Slashdot Mirror
War Over Arsenic Based Life
Antipater writes "Slashdot readers may remember the announcement and ensuing controversy six months ago over the NASA discovery of microbes that can supposedly incorporate arsenic into their DNA. Now, The Washington Post reports that Science has published a collection of eight scathing critiques of astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, her methods, and her conclusions. Wolfe-Simon is starting to fire back and gather her own allies — one wonders if we're in for another cold-fusion style science war."
http://www.slate.com/id/2295724/
Thank you; I was about to point this out. Mod Parent Up, as the saying goes.
This is how science works, and how it has always worked. You hang your theory out and the rest of the scientific community goes for it with machetes and chainsaws, which either kills it or makes it stronger. That's how we sift the truth from the wishful thinking (and, more rarely, deliberate fraud). That's also why the idea of a "vast conspiracy of scientists" occasionally mooted by (cough) certain persons is so hilarious. It's about as feasible as throwing a dozen pissed-off cats into a large sack and finding that they all decided to enter into a conspiracy.
And thanks for reminding me about the N-rays; I read the famous Nature paper the other week, and (being a scientist) had great fun watching the poor bastards' theories being shredded in deceptively bland scientific prose.
At this point, I would not conclude that anything is wrong with the original research - only that more experiments are needed. Pretty standard. No peer reviewer tries to reproduce experiments, usually. They just offer methodological criticism. And the criticism offered so far could pretty much be overcome by some discussion with the reviewer. The original research is not the strongest, but neither is the criticism. It is interesting enough stuff to publish it, if only to get the discussion going and more people interested in picking up the subject. I see no failure there. Business as usual.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
This conduct on the part of the science community is pretty non-scientific, IMHO. If you have doubts, attempt to reproduce the original results. In doing so, you will either reproduce them and if not, you may stumble upon scientific proof of precisely why the original experiment is flawed. If the original research stands to overturn a century of accepted theory, then you had *better* bloody well attempt to verify or contradict the original research using the *scientific method* instead of using 100 years of possibly flawed theory as a shield against new knowledge and insight. Personal attacks? Are you kidding me? Are these people children?
Carl Sagan is turning in his grave.
Peer review does not normally involve attempting to replicate someone's results. It involves reading carefully to see whether they did their homework, whether the (purported) observations support the claims, whether they forgot to take something important into account, etc.
If you do publish something that is new or surprising, other researchers will jump all over it. But everyone has more to do than they can finish in one lifetime, so no one is going to run out and try to replicate results until some case has been made that they are plausible.
You could waste lifetimes trying to reproduce results you have doubts about.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
For global warming, it means taking two different planet Earths, adding CO2 to one and not the other, and then measuring the temperatures. Can you show me the referreed journal article that describes that experiment being done even once, much less in a reproducable manner as required by the scientific method?
So according to your logic, Newton was just bullshitting when he said the Moon causes the tides because he did not have a control version of the Earth, not only that but every scientist since the 1600's has unquestioningly swallowed Newton's unscientific theory about tides.
But even if your "logic" made sense, it is moot since there are many independent data sets, and there is a physical explaination that you can test yourself with some cheap lab equipment. If the physical explaination is wrong then it means spectroscopy is wrong, which in turn means much of quantum mechanics is wrong, astronomy is wrong, ect. And if you really want to look at other planets (as climate scientists such as Hannsen already have), then please explain to us why the surface of Venus, (AKA our sister planet), is hot enough to melt lead.
The other major faw in your post, is that you don't seem to realise the physics came first (Fourier 1824), then the prediction of AGW based on the physics came in the 1890's, then strong evidence of increased CO2 forcing was found in the temprature records in the late 50's. Then computer models started making many other predictions about the effect of increased CO2 such as polar amplification and stratospheric cooling that have since been confirmed by observations.
I put it to you that you are acting no differently to a creationist when you choose to denigrate an entire branch of science based on ill informed assumptions and your own personal definition of the scientific method, or perhaps your just further evidence of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.