which is better - liar or twat? I dunno....

Amusing fall-out from the (unsurprisingly) abortive demo of Steorn's somewhat implausible perpetual motion machine in London a couple of weeks ago; an interview with the CEO of the company, Sean McCarthy.

Now claims for having actually produced a perpetual motion machine seem pretty uninteresting, in that doing such a thing violates some pretty fundamental laws of thermodynamics. I'll let you in in a secret: I reckon they haven't really done it. Bet against me if you like, but I'd recommend small-denomination banknotes.

No, in my view a more interesting question is the one prompted by reading the recent McCarthy interview. Now he comes across as reasonable, articulate, fairly knowledgeable about the scientific concepts involved (he has a background in mechanical engineering, apparently, though I don't know to what level), and humorously self-deprecating about the failure of the demo. So, you have to assume one of the following two things is true:

• he is a charlatan who is trying to suck as much venture capital as possible into his completely fictional smoke-and-mirrors (and probably some big hefty batteries) project before finding a way to abscond with the loot;
• he genuinely believes that his organisation has come up with something, and has deluded himself to such an extent that neither the failure of the demo, nor the comprehensive dismantling of it by the proper scientists, should they ever be allowed to look at it properly, will dissuade him.

This is a fascinating question - Eric Ash on the BBC plumps for the second option. I was going to say "charitably", but I'm not so sure it is; it's weighing up an intellectual crime against a moral one, and I'm not sure I have a correctly calibrated set of scales. My guess, for what it's worth, is that it's the first; a bit of lovable Irish blarney goes a long way. As does some sympathetic newspaper coverage of the "little guy" and his plucky fight against the stifling powers of scientific orthodoxy, especially when the little guy claims to have something that will benefit humanity.

An almost exact parallel of which was in the news this week as Andrew Wakefield was up before the beak for irregularities involved with his research into autism. Needless to say the papers used it (despite the specific case here having nothing to do with it) to rehash the tired old stories about the spurious "link" between MMR and autism. None of which was very interesting, but asking the same two questions about Wakefield is: i.e. is he a charlatan whose motivation was just financial, or does he really believe what he says, despite his own claims being disowned by his co-workers at the time, his methodology being comprehensively dismantled, and all the studies done before and since the scare (well, sadly it's still very much alive) showing no link whatsoever?

I have no idea. Next week, how wi-fi causes global warming. Wi-fi is pretty recent, right? And global warming is like, recent too, yeah? QED.