Reply #5: Although Clark has a degree in physics and proposed the geostationary

[NNadir]

orbit for communications satellites, he has actually done very little science, and as far as I can tell zero nuclear science and zero electrochemistry.

An appeal to Arthur C. Clark to support cold fusion is therefore an example of the logical fallacy of "appeal to authority," in which one advances an argument by claiming that a person prominent in a particular specialty is equally competent to makes claims about another specialty about which he may know very little. I don't recall reading a single reference to Arthur C. Clark anywhere in nuclear physics or nuclear chemistry, and I happen to read quite a bit of both. Therefore I suspect he is, in fact, in this area just another layman.

I am not a fan of Carl Sagan's fiction by the way.