11–18 of 18 posts
Soon, there were lots of questions : http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/06/01/return_of_th...
I'm thinking NASA is good at space exploration, not so good at biology.
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2008/01/extraordinary-c.h...
But the first report about "arsenic-based life" was no more than a preliminary research finding announced in a press event by the study sponsor, and such an announcement is not enough to establish a new body of scientific fact.
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
The specific preliminary finding was criticized right away for sloppiness of technique and a rush to reach an unwarranted conclusion,
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/its_not_an_arseni...
http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/2011/08/first-evidence-...
so the journal slated to publish the preliminary finding had to invite in critiques of the finding to save its own reputation.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/science-publishes-...
Science is all about reproducible results, so much so that there is a humor magazine for scientists called the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
The headline in New Scientist, a British popular magazine about science (something like Scientific American in the United States), which has been published since before I was born, is correct. There isn't any reliable evidence of arsenic-based life living anywhere within reach of scientists on earth. Not now, and not last year. The best summary of the current evidence, after the efforts of many more careful researchers, is "arsenic life does not exist after all," period (as an American would say), full stop (as a Briton might say).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an English magazine that's somewhere inbetween your two options. Generally their reporting is pretty good and they avoid headlines for the sake of headlines, however they do put a lot of focus on making their content understandable to non-scientists - it's aimed at smart, curious people, not scientists. An example of this is their "last word" feature, where they take a question from a reader and let anyone write…
If anyone is interested in the sound of this there is something similar over on this subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/askscience
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/oxz9b/arsenic_life_...
I've never heard of new scientist. Is it a real science journal or sensationalist? (based on this article I'd guess the latter)
It's an English magazine that's somewhere inbetween your two options. Generally their reporting is pretty good and they avoid headlines for the sake of headlines, however they do put a lot of focus on making their content understandable to non-scientists - it's aimed at smart, curious people, not scientists. An example of this is their "last word" feature, where they take a question from a reader and let anyone write…
scientific publication : pseudoscience = New Scientist : Sensationalist Publication
Even if the organisms were shown to swap out phosphorus for arsenic in some instances in their DNA, would that be surprising? Arsenic comes from the same column in the periodic table as phosphorus, and exhibits many of the same macro chemical properties as phosphorus. It would be like a software engineer swapping out their optimized, say, C++ string library, for one that was less optimal but perhaps took less space o…
HUBRIS BABY! HUBRIS!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anyone is interested in the sound of this there is something similar over on this subreddit: http://reddit.com/r/askscience
More direct, permanent link: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/oxz9b/arsenic_life_...