

Arsenic-microbe gets toxic response from scientific community - roadnottaken
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101207/full/468741a.html

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hartror
Some better (IMO) write ups on the scientific controversy:

* <http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/>

* [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2010/12/07/and-the-sk...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2010/12/07/and-the-skeptics-keep-chiming-in-george-cody-on-arsenic-life/)

Also the original discussions on the news:

* <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962846>

* <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1963990>

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jacquesm
I know it is just your opinion but I find the nature piece to be easily on par
with the 'slate' coverage (and of course that's just my opinion ;) ).

Nature typically does not go for spectacle, and the fact that they highlight
the total lack of response to criticism from Wolfe et. al is quite telling. If
you pick a forum to present your claim you should be willing to defend your
claim in that forum.

As far as I can see this will soon be a scientific career ruined not so much
by doing bad science but by crawling under a rock to avoid the fall-out, it is
my guess that if they could produce the evidence from mass spectrography after
isolating the dna that they would have done so by now.

That would conclusively put to rest a lot of the criticism.

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bhickey
I disagree with your assessment. There's no evidence of malfeasance, just poor
judgment with regards to publicity and possibly some oversights in the lab. It
wouldn't be reasonable to deeply fault the authors on a technical basis --
it's the job of peer review to catch mistakes before unfounded or embarrassing
claims are made. I've seen disputes over conclusions unfold in two ways:

1\. The party disputing the finding contacts the corresponding author with
specific objections and suggests followup work that would meet those
objections. If the objections appear substantive, the author('s lab) may then
attempt to validate the finding.

In the case I observed, the lab had fallen victim to a technical artifact. My
PI suggested an approach for remedying the error. At the end of the process,
he ended up co-authoring a retraction with the author.

2\. Someone with specific objections writes to the publication. Generally the
publication will give the author an opportunity to produce a rebuttal piece.

This, on the other hand, resembles a slug match.

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bbgm
Why should post-publication peer review be limited to working through Science.
That will happen in due course (e.g. Rosie Redfield has already written a
letter), but it is perfectly fine for scientists to dispute the paper via
their blogs, etc. We live in an era where you do have to be ready for post-
publication peer review, especially if you make far reaching claims and choose
to do them in a very public manner

~~~
bhickey
I never claimed that it should be. I was just pointing out those cases that I
am familiar with.

What they did (press-conferences, etc.) was in poor form.

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dannyb
As others have commented here, I find it very telling that maximum publicity
was sought when the article was first published, but the lead author seems to
dislike the scrutiny brought about by these claims. Due diligence was not done
and this paper is not up to Science's usual standards. The shame of it is that
this will wind up being another black eye for NASA.

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amichail
A bit off topic, but does anyone hate the way the public is being brainwashed
into thinking that science is more important than creative endeavors? Why is
nature more interesting than the human imagination?

And why would someone become a scientist, essentially playing a lottery that
they will discover something huge even though such discoveries are extremely
rare?

~~~
jacquesm
I think the parallels between scientific discovery and creative endeavors are
bigger than the differences.

Both revolve around individuals that would rather do than talk, and both have
a long tradition of passing on their knowledge to the next generation.

If you think science is a lottery then I think you are taking the word
'discovery' a bit too literally, think of it as having a hunch and then trying
to find out if that hunch is correct or not.

A nice way to see the progression of arts through to science and back again is
this chain: cave paintings -> oil paintings -> photograpy -> photography as
art.

At ever 'stage change' science was the midwife that gave artists new tools.

~~~
electromagnetic
I always like to think of a scientist 'discovering' something like a coal
miner finding a vein. They didn't just stick a pick in the ground and start
digging anywhere. First they saw an odd concentration of coal fragments on top
of the soil, they routed through the top soil and found even more. When they
dug deeper they found bigger fragments so they staked a claim. They got some
buddies together and dug a test shaft and found a vein of coal.

It wasn't a lottery, someone was actually out looking for coal, found coal on
the dirt and started to dig a little deeper until they found a vein.

