Raining Extraterrestrial Microbes in Kerala?

jdfox writes "World Science is reporting on a controversial paper to be published shortly in the peer-reviewed research journal Astrophysics and Space Science, describing a strange red rain that fell in India in 2001, shortly after a meteor airburst event in the area. The authors posit that the red particles found in the raindrops may be extraterrestrial microbes. The authors' last two papers on the subject were unpublished: this published paper is more cautious. The paper can be viewed online, and should obviously be considered in context. More info on the 'panspermia' hypothesis can be found at Wikipedia."

Comments

Re:Contradicts Intelligence

[quokkapox]

The text at the link provided asserts that When it comes to religious questions, the IDEA Center's staff and founders believe that compelling evidence shows that the universe was as a whole designed by a "superintellect" that was not natural.

They aren't interested in understanding nature. They're just trying to redefine science.

There are a thousand ways to collaborate scientifically using the Internet. Intelligent Design propenents need to immediately begin describing their ideas more concisely and subjecting them to peer review and public criticism. Without these, their wild speculation will remain subject to extreme ridicule among the educated and their movement will continue to be shunned and exposed as a political and anti-intellectual project, standing for everything science is not.

The continued silence from ID is not an encouraging sign for their "theory". But there is no shortage of new research that tests, supports, and expands upon the existing evolutionary framework. Evolutionary biology is the only theory which is making real progress with understanding nature.

Yes, that must be it...

[Jugalator]

Raining Extraterrestrial Microbes in Kerala?

Meanwhile, Occam turned in his grave.

The research and paper seem quite factual

[Morgaine]

>> This is a stupid paper.

Not at all. Their research examines quite a large range of characteristics of the particles and of the rainfall, and even presents some controls. It's not as tight as some nor, as sloppy as others, but falls well within the mean of the scientific method.

The fact that one particular type of test was not performed by them does not make this a stupid paper --- it just leaves that analysis for some other team to perform. Indeed, they seem to have covered a collosal amount of ground for a single research group already.

Their Discussion section is not part of their scientific findings, but merely provides room for discussion. Non-DNA-based "life" from outer space is a *possible* handwaving interpretation at best, but since no other interpretation matches both the microscopic visual structure and the chemical composition and the rain-distribution pattern simultaneously, it's the best we have at this stage.

>> Trivial test - stain them for bloody cellulose!

Go right ahead and do it yourself, or communicate with them about it. But who said that ET life would employ cellulose anyway? That notwithstanding, it would be a useful test to perform anyway, as it would help discount other possibilities.

Their earlier non-peer-reviewed papers might have been worth your label of "stupid" (meaning non-scientific) in part, but this one is quite factual in all its research sections.