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."

Comments

Scientific Method

[NFN_NLN]

One of the basic principles of the scientific method is the ability for peers to independently reproduce results. If this is not the case, then this is not science.

Re:Scientific Method

[MightyMartian]

Multiple teams have confirmed global warming. What are you talking about?

Re:Scientific Method

[Ruke]

In this case, it looks like Wolf-Simon published her results, and some peers fired off some immediate critiques of her methods, while others raised questions based off of what is already known of molecular biology. Wolf-Simon is responding to 8 of these criticisms in the latest publication of Science. As far as I can tell, no one has attempted (and succeeded or failed) to reproduce Wolf-Simon's results. There hasn't been a whole lot of time to do the necessary studies.

As far as I can tell, this is science, as she is performed. You publish controversial/novel results, people immediately try to pick your results apart, and you respond to them. In an ideal world, everything would be done with the same level of rigor as these results are being handled, not just the "hard sciences".

Re:Scientific Method

[DRJlaw]

One of the basic principles of the scientific method is the ability for peers to independently reproduce results. If this is not the case, then this is not science.

You presume that the critics have attempted to independently reproduce the results. They have not. They are merely identifying potential sources of false positives. While the original team would be wise to explain how these potential sources of error were already addressed, and if necessary to run additional experiments addressing lapses or unconsidered factors, hypothetical arguments as to why an experiment cannot have worked do not prove that the results cannot be reproduced and/or are actually caused by other mechanisms.

"The exchange does not put forth new data on the matter, but centers on the original experiments in which Wolfe-Simon isolated bacteria from arsenic-laden Mono Lake, California, and then tried to grow them in cultures with large amounts of arsenic and no phosphorus, which is typically required for growth."

Nobody has tried to reproduce the result.

"University of British Columbia microbiologist Rosie Redfield, the blogger most critical of Wolfe-Simon both personally and professionally, asserts in one of the Technical Comments that Wolfe-Simon did not go far enough in purifying DNA from GFAJ-1 before testing it for its arsenic components."

Valid criticism, but not proof of irreproducability or alternate mechanism.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. On the other hand, scientists claiming that things are impossible have routinely been proven wrong. Unless something is shown to violate well established laws, hypothetical criticism is usually far less valuable than actual experimentation and reproducible alternate explanation.

Re:Scientific Method

[empiricistrob]

I'm so tired of people saying this -- if you can't replicate an experiment with the same starting conditions then it's not science -- that it total and complete bullshit.

Science works like this:
Step 1. Formulate a hypothesis.
Step 2. Test the hypothesis.
Step 3.
If hypothesis checks out, repeat step 2. After sufficient iterations call it a theory.
If hypothesis doesn't check out, throw it out and formulate a new hypothesis.

*no where* in the above does it require you to have the same starting conditions. In the case of global warming the hypotheses are of the form "Higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to higher temperatures". There are *many* ways you can test these hypotheses -- you don't need to have a model earth to play with.

Re:Scientific Method

[Mindcontrolled]

Nice way of showing that you didn't remotely follow the science there. Protip: Watts is not part of it. There are multiple data sets, multiple models, a strong, controversial discussion about the building of said models - and still, a consensus on the basic facts, because they are bloody obvious by now. If you think reproducibility means "taking two different earths", you don't have the slightest grasp about what science actually is. This is actually so exceedingly dumb that i fail to grasp how someone can come up with that argument.

Re:Scientific Method

[NeutronCowboy]

blah blah scientific theory blah blah taking two different planet Earths blah blah reproducable manner blah blah scientific method blah blah

You don't have a clue. You don't need a different planet to figure out that increasing CO2 concentrations in an air sample increases its absorption of IR wavelengths. Plenty of tests that can verify that.

Your standard of what constitutes science is so ridiculously far out there that it would be impossible to figure anything out about anything that is bigger than a science lab. Thankfully, most scientists have figured out that lab experiments provide a nice basis with which to predict larger phenomena.

And if you really think that that's the only way that discoveries can be made about planet-wide phenomena, please ignore weather reports, tsunami warnings, volcano warnings, earthquake reports, oil discovered through seismic evidence.... yeah, scientists who don't have a second earth to work with have really not contributed anything to society.

Re:Scientific Method

[Mindcontrolled]

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.

Re:Scientific Method

[Black Parrot]

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.

Re:Scientific Method

[TapeCutter]

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.

A better article on what happened

[lucian1900]

http://www.slate.com/id/2295724/

Re:Where are the scathing critiques of climatology

[Mindcontrolled]

You might want to try to read the literature?

Re:Just a hunch

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just doing their job as scientists. Science is supposed to embrace new ideas slowly. Otherwise we'd be running around believing in N rays and whatnot. Granted, this is a cruel environment to come up with new ideas in, but it's still very much a necessity.

Re:Really?

[blair1q]

What is best in science?

To crush your colleagues, see them refuted before you, and to hear the lamentation of their post-docs.

Re:Just a hunch

[pnot]

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.