How Science Works- Arsenic Life

[really]

I'm posting this topic primarily to show that tough criticisms are part and parcel to any science. Secondarily to show those that might think the imagined powers that be would not suppress disagreeable science.
From RearClimate.com

Science is self-correcting: Lessons from the arsenic controversy
Recent attention to NASA’s announcement of ‘arsenic-based life’ Get Your Biology Textbook...and an Eraser! Articles NASA Astrobiology has provided a very public window into how science and scientists operate. Debate surrounds the announcement of any controversial scientific finding. In the case of arseno-DNA, the discussion that is playing out on the blogs Of arsenic and aliens: What the critics said | The Loom | Discover Magazine is very similar to the process that usually plays out in conferences and seminars. This discussion is a core process by which science works.
#

The arseno-DNA episode has displayed this process in full public view. If anything, this incident has demonstrated the credibility of scientists, and should promote public confidence in the scientific establishment. #

The story begins with a long-standing scientific consensus backed by an enormous amount of data: DNA is made with a phosphate backbone. Alternative backbones, such as arsenate, have long been considered unlikely for theoretical reasons Why nature chose phosphates | Science/AAAS. #

Nonetheless, despite this consensus, reputable scientists have promoted the study of alternatives challenging the prevailing view. And NASA has willingly funded these studies The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems. #

Lesson one: Major funding agencies willingly back studies challenging scientific consensus. #

The research team, Dr. Felisa Wolfe-Simon Felisa Wolfe-Simon and colleagues, behind this study collected data and concluded that they had sufficient evidence to demonstrate incorporation of arsenate into bacterial DNA. Although the data were preliminary in nature, Science A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus | Science/AAAS accepted the manuscript (pdf) http://www.ironlisa.com/WolfeSimon_etal_Science2010.pdf . With a high profile, potentially groundbreaking paper about to be published, NASA announced a press conference to publicize the findings. #

Lesson two: Most everyone would be thrilled to overturn the consensus. Doing so successfully can be a career-making result. Journals such as Science and Nature are more than willing to publish results that overturn scientific consensus, even if data are preliminary – and funding agencies are willing to promote these results. #

Within days of the arsenic paper’s publication, strong criticism of the study began to appear on scientific blogs. These blogs attracted the attention of the mainstream scientific press. Soon thereafter, media reported the wide skepticism within the scientific community – with some scientists going so far as to say that the paper should not have been published The NASA study of arsenic-based life was fatally flawed, say scientists. - By Carl Zimmer - Slate Magazine. #

These scientific criticisms opened the door to those wishing to discredit science and the peer-review process, with the contrarian blogs suggesting that this study demonstrates that peer-review is “broken”. A comment on Watts’ blog summarizes their thinking: #

It’s amazing how fast the scientific community came out to attack NASA for what they claim is plainly flawed science. Then again, NASA isn’t funding any of the attackers. #

In the Climategate mess however, we still have heard very little from an awful lot of so-called scientists who should have been saying a lot more about flawed science but are too afraid to lose their grant money. #

This raises an interesting question: just who is critiquing the NASA study? It turns out that many of the critics are also NASA-funded. In fact, many prominent critics of this study are funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute – the very same program that funded the arsenic study. #

More realclimate.com

[porker]

Really, how really brilliant.

Either you, I or both of us are prescient and telepathic, or something as I was going to make an extremely similar post just yesterday afternoon.

Except I was travelling.

Spot on. How science doesn't let itself get away with very much, even if it might be really exciting and interesting were it to be true.

[really]

Originally Posted by porker

Really, how really brilliant.

Either you, I or both of us are prescient and telepathic, or something as I was going to make an extremely similar post just yesterday afternoon.

Except I was travelling.

Spot on. How science doesn't let itself get away with very much, even if it might be really exciting and interesting were it to be true.

Advocates of the paranormal and supernatural think skeptics are just too harsh and too unyielding. I think this article plus the one Tor stickied certainly make it clear that peer review is anything but gentile.

[David Bailey]

The arseno-DNA story is interesting. I think it illustrates the fact that big science agencies like results, and possibly researchers get pushed to be a bit more assertive than they would do naturally.

I guess the idea is that this extends to psi - i.e. that people would be falling over themselves to publish psi results if only they could.

For some strange cultural reason, they don't. You can see that that is the case, because if there really was an appetite among mainstream scientists to enter the area of psi, you would expect a flood of results (positive or negative) relating to phenomena such as Sheldrake's dog experiments, or presentiment.

David

[porker]

I agree David, except that Sheldrake's dog experiment doesn't really cut the mustard as far as hard science goes, does it?

[really]

If Sheldrake is right; then he needs to account for why my dogs never seem to understand what I don't want or do want them to do when I want them to do it.

[Sandy B]

Originally Posted by really

If Sheldrake is right; then he needs to account for why my dogs never seem to understand what I don't want or do want them to do when I want them to do it.

Maybe they don't like you?

[OC68]

Originally Posted by Sandy B

Maybe they don't like you?

rofl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by porker

I agree David, except that Sheldrake's dog experiment doesn't really cut the mustard as far as hard science goes, does it?

If Sheldrake is right; then he needs to account for why my dogs never seem to understand what I don't want or do want them to do when I want them to do it.

I've always been impressed by the realisation that leading psi researchers take a lot of care about statistics - because they know that people are going to attack their work so hard. Other work seems quite sloppy in comparison. In particular, people in many fields are happy to publish one study with a p value that is just below the 5% threshold - minimum work per publication. Did you have any particular criticism of Sheldrake's work in mind when you wrote about mustard?

Dogs and cats clearly understand a fair bit in the normal course of home life. Animals are usually excited when someone comes home, if only because it will be feeding time! The question that Sheldrake asked (and maybe answered!) is whether they can get that information from non-normal channels. Note that even if you absolutely don't believe in psi, the results are remarkable, and you would have expected experts in animal senses to want to repeat them. After all, suppose someone could have shown that these results were the result of some kind of physical interaction that had never been considered in signalling between animals - wouldn't it be worth repeating the experiments to look for that. Remember, Sheldrake only chose this experiment because a lot of people informed him of this phenomenon.

The fact that such experts avoid an experiment like that, speaks volumes about a reluctance to get involved with psi issues!

David

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

I've always been impressed by the realisation that leading psi researchers take a lot of care about statistics - because they know that people are going to attack their work so hard. Other work seems quite sloppy in comparison. In particular, people in many fields are happy to publish one study with a p value that is just below the 5% threshold - minimum work per publication.

A survey by Sheldrake gives some interesting statistics related to blinding in various fields of science, compared to parapsychology:

A survey of recent papers published in a range of scientific journals showed that the used of blind methodologies is very rare in the so-called hard sciences. In the physical sciences, no blind experiments were found among the 237 papers reviewed. In the biological sciences, there were 7 blind experiments out of 914 (0.8%). There was a higher proportion in the medical sciences, 6 out of 102 (5.9%), and in psychology and animal behaviour, 7 out of 143 (4.9%). By far the highest proportion (85.2%) was in parapsychology. A survey of science departments in 11 British Universities showed that blind methodologies are neither used nor taught in 22 out of 23 physics and chemistry departments, or in 14 out of 16 biochemistry and molecular biology departments. By contrast, blind methodologies are sometimes practised and taught in 4 out of 8 genetics departments, and in 6 out of 8 physiology departments.

(My emphasis.)

Articles and Papers - Scientific Papers - Experimenter Effects - Experimenter Effects in Scientific Research: How Widely are they Neglected? - Abstract