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Protein discovered inside a meteorite

phys.org

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Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#21

Post by westmeal »

qubex wrote: post #18
westmeal wrote: post #2

Proponents of panspermia are pretty happy about this finding I bet.

To be perfectly honest, you’ve drawn my attention to an ambiguity I had never before noticed: does panspermia’s hypothesis that “life” came from space require that life arrive fully formed and functional, or does it advocate that complex organic chemicals arrived from space and assembled on earth into a working configuration? I have always found the idea of panspermia to be a bit of a cop-out as it totally sidesteps…

From what I've read there are people on both ends of the debate. Most people I've seen talking about the idea tend to lean towards amino acid and simple proteins making it down here - not fully functional lifeforms that are able to replicate.

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#22

Post by AnimalMuppet »

qubex wrote: post #18
westmeal wrote: post #2

Proponents of panspermia are pretty happy about this finding I bet.

To be perfectly honest, you’ve drawn my attention to an ambiguity I had never before noticed: does panspermia’s hypothesis that “life” came from space require that life arrive fully formed and functional, or does it advocate that complex organic chemicals arrived from space and assembled on earth into a working configuration? I have always found the idea of panspermia to be a bit of a cop-out as it totally sidesteps…

I'm not an expert, but I think that there are different flavors of panspermia. Some would say that we got at least single-celled organisms from space; others would say that we just got complex chemicals.

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#23

Post by jfengel »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #12
tartoran wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The team's paper has not yet been peer reviewed"..

At the best of times, what exactly does peer review add? I'll buy that it catches glaring flaws in their methodology or conclusions drawn from data. But it's not going to catch little mistakes or unlikely events that might have contaminated the sample.

For the purposes of a site like this, peer review filters out the cranks. Cranks can be rather a burden on people: they rarely accept criticism well, and effort spent explaining the problems to their defenders is a drain without a lot of upside.

So when somebody can say "It has been peer reviewed", it at least helps get past the crank filter. And conversely, "It hasn't been peer reviewed" can be a shortcut for "I'm not going to put a lot of effort into this without better reason than I've heard so far."

It's not so much an argument as a way of shortcutting an argument. Though note that doesn't really apply to a top-level comment on HN, where nobody has really advanced an argument yet and simply ignoring it might be a more useful strategy.

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#24

Post by rolph »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #12
tartoran wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The team's paper has not yet been peer reviewed"..

At the best of times, what exactly does peer review add? I'll buy that it catches glaring flaws in their methodology or conclusions drawn from data. But it's not going to catch little mistakes or unlikely events that might have contaminated the sample.

this is why we dont do one offs.

there has to be independently reproducable results from independent research over time until the variation of outcomes is known, for some sciences this can be a very long process for very unscientific reasons.

one thing not addressed is that the isotopic elements of the meteoric fragment may have been incorporated by a terrestrial biological or chemical process

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#26

Post by aetherspawn »

MockObject wrote: post #25

They believe that this meteorite is native to our solar system, so it's not a candidate for panspermia from anywhere interesting.

That’s probably what should interest us the most - the article says the protein arrangement is previously unknown but functional (?).

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#27

Post by TallGuyShort »

rolph wrote: post #24
TallGuyShort wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the best of times, what exactly does peer review add? I'll buy that it catches glaring flaws in their methodology or conclusions drawn from data. But it's not going to catch little mistakes or unlikely events that might have contaminated the sample.

this is why we dont do one offs. there has to be independently reproducable results from independent research over time until the variation of outcomes is known, for some sciences this can be a very long process for very unscientific reasons. one thing not addressed is that the isotopic elements of the meteoric fragment may have been incorporated by a terrestrial biological or chemical process

Right - but reproducibility is distinct from peer review. Stuff that has been peer reviewed is very often not reproduced (or reproducible).

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#28

Post by rolph »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #27
rolph wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is why we dont do one offs. there has to be independently reproducable results from independent research over time until the variation of outcomes is known, for some sciences this can be a very long process for very unscientific reasons. one thing not addressed is that the isotopic elements of the meteoric fragment may have been incorporated by a terrestrial biological or chemical process

Right - but reproducibility is distinct from peer review. Stuff that has been peer reviewed is very often not reproduced (or reproducible).

whenever the methodologies of a scientific experiment are repeated the underlying principle is preserved if there is no signifigant deviation of observed results from expected results.

for example PCR has a lot of credit, the central dogma of molecular genetics has a lot of credit, but there are exceptions being found in very niche cases such as reverse transcriptase and the HIV virus.

those experimental protocols that have been reviewed and found to be non deficient at the time of review are often repeated in principle as they are used for a common tool.

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#29

Post by strictnein »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #19
westmeal wrote: post #2

Proponents of panspermia are pretty happy about this finding I bet.

So far sugars, and amino acids have been found in both comets & gas clouds. BUT to find this protein is the slam-dunk, holy-shit they were right, proof that Panspermia is how we got here, and there _MUST_ be life in other parts of the universe.

> "proof that Panspermia is how we got here"

How so? "We" could predate this protein.

Re: Protein discovered inside a meteorite

#30

Post by VT_Dude »

Before we even get into the role of expert peer reviewers, does the article pass basic tests of authenticity, let alone extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary proof?

The third author of the referenced paper does have a page at Harvard, here: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~mcgeoch/index.html where she says she is at the "Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University" but she's not listed as faculty in that department here: https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/

Could be a student... but do a search for Malcolm. W. McGeoch, Sergei Dikler, Julie E. M. McGeoch from Plex Corporation, Bruker Scientific LLC and Harvard University

and you will start to wonder if these people even know their names have been used in this article. Shame on phys.org for not calling the author for a quote or doing any other legwork to convince me this is anything other than a UFO hoax or the output of a paper-writing AI. It could be, but ...journalist please.

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