'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."'"

Comments

Celebration/Mourning

[BWJones]

This retraction is to be simultaneously celebrated and mourned. Celebrated in the sense that we have a true scientist who will hold up the scientific process and make every effort to prove himself and the community of scientists wrong in order to make the science stronger. When we have individuals that fail to attempt to prove their work as incorrect, we have to acknowledge that they are being driven by other motives and they are not to be trusted.

This noble effort is also to be mourned because of the manipulation and steering of science to fill political goals driven by lack of scientific understanding in the wider community.

Futile Effort

[eldavojohn]

The retraction came about when, on a whim, Dr. Jacobson ran a search for his name on Google. At age 84 and after 20 years of retirement, "I wanted to see, what have I done in all these many years?" he said. "It was vanity. What can I tell you?" That's vanity? No, the only thing he's missing is a bottle of Jack Daniels & that's how I spend my Friday nights!

But in all serious, this is going to be a pretty futile effort. It's greatly appreciated but it's probably going to backfire. This could be spun as 'lawyers' forcing a scientist's views out of sight, a scientist that's just trying to tell the truth. The same lawyers that have orchestrated the dinosaur bones found across the world.

And the character assassination from the Creationists will most likely consist of 'waffler' and 'flip-flopper', two terms I have no idea why they even exist.

This is the sign of a man of the highest quality in my eyes. I only wish that everyone--especially the politicians--look to him for guidance in how to 1) take ownership of something when you're wrong and 2) fix it.

Likely result

[TheMeuge]

The creationist zealots will likely take this bit of news, and embrace it as evidence that the scientific community is trying to be deceitful by withdrawing a "clearly correct" paper, for political reasons.

The amount of confirmation bias that people can exhibit when their passions are challenged is incredible.

Re:Likely result

[TheMeuge]

Or we'll just say that nothing is written in stone, and the papers you publish today may be retracted tomorrow when you change your minds.

Papers are retracted when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary of their conclusions... most of the time that happens when new facts emerge as the science progresses.
<blockquote>This is more a blow (in the long term) to the idea that science yields objective truth, IMO.</blockquote>
I think the bigger concern is that you look for "objective truth"(tm)... There is no such thing - there is only "best approximation" based on the evidence thus far obtained. Science and the scientific method just happen to provide the best framework for making reasonable judgments about the real world, based on theories, the only measure of the success of which, is their PREDICTIVE CAPACITY.

If you come up with a better system, let me know. Until then, I'll be happy with an idea, rather than a belief-based "objective truth", thank you.

Re:Likely result

[ultranova]

Everyone is biased. The difference is between the ones who are aware of their own biases and those who are deluded into thinking that they aren't.

Nah. The difference is between the people who are aware of their biases - namely, me and everyone who agrees with me - and people who are sadly deluded and too caught up in the web of deceit or just plain too stupid to realize it or too stubborn to admit it, or who actually purposefully and maliciously lying and/or engaged in a huge conspiracy against the truth for whatever reason.

If you or the moderators disagree, that's just because your bias of thinking yourself as objective. Let go of your bias and support the objective point of view by modding me up ;).

The thing is, we humans don't actually perceive reality, we perceive an approximation of it, produced by our senses and mental faculties. It is impossible to know how closely your approximation actually resembles reality as a whole or at any particular point, because you have no way of comparing it to reality proper, because the latter is not perceptible to you. That's why people usually assume that their approximation is a good match and anyone who disagrees is wrong or biased. And this is assuming that a particular perception is actually based on some objective reality, which is not at all certain for things like moral values.

What this means is that no one is truly aware of their own biases, since that awareness could only be gained by comparing your approximation of reality to reality proper, which is impossible. You, gentle reader, are biased, and not aware of all of your biases, no matter how certain you are of your own objectivity. You can trust me on this, because I clearly am truly objective, being aware of all this :).

Re:i'm confused on the timeline

[feed_me_cereal]

The same faith held by Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Last time I checked, the "scientists" were outnumbered.

Last time I checked, popular belief didn't make things true. A majority of the population of the world used to think the sun revolved around the earth. It was this "scientific minority" you speak of that happened to be right. This was not an isolated incident, either; it has happened fairly regularly throughout history.

Our documentation is far older than anything they have.

...Which only means it was written by less informed people. How does this help you? Guess what, there are religious texts/artifacts that are older than the Bible. Perhaps you should switch to paganism.

Listen, pal, if you don't trust scientists, then give up all your modern conveniences and move into a cave. You should be respectful of the work they've done to provide you with what you have.

Re:Ironic curiosity

[ArikTheRed]

We're talking about evidence here, which has nothing to do with joy or peace. Facts don't care if you feel good about them.