[meteorite-list] NASA Finds New Life Form
From: Chris Peterson <clp_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 10:29:03 -0700 Message-ID: <E3CE7801C7074DE4AB501817795A60CC_at_bellatrix> I'm not defending the quality of the paper, only making a distinction between incomplete or poor quality science, and "junk science". The paper may fall into one or both of the former categories; I don't think it falls into the latter. As I noted, the hypothesis is a sound one, and this work is sure to generate additional research along these lines. Junk science does not. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the first sentence you quote. I can't imagine any well educated biologist having a problem with it. Chris ***************************************** Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "JoshuaTreeMuseum" <joshuatreemuseum at embarqmail.com> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 10:07 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] NASA Finds New Life Form > According to that vast repository of all human knowledge, the modern day > Library of Alexandria; Wikipedia, junk science is defined as: > Junk science is a term used in U.S. political and legal disputes that > brands an advocate's claims about scientific data, research, or analyses > as spurious. The term may convey a pejorative connotation that the > advocate is driven by political, ideological, financial, or other > unscientific motives. > > The term cargo cult science was first used by the physicist Richard > Feynman during his commencement address at the California Institute of > Technology, United States, in 1974, to negatively characterize research in > the soft sciences (psychology and psychiatry in particular) - arguing that > they have the semblance of being scientific, but are missing "a kind of > scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds > to a kind of utter honesty". > > Check out their first sentence: > > " Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, > nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus. Although these > six elements make up nucleic acids, proteins and lipids > and thus the bulk of living matter, it is theoretically > possible that some other elements in the periodic table > could serve the same functions." > > This would be news to my freshman biology 101 professor who taught that > the bulk of living matter was composed of water and carbohydrates. > > If you read the paper, they talk a lot about impurities in the salts and > reagants. (!??!) They talk a lot about how you can grow this bacteria by > feeding it arsenic and how the arsenic is assimilated into its > biomolecules. They analyze lots of extracted fracionated nucleic acid. As > for showing that the arsenic actually replaces the phosphorus in the DNA > helix.......not so much. Their evidence for this is weak and cold fusiony. > I quote: "Show me the money!" and: "Where's the beef?" > > I can only conclude that this research is motivated by a political > hype-driven agenda to get funding during the Great Recession. This isn't > sound science, it's press conference science. I don't really blame them, > things are tough all over and NASA needs money to conduct their important > work. It's just that you can only yell "Wolf!" so many times. Received on Wed 08 Dec 2010 12:29:03 PM PST |
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