5 ms·

Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites? No.

134 points by araneae 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jagtesh 16y ago
The author of the published paper in question is the Astrobiology Group Leader at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (http://spie.org/x17397.xml http://spie.org/x17397.xml) Why would he risk his career and put his reputation at stake?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- araneae 16y ago
  shrug Michael Behe did good work as a microbiologist and publishes in the Journal of Creation. I'm sure this guy really believes it.
- ffumarola 16y ago
  He has made similar claims before that didn't pan out. Why is it risking his career if he truly believes it? It may just be a case of seeing what he wants to see. We'll see!
  - jagtesh 16y ago
    My point is, why would NASA employ him as a Group Leader if he were, dare I say, delusional? There's got to be some truth in it.
    - aheilbut 16y ago
      Because NASA is a big government bureaucracy, and he's been working there since 1966. Instead of thinking that there's got to be some truth to it, think that when there's a whiff of BS and it looks like the work of a bunch of delusional cranks publishing in their own vanity journal, it's nonsense and should be ignored.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        Strangely, it's not just him, though I agree it doesn't seem particularly likely to be true. The journal's editorial board seems to have people who do reasonably respectable work when it comes to their work that doesn't involve panspermia. The journal's editor-in-chief, for example, is a well-respected director at Harvard's observatory, and his "normal" papers (reporting on finds via the telescope) get published in normal journals.
        aheilbut 16y ago
        It is pretty strange that there are so many big names playing along. On the other hand, there's quite a long tradition of eminent, tenured, (and often aging) scientists going a little bit off the deep end, especially in areas outside of their actual expertise. People say things for all kinds of weird reasons, which may range from pet theories to hawking books and getting speaking gigs.
        apl 16y ago
        > On the other hand, there's quite a long tradition of > eminent, tenured, (and often aging) scientists going a > little bit off the deep end, especially in areas outside > of their actual expertise. Look no further than Watson and Crick.
      - archgoon 16y ago
        >Because NASA is a big government bureaucracy, and he's been working there since 1966. To be fair, any other academic institution would have given him tenure. The point of tenure in those systems is precisely so that faculty can say batshit insane ideas with the hope that the odd lunatic will be right, or at least invite discussion.
- gus_massa 16y ago
  Copying a comment of jneal: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2292467 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2292467 This guy has some interesting information: http://m.gawker.com//5777460/fox-news-publishes-fake-exclusi.. http://m.gawker.com//5777460/fox-news-publishes-fake-exclusi.... Something seems odd here - the guy has made this same announcement in the past. --------------- Some additional research from myself: The link says that this is not the first time that Hoover made an announcement like this. So I tried to find some of them and got these: 1997: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover.htm 2004: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover2.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover2.htm and: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover3.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover3.htm 2010: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover4.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover4.htm (And just to be sure, the older of the articles is in Internet at least from 1998: http://web.archive.org/web/19981202091131/http://www.panspermia.org/hoover.htm http://web.archive.org/web/19981202091131/http://www.pansper... )
- nollidge 16y ago
  It wouldn't be the first time a smart, accomplished person has espoused a weird belief. See Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer: http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299445012&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscie...
recluce 16y ago
But I want to believe :(
frankydp 16y ago
P.Z. Meyers is a biology Shock Jock. Thats all. He says whatever will get traffic.
- ihodes 16y ago
  Is he wrong?
  - frankydp 16y ago
    Should be, JOC has 5000 scientist reviewing, and 500 vetting.
    - nollidge 16y ago
      Source?
      - frankydp 16y ago
        Comment was derived from the below. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/aliens-riding-meteorites-arsenic-redux-or-something-new/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/aliens-riding-mete... http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-out-with-big-bang http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-o... Rosie Redfield has now voiced some valid concerns on processing.
        eli 16y ago
        Huh? That link says they invited 5,000 scientists to "review" the paper after it was published as part of some kind of publicity stunt.
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
It seems telling to me that NASA had a major build up and press conference to discuss findings of exobiotic-like life, yet quietly does nothing for evidence of actual exobiotic life.
- xd 16y ago
  do you mean xenobiotic?
  - SoftwareMaven 16y ago
    No, I didn't, but that would be appropriate, too. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exobiology http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exobiology And I would love to know what I was down-voted for. Please tell me it wasn't because somebody thought it really should be xenobiology (and, no, xd, I don't think it was you :).
ffumarola 16y ago
http://journalofcosmology.com/ http://journalofcosmology.com/ Not to judge a book by its cover, but... seriously?
- Read_the_Genes 16y ago
  This journal is going under: http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-out-with-big-bang http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-o... From Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fy4w5/journal_of_cosmology_to_stop_publishing_killed_by/ http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fy4w5/journal_of_co... I think it is safe to ignore articles published in this journal.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  I thought, trying to be charitable - "it's [http://journalofcosmology.com/ http://journalofcosmology.com/] not that bad, OK - not the worst, table based, outset borders, kinda minimalist maybe". Then \BAM\ the background loaded and assaulted my visual cortex.
jarin 16y ago
While it is strange that he would publish his paper in the Journal of Cosmology, it doesn't change the validity (or non-validity) of the facts. I'm looking forward to seeing some serious analysis of the paper instead of snarky ad hominem attacks like this article.
- SpikeGronim 16y ago
  Yeah, it opens with snark. But then the article goes through the arguments and figures in the paper and refutes the hypothesis, so it's not empty snark. Publishing a paper in a fake journal does damage the validity of the claims. Papers with sufficient evidence for their claims can get published in journals with strict peer review policies. By choosing such a crap journal the authors are essentially admitting that Nature or Science would never accept their arguments.
  - jarin 16y ago
    The only objective criticisms I saw in the article were about the SEMs not being to scale and the preservation state of the "organisms". Other than that, it seems like it was snark at the beginning, snark in the middle, and snark at the end.
    - SpikeGronim 16y ago
      He directly addresses their key evidence: the pictures of the supposed organisms. He interprets the images as inorganic and and calls the paper's claims pareidolia. If outside observers look at the same data and don't see what you're arguing for, you're not making your case successfully.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "Papers with sufficient evidence for their claims can get published in journals with strict peer review policies." Do you have any evidence that this is actually true?
    - SpikeGronim 16y ago
xd 16y ago
"consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s" Is it just me or is that comment just a tad childish? I'm finding it hard to take this guy seriously, let alone the other guy.
- metachris 16y ago
  That was exactly the point where I stopped reading -- upvoted.
- jarin 16y ago
  Yeah, just like every university website ever. Case in point: a couple of weeks ago I was building a web-based tool under contract for conducting studies for a university's psychology department. I sent them over a functional prototype with a note that I hadn't done any design work on it yet, and they were blown away. Some direct quotes: "that looks amazing." and "we love it".
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Making comments like that is part of the shtick http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shtick http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shtick of PZ Myers when he writes blog posts. Most of his conduct in writing posts on his blog would not be considered civil or decorous conduct here on HN, but he knows his biology, and his reply to the biological aspects of the recently reported claim should be taken seriously. PZ Myers also had one of the first good analyses on the Web of the claim that a different scientist affiliated with NASA had found an "arsenic-based" life form. Not so, as PZ aptly pointed out. Anyway, PZ continues in his blog post to write, "So let's look at the paper, Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites: Implications to Life on Comets, Europa, and Enceladus." He then comments that he can't even count on links to the website for the article staying valid, because of the way the website is administered, but he proceeds to analyze the content of the paper, and to find it below the usual standard of biology papers about newly discovered microorganisms. In other words, it is not always valid in either direction to judge a message by its messenger or its medium. Sometimes good factual points are made with less than ideal decorum.
  - 16y ago
tocomment 16y ago
By the way, why does everyone seem to be poo-pooing that arsenic discovery from a few months ago? Did something about it turn out to be fake?
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Pretty much everything about the "arsenic-based life" claim turned out to be examples of poor scientific lab technique and poor thinking. There is NOT acceptance in the scientific community that arsenic-based life has been found. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arsenic-based_life.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arseni... http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-ba... http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/arsenic-life-under-fire/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/arsenic-life-under... http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/ http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/
fullduplex 16y ago
I read the paper in it's entirety today. Hoover is a sharp scientist and he has authored a very compelling piece that on the surface appears to reinforce it's central tenant - that the structures documented are not indigenous to Earth. If that is in fact validated, the remaining debate is about methods and interpretation of the ESEM, FSEM and EDS results. That portion of the paper appears to be very well thought out and presented. What's also very good, there is a clear and concise method for reproducing the results and the invitation of so many others to do just that. This thing has legs.
shareme 16y ago
Carl Sagan once fought for the right and asked that it be treated as an honor or duty that every scientist examine claims no matter how unrealistic in order to expose the greater amount of people to the scientific method and basic science. Carl Sagan's debunking of Velikovsky was just as snarky if not more so. For those of ill-uniformed..Velikovsky had similar theories.
- shareme 16y ago
  Both sides of the Carl Sagan and Velikovsky affair: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/velikovsky.htm http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/velikovsky.htm Some interesting reading as Velikovsky also was a Hoyle believer..
dools 16y ago
At first while I was reading this article I was really REALLY bummed out. I was so excited when they discovered extra terrestrial life that, even though the initial link posted on HN came from Fox News and the second came from Yahoo!, I still believed it. I'm just that big an optimist. This guy put me in my place, though. The Journal of Cosmology does look like a complete and utter joke of a website. Fox may as well just take to syndicating Nexus magazine. It's not all bad news though! Just as I was beginning to get seriously down in the dumps I saw that, NO JOKE, I'm the 999,999th visitor to scienceblogs.com! Not only that, but I have been RANDOMLY SELECTED to become the possible winner of an Apple product! That news really bouyed my spirits! In all seriousness: if this dude wants to go round shitting on other people's websites he should reconsider his choice in 3rd party ad network.

134 points by araneae 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

The author of the published paper in question is the Astrobiology Group Leader at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (http://spie.org/x17397.xml http://spie.org/x17397.xml) Why would he risk his career and put his reputation at stake?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
araneae 16y ago
shrug Michael Behe did good work as a microbiologist and publishes in the Journal of Creation. I'm sure this guy really believes it.
ffumarola 16y ago
He has made similar claims before that didn't pan out. Why is it risking his career if he truly believes it? It may just be a case of seeing what he wants to see. We'll see!
- jagtesh 16y ago
  My point is, why would NASA employ him as a Group Leader if he were, dare I say, delusional? There's got to be some truth in it.
  - aheilbut 16y ago
    Because NASA is a big government bureaucracy, and he's been working there since 1966. Instead of thinking that there's got to be some truth to it, think that when there's a whiff of BS and it looks like the work of a bunch of delusional cranks publishing in their own vanity journal, it's nonsense and should be ignored.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      Strangely, it's not just him, though I agree it doesn't seem particularly likely to be true. The journal's editorial board seems to have people who do reasonably respectable work when it comes to their work that doesn't involve panspermia. The journal's editor-in-chief, for example, is a well-respected director at Harvard's observatory, and his "normal" papers (reporting on finds via the telescope) get published in normal journals.
      - aheilbut 16y ago
        It is pretty strange that there are so many big names playing along. On the other hand, there's quite a long tradition of eminent, tenured, (and often aging) scientists going a little bit off the deep end, especially in areas outside of their actual expertise. People say things for all kinds of weird reasons, which may range from pet theories to hawking books and getting speaking gigs.
        apl 16y ago
        > On the other hand, there's quite a long tradition of > eminent, tenured, (and often aging) scientists going a > little bit off the deep end, especially in areas outside > of their actual expertise. Look no further than Watson and Crick.
    - archgoon 16y ago
      >Because NASA is a big government bureaucracy, and he's been working there since 1966. To be fair, any other academic institution would have given him tenure. The point of tenure in those systems is precisely so that faculty can say batshit insane ideas with the hope that the odd lunatic will be right, or at least invite discussion.
gus_massa 16y ago
Copying a comment of jneal: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2292467 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2292467 This guy has some interesting information: http://m.gawker.com//5777460/fox-news-publishes-fake-exclusi.. http://m.gawker.com//5777460/fox-news-publishes-fake-exclusi.... Something seems odd here - the guy has made this same announcement in the past. --------------- Some additional research from myself: The link says that this is not the first time that Hoover made an announcement like this. So I tried to find some of them and got these: 1997: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover.htm 2004: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover2.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover2.htm and: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover3.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover3.htm 2010: http://www.panspermia.org/hoover4.htm http://www.panspermia.org/hoover4.htm (And just to be sure, the older of the articles is in Internet at least from 1998: http://web.archive.org/web/19981202091131/http://www.panspermia.org/hoover.htm http://web.archive.org/web/19981202091131/http://www.pansper... )
nollidge 16y ago
It wouldn't be the first time a smart, accomplished person has espoused a weird belief. See Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer: http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299445012&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscie...

recluce 16y ago

But I want to believe :(

frankydp 16y ago

P.Z. Meyers is a biology Shock Jock. Thats all. He says whatever will get traffic.

ihodes 16y ago
Is he wrong?
- frankydp 16y ago
  Should be, JOC has 5000 scientist reviewing, and 500 vetting.
  - nollidge 16y ago
    Source?
    - frankydp 16y ago
      Comment was derived from the below. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/aliens-riding-meteorites-arsenic-redux-or-something-new/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/aliens-riding-mete... http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-out-with-big-bang http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-o... Rosie Redfield has now voiced some valid concerns on processing.
      - eli 16y ago
        Huh? That link says they invited 5,000 scientists to "review" the paper after it was published as part of some kind of publicity stunt.

SoftwareMaven 16y ago

It seems telling to me that NASA had a major build up and press conference to discuss findings of exobiotic-like life, yet quietly does nothing for evidence of actual exobiotic life.

xd 16y ago
do you mean xenobiotic?
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  No, I didn't, but that would be appropriate, too. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exobiology http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exobiology And I would love to know what I was down-voted for. Please tell me it wasn't because somebody thought it really should be xenobiology (and, no, xd, I don't think it was you :).

ffumarola 16y ago

http://journalofcosmology.com/ http://journalofcosmology.com/ Not to judge a book by its cover, but... seriously?

Read_the_Genes 16y ago
This journal is going under: http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-out-with-big-bang http://daviddobbs.posterous.com/journal-of-cosmology-going-o... From Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fy4w5/journal_of_cosmology_to_stop_publishing_killed_by/ http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/fy4w5/journal_of_co... I think it is safe to ignore articles published in this journal.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
I thought, trying to be charitable - "it's [http://journalofcosmology.com/ http://journalofcosmology.com/] not that bad, OK - not the worst, table based, outset borders, kinda minimalist maybe". Then \BAM\ the background loaded and assaulted my visual cortex.

jarin 16y ago

While it is strange that he would publish his paper in the Journal of Cosmology, it doesn't change the validity (or non-validity) of the facts. I'm looking forward to seeing some serious analysis of the paper instead of snarky ad hominem attacks like this article.

SpikeGronim 16y ago
Yeah, it opens with snark. But then the article goes through the arguments and figures in the paper and refutes the hypothesis, so it's not empty snark. Publishing a paper in a fake journal does damage the validity of the claims. Papers with sufficient evidence for their claims can get published in journals with strict peer review policies. By choosing such a crap journal the authors are essentially admitting that Nature or Science would never accept their arguments.
- jarin 16y ago
  The only objective criticisms I saw in the article were about the SEMs not being to scale and the preservation state of the "organisms". Other than that, it seems like it was snark at the beginning, snark in the middle, and snark at the end.
  - SpikeGronim 16y ago
    He directly addresses their key evidence: the pictures of the supposed organisms. He interprets the images as inorganic and and calls the paper's claims pareidolia. If outside observers look at the same data and don't see what you're arguing for, you're not making your case successfully.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  "Papers with sufficient evidence for their claims can get published in journals with strict peer review policies." Do you have any evidence that this is actually true?
  - SpikeGronim 16y ago

xd 16y ago

"consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s" Is it just me or is that comment just a tad childish? I'm finding it hard to take this guy seriously, let alone the other guy.

metachris 16y ago
That was exactly the point where I stopped reading -- upvoted.
jarin 16y ago
Yeah, just like every university website ever. Case in point: a couple of weeks ago I was building a web-based tool under contract for conducting studies for a university's psychology department. I sent them over a functional prototype with a note that I hadn't done any design work on it yet, and they were blown away. Some direct quotes: "that looks amazing." and "we love it".
tokenadult 16y ago
Making comments like that is part of the shtick http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shtick http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shtick of PZ Myers when he writes blog posts. Most of his conduct in writing posts on his blog would not be considered civil or decorous conduct here on HN, but he knows his biology, and his reply to the biological aspects of the recently reported claim should be taken seriously. PZ Myers also had one of the first good analyses on the Web of the claim that a different scientist affiliated with NASA had found an "arsenic-based" life form. Not so, as PZ aptly pointed out. Anyway, PZ continues in his blog post to write, "So let's look at the paper, Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites: Implications to Life on Comets, Europa, and Enceladus." He then comments that he can't even count on links to the website for the article staying valid, because of the way the website is administered, but he proceeds to analyze the content of the paper, and to find it below the usual standard of biology papers about newly discovered microorganisms. In other words, it is not always valid in either direction to judge a message by its messenger or its medium. Sometimes good factual points are made with less than ideal decorum.
- 16y ago

tocomment 16y ago

By the way, why does everyone seem to be poo-pooing that arsenic discovery from a few months ago? Did something about it turn out to be fake?

tokenadult 16y ago
Pretty much everything about the "arsenic-based life" claim turned out to be examples of poor scientific lab technique and poor thinking. There is NOT acceptance in the scientific community that arsenic-based life has been found. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arsenic-based_life.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arseni... http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-ba... http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/arsenic-life-under-fire/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/arsenic-life-under... http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/ http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/

fullduplex 16y ago

I read the paper in it's entirety today. Hoover is a sharp scientist and he has authored a very compelling piece that on the surface appears to reinforce it's central tenant - that the structures documented are not indigenous to Earth. If that is in fact validated, the remaining debate is about methods and interpretation of the ESEM, FSEM and EDS results. That portion of the paper appears to be very well thought out and presented. What's also very good, there is a clear and concise method for reproducing the results and the invitation of so many others to do just that. This thing has legs.

shareme 16y ago

Carl Sagan once fought for the right and asked that it be treated as an honor or duty that every scientist examine claims no matter how unrealistic in order to expose the greater amount of people to the scientific method and basic science. Carl Sagan's debunking of Velikovsky was just as snarky if not more so. For those of ill-uniformed..Velikovsky had similar theories.

shareme 16y ago
Both sides of the Carl Sagan and Velikovsky affair: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/velikovsky.htm http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/velikovsky.htm Some interesting reading as Velikovsky also was a Hoyle believer..

dools 16y ago

At first while I was reading this article I was really REALLY bummed out. I was so excited when they discovered extra terrestrial life that, even though the initial link posted on HN came from Fox News and the second came from Yahoo!, I still believed it. I'm just that big an optimist. This guy put me in my place, though. The Journal of Cosmology does look like a complete and utter joke of a website. Fox may as well just take to syndicating Nexus magazine. It's not all bad news though! Just as I was beginning to get seriously down in the dumps I saw that, NO JOKE, I'm the 999,999th visitor to scienceblogs.com! Not only that, but I have been RANDOMLY SELECTED to become the possible winner of an Apple product! That news really bouyed my spirits! In all seriousness: if this dude wants to go round shitting on other people's websites he should reconsider his choice in 3rd party ad network.