Another case of putting the cart before the horse when it comes to grandiose claims of scientific discovery? According to a social networker at a Torino astrophysics conference, purported Earth-like planet Gliese 581(g) may no longer exist. However, before we consider the possibility that Nero used the Red Matter and imploded the planet a la Vulcan, it is suggested that additional data and some further analysis puts the entire planet’s existence into question.
From Dynamics of Cats (Scienceblogs.com):
IAU 276 The Astrophysics of Planetary Systems: Formation, Structure, and Dynamical Evolution just got underway in Torino, Italy (good week to be in Italy – meeting in Sardinia also, Wish I Was There).Ray Jay reports on social networks:
”We cannot confirm it [Gliese 581g] in our HARPS data” – Francesco Pepe (Geneva team) at IAU 276 in Torino.”
This is interesting, but not totally surprising.
It will be very interesting to see the HARPS paper, and how this shakes out.
Gliese 581g could still be there, it could be in the orbit reported, but this needs some more work.
PS: additional oral reports from the meeting.
HARPS statement is stronger than “we don’t see it” – they find that if they force a solution they get a negative signal appearing, implying the planet is not there, not just that they are not sensitive to it.
50% more data since 2008 published series.
Oh well, this will affect probably zero percent of the Earth’s population, yet the story made a pretty good press release and provided some excitement in preparation for the Torino conference. Even yesterday, DiscoveryNews is considering the possibility of “intelligent life” on this planet…whoa!
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, there may be a new kid on the liveable planet block, Gliese 581g. This is the first exoplanet that has the potential to have a solid surface and that is in the habitable zone around its star where liquid water can exist. We all immediately thought, “could there be life?” and one SETI researcher claims to have a possible signal.
Can anyone come up with some parallels to climate science and the urge to run to the press?
I have one, as Carl Wunsch succinctly reacts to a request for a press quote about the new Phil Jones’ climate cooling paper in Nature last month:
“The problem in climate science is that things are hyped, then they’re picked up and exaggerated, sometimes by these crazy bloggers, and you get senators and congressmen talking about it on the floor of the House and Senate.”
“The wider community is trying to make climate science go faster than it can. Science has a natural rhythm, and you can’t make people think faster or more effectively by saying “you’ve got to know the answer by next week.” Things get re-thought, people find bugs in the research. We can hope for breakthroughs, but it will probably take years to realize that they’ve happened. When I get calls from the press, it starts to make me uneasy, since the best they’ll get is a comment from off the top of my head. When I get a request for a comment from a colleague, I take the paper home, skim it, put it aside, read it again, think about it. And even then, sometimes there are papers I didn’t quite appreciate. So these instant off the top of the head reactions don’t do the science any good and don’t do the public any good.”
I wonder who are those “crazy bloggers“?
Too bad Jones, Mann and others don’t have the integrity to make their data public so follow-up analysis can be done.
Is 10-10’s red button, No Pressure approach extending that far out?
Jumping to conclusions is never a good idea. But it seems to be the latest fad. Blame it on the 24/7 news cycle, and one-upmanship. People used to have a thing called “patience”.
it’s still 100% certainty that that planet, through its existance, would contain a branch of the carnegie institute.
It wasn’t the red matter, this planet obviously didn’t believe in Global Warming, so the 10:10 people blew it up…
I’m sure this is just a temporary blip in the IPCC’s model (Interplanetary Panel for Cosmic Climates)
Too bad Jones, Mann and others don’t have the integrity to make their data public so follow-up analysis can be done.
Mann, I think, has. Though it was like pulling teeth.
Any chance of deleting the link to Climate Progress so that more idiots like me don’t flatter their traffic stats by inadvertently visiting their *****y site?
REPLY: That’s up to Ryan for keeping the link in the last line. – Anthony
“We’ve been discovered! Quick Kataal! the Cloaking device!”
Then a few weeks later, The Klingon Battle Fleet covers the face of the full moon…
AGW become the least of our worries. They take AlGore Hostage, as they think he’s some sort of religious profit, er, Prophet…
“Ah Commander Khor, there is an old earth tale by a writer”O Henry, called the
“Ransom of Red Chief’…”
Don’t forget this gem from Dr. Steven Vogt:
‘Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1316243/Is-GLIESE-581-g-new-Earth-Planet-20-light-years-away-support-life.html#ixzz12AqOHaRh
So, we still betting on 100% Dr.?
Perhaps Marvin the Maritian used his Explosive Space Modulator on it because it was obstructing his view of Venus.
I just saw that a scientist made a claim that he received an alien life signal from Gliese 581g. Personally, I don’t believe you can make any definitive statement about something which you have no pictures of and it would take 20 years to get to if you traveled at the speed of light.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/11/scientist-claims-strange-signal-comes-alien-planet/?test=latestnews
From the article (and the most interesting part):
Hmm … What does that sound like?
FLASHBACK: Aliens Cause Global Warming
Perfect, when we screw this planet it will only take us 20 years to move to this new planet. Oh yeah first we have to figure out how to travel at THE SPEED OF LIGHT!!!
Maybe the little green men cloaked their planet when they noticed us snooping around.
Seriously though, a habitable, life-containing planet only 20 light years away would push us humans into exploring it in not too distant future. I doubt anyone remembers the name of whoever discovered the first exoplanet, but I think whoever discovers the first habitable exoplanet will become a legend, especially if that person names it after himself. It’s no wonder that some of these people are trying to cut corners just to be that first.
I have just had the same nasty experience as David S and was appalled to read the article about Hal Lewis.
Say it isn’t so! The science behind Gliese 581g isn’t settled?
“So these instant off the top of the head reactions don’t do the science any good and don’t do the public any good.”
A general prudential rule ought to apply. “A comment should not be made if it doesn’t improve upon silence.”
Better that we discover the error now rather than after we spend bazillions sending a probe there to investigate.
Better we discover the errors in climate science now before we spend bazillions trying to decrease atmospheric CO2, and find expensive alternatives to fossil fuels.
That’s my comparison.
I wondered about this when it was first announced. The trouble seems to be in how precise they have to be to separate signal from noise. That is also the trouble with AGW. It is one thing to say it is getting warmer, it is something else entirely to say it is due to humans using CO2, it is very hard to separate the Co2 signal from the natural climate change noise. AGW suffers from another problem too, and that is that they try to predict the future with models, and they don’t acknowledge that there are many questions about those models.
elmer says:
October 12, 2010 at 12:38 pm
“Perfect, when we screw this planet it will only take us 20 years to move to this new planet.”
________
Can I suggest that we need to send the climatiologists, carbon traders, green investment bankers & enlightened politicians on the first rockets so the new planet can be set-up correctly for when the rest of us arrive. We will have to act quickly to get the second batch of rockets ready before our planet drowns/fries but should we not show up, at least the Pioneers will be safe in the knowledge that they have saved mankind.
😉
Unless science is reproducible and verifiable it can just become a belief system for people. When science is only based upon authority it can be just as deceiving as any religion. This is the danger. This is also a flaw that many current scientists and science educators fail to grasp.
What is especially egregious are science educators in schools, on the news, in blogs, in private communications, or in public espousing a scientific fact and not allowing basic questions to be asked such as prove it or what is the evidence they have. When a science proponent or educator says that the science is X and in the same breath asks us to take it on his authority or gets all defensive when asked basic questions about it, then there is a serious problem with that scientist. It’s more than just a failure to communicate, it’s a failure on the part of the scientist or proponent of an alleged scientific fact or set of facts to comprehend their wayward behavior in the context of the scientific method and the overall philosophy and attitude of science.
There is also the risk that those in science fail to have their slice of science have the highest standards of hard evidence. They let their bias in and then claim that their science is settled or proven without feeling the need to provide the proofs along with the hard evidence and ability to verify it. Authority replaces hard edged vetting by those auditing with the scientific method.
Authority based science isn’t science, it’s authoritarianism and as such is highly suspect.
Question everything claimed.
“Nullis in verba. Take no one’s word for it.” – Motto of the Royal Society
“I’m trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS.” – Richard Feynman
“The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” – Thomas Henry Huxley
In my approach to learning science and promoting the use of the scientific method in all aspects of life where any claims about the objective reality of Nature are made I find it’s always important to remember the philosophy of science and that I apply the scientific method lest I fool myself with a lack of evidence as Feynman warned:
“We’ve learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it’s this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science. ” – Richard Feynman
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/02/19/cargo-cult-science-a-lesson-from-richard-feynman-for-scientists-of-today-to-learn
Climate of DOOM now 65% Less Doomy peer review study says. See what have we been telling ya all doomsayers, not as bad as you’ve been claiming… now if you could still provide the actual hard evidence for the remaining 45% of soothed doom we’d all get along just fine.
I should have added; With appologies to Douglas Adams.
What bugs me is that someone reports a spike in a scope and before you know it an artist has drawn a photo realistic impression of what the “planet” looks like. Full of terrain detail, rivers etc… Based on what? Purely and only his imagination and too much Star Trek.
Also, in climate science nothing can be “undiscovered”. Every new finding has to be interwoven into the old story like some scientific AIDS quilt…