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'55 Science Paper Retracted to Thwart Creationists
i_like_spam writes "The New York Times has up a story about a paper published in 1955 by Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College. The paper, entitled 'Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life', speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in the Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, 'one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive.' Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, but today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want — from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention. So after 52 years, he has retracted the paper. 'Dr. Jacobson's retraction is in "the noblest tradition of science," Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobson's letter. His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction," and people who "cling to dogma."'"
he paper, entitled 'Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life', speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in the Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, 'one could imagine a few hardy compounds could survive ... creationists cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention.
Wait, so is the earth billions of years old, or 6000 years old, as told in the bible?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The amount of confirmation bias that people can exhibit when their passions are challenged is incredible.
I can think of about 25% of the U.S. population who prove your statement incontrovertibly true.
The amount of confirmation bias that people can exhibit when their passions are challenged is incredible.
Are you talking about the "humans caused global warming" crowd?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
So now as a creationist all I need to do is take my least favorite scientific postings, twist their words to say what I want them to and viola they get retracted and denounced! Wow, why didn't I think of this before?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
[quote]The amount of confirmation bias that people can exhibit when their passions are challenged is incredible.[/quote]
This, ofcourse, only applies when your opponent is involved. You, on the other hand, are never wrong. You never have a fault in your logic and you do not suffer from even the most common logical imperfections. You are perfect.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
in 1998 i made an inflammatory post on slashdot in a discussion thread about the merits or lack thereof of windows 98. people have used that post to claim that i am a troll. i am not a troll, i am in fact a lurker. by retracting that post i am able to assert that
thank you for your attention
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Which one has the coolest pictures?
Funny, I thought Bush had a 30% approval rating.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I take great offense to this post, and will elaborate on exactly why.
You propose that the poster you quoted is never wrong. We'll take this statement as Truth B. Truth A similarly states that it is I who am never wrong.
Truth A and Truth B, under normal conditions, can coexist. However, if you run this pair through enough permutations, you will eventually include an instance that pits myself against him. In such a case, the two statements are mutually exclusive.
Since A is a constant, and B is hypothetical in nature, then the result is obvious to anyone with a clear head. Truth A logically overules Truth B, rendering B less than factual.
Thank you for your time.
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
That God didn't play dice with the universe! (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
Anonymous Cowards suck.
Are you sure that isn't just your bias?
The government can't save you.
Hmm. I think the real question is this: If I put Richard Dawkins and Ann Coulter in a room together, will they annihilate each other? Even if I can't harvest the result as energy, man, sounds like a win/win situation to me!
Terse, unsupported assertions are the enemy of cheese.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Don't bother. I've run the down syndrome decrypter, and it just turns out to be a damn troll anyway.
He apparently used "nerd bait".
Is the assertion "Life arose from non-life around three billion years ago on the prehistoric earth" falsifiable without resorting to some form of the anthropic principle?
Yes. Go three billion light years away with a really strong telescope. Tell me what you see.
Learn to love Alaska
If you re-read the article, you will note that he admits that he withdrew the paper because he was embarrassed to be associated with creationists. If he had just randomly discovered mistakes in one of his 1955 papers, I don't believe there is any way he would have withdrawn it.
This story is great news for people who worry about global warming, because however hot the earth gets, even if it gets hot enough to kill us all, when the earth eventually cools it seems that life 2.0 will spontaneously evolve.
Reduce, reuse, cycle