaper, though claiming to have shown experts the ‘patent’ (patent application at best if it is still pending – obviously the journalist doesn’t understand the differences), no useful information such as application number or publication date are provided. Of course the company could have put in an application and be claiming ‘pending’ even though they hadn’t received a notice from the PTO yet, but in principle that still means you can show others your patent (if no applications are ever lost). Want to write to the newspaper and obtain a copy of these patents?

Instead, people are using it to give false legitimacy to the junk they are selling. The public sees “patent pending” and they assume that is the next best thing to an actual patent, and that it must be legit. I could take a dump in a box, file a patent application with the claim that it cures acne, and call it “patent pending”. So whenever I see this on something I’m considering buying, I usually avoid doing so until a patent is approved.

Leave it to a Mormon (he is) to sell a dream to the desperate. I hope he and his little group go down hard before anyone else gets hurt.