Did “go fever” push NASA to publicly announce science to the MSM that wasn’t well peer reviewed?
WUWT readers may recall that I conjectured about the cryptic press release NASA made last week that set the blogosphere afire. See NASA’s extraterrestrial buzz where the press release announced:
NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Well newsflash there G-men, it was more terrestrial than extraterrestrial, and now it appears the science behind the press release may be seriously flawed.
It seems that in their flawed zeal to get some press coverage, NASA again has egg of their faces, reminiscent of the Mars fossil microbe fiasco. It’s more “science by press release” gone wild. Slate.com has a scathing review of the fire that is raging in the microbiology camp over this press release:
“It would be really cool if such a bug existed,” said San Diego State University’s Forest Rohwer, a microbiologist who looks for new species of bacteria and viruses in coral reefs. But, he added, “none of the arguments are very convincing on their own.” That was about as positive as the critics could get. “This paper should not have been published,” said Shelley Copley of the University of Colorado…
Of course if that was any of us saying the same thing about climate science, somebody would immediately label us “anti-science deniers”. Lets see if somebody comes up with a label for these people asking skeptical questions. Maybe “anti NASA space bug deniers”?
WUWT reader “NoAstonomer” tips us to the fray in progress saying:
The microbiology blogosphere is currently ripping this study apart:
http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/
http://scienceblogs.com/webeasties/2010/12/if_you_read_alex_bradleys.php
Here’s an excerpt from Slate.com :
In fact, says Harvard microbiologist Alex Bradley, the NASA scientists unknowingly demonstrated the flaws in their own experiment. They immersed the DNA in water as they analyzed it, he points out. Arsenic compounds fall apart quickly in water, so if it really was in the microbe’s genes, it should have broken into fragments, Bradley wrote Sunday in a guest post on the blog We, Beasties. But the DNA remained in large chunks—presumably because it was made of durable phosphate. Bradley got his Ph.D. under MIT professor Roger Summons, a professor at MIT who co-authored the 2007 weird-life report. Summons backs his former student’s critique.
But how could the bacteria be using phosphate when they weren’t getting any in the lab? That was the point of the experiment, after all. It turns out the NASA scientists were feeding the bacteria salts which they freely admit were contaminated with a tiny amount of phosphate. It’s possible, the critics argue, that the bacteria eked out a living on that scarce supply. As Bradley notes, the Sargasso Sea supports plenty of microbes while containing 300 times less phosphate than was present in the lab cultures.
And “NoAstronomer” adds:
Yet some with no expertise in the field stick with the original story. Phil Plaitt at Bad Astronomy notes how he has to trust the peer review process…
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/12/07/arsenic-and-old-universe/
But what happens if/when you realize that the process is broken, at least in this case? Can people take a step back and wonder if maybe the process failed in other cases too?
Get a load of this response:
“We cannot indiscriminately wade into a media forum for debate at this time,” declared senior author Ronald Oremland of the U.S. Geological Survey. “If we are wrong, then other scientists should be motivated to reproduce our findings. If we are right (and I am strongly convinced that we are) our competitors will agree and help to advance our understanding of this phenomenon. I am eager for them to do so.”
Umm, well, sir, small point: You and colleagues at USGS and NASA created a veritable firestorm of speculation and coverage with the cryptic press release and “embargoed” story in Science Magazine. Plus a live webcast, and NASA TV live, and now you say “We cannot indiscriminately wade into a media forum for debate at this time,”?
Dude, that ship has sailed. GMAFB!
Gosh, this pattern seems familiar. NASA trumpets these news worthy pieces in a “science by press release” after they pushed the peer review process to where if failed to catch the obvious, and then when called on it, they ignore any criticism.
Yes, the question is, how did this new train wreck get past peer review? Given the urgency attached to the press release by NASA, it certainly looks to me like NASA simply threw caution to the wind again. It seems to be another case of “go fever” that doomed Apollo 1, Challenger, and made them look like fools again following the embarrassing Mars fossil microbe debacle.
I found the whole episode underwhelming. The talk of alien life was way overblown. If what they say is true, at best it’s a case of an Earth organism that has added an adaptation, and additional chemical pathways, to an already existing system.
Calling it arsenic-based is a joke. From what I read, it grows with phosphorus and still prefers phosphorus. It just has the ability to get by with arsenic in a pinch. And that’s assuming that what they claim is actually true and that the skeptics argument is wrong (that bacteria can grow in trace P environments).
And, even more fundamentally, it is not an arsenic-based life form. It’s carbon-based, like every other organism on Earth. It’s not alien at all. A least not in the most fundamental way possible. And just the fact that we’re talking about whether it incorporates arsenic in its DNA shows how normal it is. Do we really expect true alien life to have DNA at all? Sure, it will have something that performs that sort of role, but, really, DNA? With the same bases and the same helix and the same structure? Really? What I see is a paucity of imagination. Alien life should be ALIEN, not a slight variation on every life form currently existing on Earth.
Because I think the whole thing was a rush-to-fame, let’s-have-a-press-conference, let’s-ignore-the-standard-rules-of-science I guess you can call me an “ars-cynic” about the whole thing.
Ah, Phil Plait! The famous Phil Plait, the Discover Blogger and Global Warming ‘sceptic’ who put up the picture of a squirrel shutting its ears and singing “la la la!” in order to express his full convictions in certain scientific theories. Yes, him!
Chicken is a dish best served warm, and hounds have come home to bite.
Jeremy says:
December 7, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Phil Plait is a smart man who turned into a tool because of fame.
###
He is a cognitively dysfunctional lefty with a PhD and a bad attitude. Pretty much everything he writes is nonsense that is the result of programming and not intelligence.
I’ll say this for it -they published the data and methods that allowed other scientists to evaluate the study on its scientific merit and try to replicate it if they so desired.
Just imagine if all departments in NASA did this…
Many thanks for the acknowledgment.
I found it very interesting how so many scientists can find issue with papers in their own field but seem to have this implicit bias towards trusting paper published about other topics, even when experts in that field criticize the paper.
I just clicked on NASA TV. Guess what’s on? Global Warming BS.
I hadn’t read the paper and had no idea it was such a radical claim as arsenic replacing phosophorous in cell chemistry which must also include RNA, ATP, and phospholipids.
Someone ought to try PCR amplification of the “arsenate” DNA (which kids do for science fair projects these days inexpensively with mail-order reagents) and if it’s really arsenate the amplification will surely fail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction
Well I already told you it was old hat, and we had some Arsenofile mold growing in a lush Arsenic solution; back in 1953 when I was doing my last year in high school. We forgot to do a DNA sequencing on the stuff; because we didn’t think it was that special; but it sure was chowing down on that Arsenic solution; and since it was some chemical reagant; it is highly unlikely that the flask contained ANY phosphorous.
The mold clearly was surviving just fine; No way we will ever know what it was doing chemically with the Arsenic; if anything).
“”””” Dave Springer says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:44 am
I hadn’t read the paper and had no idea it was such a radical claim as arsenic replacing phosophorous in cell chemistry which must also include RNA, ATP, and phospholipids. “””””
That’s the thing I was looking for; that ATP, from my near zero Biology background I seem to recall, that it is an absolute essential of ALL life on earth; and the chemical syntheses, that start from the primordial swamp gas and some of Igor’s lightning, don’t seem to be able to spontaneously synthesize ATP.
Well if I got that all scrambled somebody out there can set me straight.
At least it sounds like these NASA scientists are open to being proven wrong.
But along the lines of comments by others, aren’t there some senior scientists at NASA that when shown this paper said, “Whoa, that’s a helluva claim to make. Your data looks good, but let’s be real careful on this one and see if we back up our claims by also …”
The dog and pony show arranged by NASA public relations also seems more appropriate for a side show barker (“Step right up, see alien life form…”).
Here in Oz, I’m embarrassed to admit that our ABC radio “Science Show” was sucked-in to an interview with authors of the paper, although I‘m having fun commenting there on the transcript. (audio also available):
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/3080342.htm
Please join in.
I see above that Douglas DC and George E Smith mentioned arsenic-bugs studied in 1957 and 1952. There is also more recent but rather old published stuff:
E.G. see: August 2007:
Arsenic-Metabolizing Bacteria in an Extreme Environment
http://water.usgs.gov/nrp/highlights/arsenic.html
And: August 2008:
Arsenic-munching bacteria found
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7558448.stm
Interestingly, the 2007 USGS research was partly funded by NASA
I was also stunned to see a respected physicist say in part, this about the 2010 discovery:
“…Paul Davies: This is the first time that any living organism has been found that can operate outside of the six basic elements on which all hitherto known life depends, which is carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur and lastly phosphorus. It’s replacing phosphorus with arsenic…”
@E.M. Smith
Yes ATP is the coin of the realm for energy metabolism in all living things. Adenosine tri arsenate, which no one ever heard of before, suddenly gets a bunch of hits on google. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Pretty skimpy evidence so far. I don’t buy it.
They should get Ed Begley Jr to scream PEER REVIEW over and over and over for them.
just ftr, why anyone who admits that life exists would be amazed by the existence of some other biochemical basis for life, is a mystery to me.
On the other hand, the results may not be encouraging.
Skeptical Chymist says:
December 8, 2010 at 3:10 am
She seems to have dual affiliations, so maybe she didn’t want to show favorites with her email address.
Or maybe she has heard something about emails and FOI requests…
Anyway, she seems to be an “evolutionary microbial geobiologist and biogeochemist”, which I guess is the modern day scientific equivalent of chief cook and bottle washer.
Link provided by one of the commenters at the webeasties blog.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/12/06/arsenic-microbe-dna-nasa-wolfe-simon.html
I’ve mildly altered the text to “frame” the quotes in order to make them more relevant to another active area of research. Note that not much altering was required.
“She also questioned why the researchers analyzed the DNA while it was still in the gel dropped proxy data that didn’t agree with the instrumental record, making the results more difficult to interpret: “No molecular biologist competent statistician would ever do that””
“Redfield said the reason she posted the review on her blog is partly because scientific publications such as Science — and the debates therein — are typically behind a paywall and inaccessible to the public.”
“”I blog openly…to bring this stuff more into the open where everybody can see it,” she said.”
“Redfield acknowledged that the original paper was peer reviewed, but said that fact was “a puzzle.” She suggested that perhaps the reviewers may not have had an expertise in microbiology statistics. Another possibility is that the reviewers raised some concerns, but the editors of Science didn’t think they were serious or were “motivated by the coup of getting this very high-profile article.””
Yowsa, talk about a target-rich environment.
Ach…html commands didn’t work. Hopefully, my attempted “edits” (proxy, statistics, etc.) will be evident.
Some of you will be upset for me saying this but NASA has run it’s course. It’s time to defund and close down NASA. The agency is infected with global warming alarmist nonsense. They’re blowing our money like fools, and the country quite simply is flat broke. This would be a great place to make cuts. It pains me to say this. These guys were the brain trust for years and accomplished so many great things. But it’s all over now. Let the private industry take over.
I followed the rate of NASA press releases at physorg from 2007 – 2009 and in early ’08 the rate more than doubled and continues today. Like the shabby science discussed here most of the increase and in fact most of the releases were just fluff, smoke and mirrors.
Remember NASA is the space wing of our military, NOT a civilian space agency. Thus all this goody- goody stuff they do is just PR crap and they know they fool most of the people most of the time (MSM; all of the time). The real stuff, like the multi-gigabyte photo’s of the moon and the planets that they receive then hand us 1 0r 2 megabyte highly compressed jpeg copies, is inexorably hidden behind Never A Straight Answer.
Also, I now group “Science” and “Nature” w/ the MSM. I no longer subscribe nor read because the quality of the writing has slipped dramatically in recent years.
The microbes are immune to water. The Vatican baptized them with holy water. All the evil ones died off. The ones that are left are serving the Lord. Mono Lake is known as Lake Monotheos in the Vatican library.
So how did the National Aeronautics and Space Institute get into the biology and climate fields?
Sounds like scope creep.
Well, as my comments last article on this show, this is not in any way a surprise to me. Tis a shame. But it is easy to get overly excited by “loose” data and forget to actually do all the controls and quantification to “tighten” things up.