1 I blame Islam.

2 NASA Full Of Shit On Arsenic-Based Microbe?

FIFY

3 But couldn't it still be true? I mean, this particular discovery might be bogus, the the philosophical implications are still there.

4 But what has this to do with boobies?

5

I blame Islam.

Why? Because the math may have been faulty? Well, there wouldn't be any math at all if it weren't for Islam.

6

the philosophical implications are still there.

This is not the 'Leap of Faith', to which I was referring.

7 It looked shaky to me from the start. NASA is so unimpressive lately. Just trying to justify their budget with an out-there press release. Sad. I know a guy who works there - he is the epitome of surly, lazy, useless gov't-enabled fluff. I'm sure he's the star among his group of supposed scientists. Let's face it - bureaucracy and guaranteed cush jobs killed NASA.

8 Look, we tried to fabricate halal-based microbes, but that didn't get us any extra federal cash. So next we might take a stab at lesbian paramecium.

9

Yeah, I was excited about this originally and now that the details are out, I'm kinda pissed about the thin gruel.

Hey, you know what would be great?  If the scientific community,such as it is--insisted on the same rigor from the global warming charlatans.

10 3 But couldn't it still be true? I mean, this particular discovery might be bogus, the the philosophical implications are still there.

Fake but accurate? 

11 I say we quit dicking around and try to find a pizza based life form.

12 I agree with 3 and 5. In fact, I meant to say both of those things.

13 So next we might take a stab at lesbian paramecium.--------------------- Why stab them when you can stone them?

14 NASA has a crappy reputation for this stuff.

Science by press release is generally bad science. Science by hastily called press conference even more so.

15 Let's face it - bureaucracy and guaranteed cush jobs killed NASA. Posted by: BlackOrchid at December 10, 2010 01:05 PM (SB0V2) You forgot nepotism. Look in the phone book of any NASA facility and check for unique last names- it reads like it's from West Virginia.

16 We went from steely-eyed missile men to mealy-mouthed sissy men.

17

it reads like it's from West Virginia

Everything and everyone are named Robert Byrd?

18 I'm shocked that a scientist who sounds like an poorly coached, overenthusiastic 12 year old is performing bad science.

19

Everyone knows aliens have sulphuric acid for blood. Ask Cpl. Hicks.

Maybe NASA is just acting like muslims, lie to the infidel.

20 NASA needs to return to their primary function - muslim outreach.

21

 I'm shocked that a scientist who sounds like an poorly coached, overenthusiastic 12 year old is performing bad science.

She was 1/2 Lillith Crane and 1/2 Creepy Hand Model...looks like she has quite the gigantic muff as well.

Ace - How about a Philly Lesbo Humus Flash Mob post?

22

That's certainly possible; scientists are not secular saints.

Just the opposite.  Scientists are all too frequently money-grubbing whores and have a sociopathological view towards ethics.

NASA knew that its forays into global climate science were not going to play well with the Republican Congress, so they were hoping for something.  It backfired.

The whole process of scientific funding is corrupt.  NASA's budget should be slashed, they've engaged in mission creep.  The NIH, USDA and NSF should cap overhead or, even better, mimic the UK and Canada in which they refuse to fund researchers' salaries.

23 10Yeah, I was excited about this originally and now that the details are out, I'm kinda pissed about the thin gruel.

Me too.  I didn't look at the original publication, but when I saw that they were growing the bacteria in media contaminated with some phosphate, well, that is an essential control the authors needed to have.  Can't show that your bacteria can grow without phosphate unless you grow them in media bereft of phosphate, right? 

You don't need to have a Ph.D or an assistant professorship to figure this out.  Its just common sense. 

24 Maybe NASA should take the guys who are competent in science off the muslim outreach beat and put them on something that's actually relevant to its mission.

25 I watched the bit of Redeye mocking it, and saw the scientist involved.  She looks and acts like a dumbass.  It was completely unserious in every way.  The way she presented it should have been enough to make everyone scream bullshit at this being a non-breakthrough.

26

Science by press release is generally bad science. Science by hastily called press conference even more so.

Whaaat?

27 The thing with papers published in the journal Science (which is one of the top science journals in the world) is that their format and accelerated review process (they want to publish high impact, leading papers) can make reviewing/evaluating the work problematic, both for the referees and for the general readership.  They tend to be very skimpy on methodology and raw data.  Those things are often put in the footnotes or in appendices. 

And it's very competitive to get into Science, so that sort of adds an extra element that can mean that really famous research groups can publish seriously flawed - but highly "interesting" and exciting - studies.  Often, the solid papers backing up the discoveries published in Science appear in specialty journals a couple of months later. 

In my own field there was (is) really large, famous, and productive group who published a study claiming a therapeutic effect of a molecule on a disease. My old collaborator - a really solid, but not flashy - biochemist, had big questions about the work, but the other two reviewers did not and the editor accepted it.  Within a few months, the explanation for the supposed therapeutic phenomenon was determined to be what my collaborator suspected.  S(o the experiments presented in the Science paper were ok, but not adequate to draw the flashy conclusion they drew.)  The work demonstrating what was really going on got published, but in much less sexy journals.  Meanwhile, the big group went on to other, sexier projects. 

So it's not necessarily fraudulent, but just sloppy work that looks cool, but is not presented in a way or controlled for properly that winds up in Science. 

Nature papers can have similar problems. 

28 Guess this was just another bug hunt.

29

Back in the day, I used to teach my chem grad students that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Guess they don't do that anymore.

30 Relax everyone, we're working on something really exciting... It's called "cold fusion."

31 We're also issuing a paper on a new imaging technology called "Kirilian photography."

32 #27 In my own field there was (is) really large, famous, and productive group who published a study claiming a therapeutic effect of a molecule on a disease. My old collaborator - a really solid, but not flashy - biochemist, had big questions about the work, but the other two reviewers did not and the editor accepted it.  Within a few months, the explanation for the supposed therapeutic phenomenon was determined to be what my collaborator suspected.  S(o the experiments presented in the Science paper were ok, but not adequate to draw the flashy conclusion they drew.)  The work demonstrating what was really going on got published, but in much less sexy journals.  Meanwhile, the big group went on to other, sexier projects.

Which is why peer-review isn't always the ultimate end-all check on scientific data that its sometimes scaled up to be.  At its worst, "peer-review" becomes "pal-review" or rubber-stamping. 

Not saying that occurred here with Science, but it damn well goes on too much with "climate change" journals, as shown by Mann et al. 

33 If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

34 @34 Gimme your keyboard, pal. You ruined mine.

35 My collaborator (who was at the MRC in Cambridge, UK) used to quote a famous scientist - it might have been Max Perutz or some other old British
Nobel Laureate - who basically said that science would progress much more sanely if we were all limited to publishing 10 papers in our entire careers. 

That's certainly true. 

In the life sciences, US really need to be publishing 4 or 5 papers a year, even as a newly minted prof, to ensure getting the resources and tenure you need to keep going. 

When I first started out, the gold standard for my subspecialty was a journal with roughly a 6 mos turn around time on submissions-review-publication.  Now that journal turns papers around in a couple of weeks.  Online publishing has created some problems, unfortunately, even though there are a lot of upsides.

I think in other fields, it may still be a much slower process and the publication rate may be slower as well.  I had a friend in applied mathematics who said papers there still took months to review. 

I'm not sure what the solution is.  The fields are so different.  Much of biology is done by incremental discoveries, so lots of small papers can help accelerate discoveries as many groups read, interpret, and build on studies of others. 

36

What Y-not said, although I would emend his characterization of Science to read one of the most prominent scientific journals in the world. In content I would not call it a top journal; as a chemist, I never bothered even to read it, much less subscribe to it.

It's very heavy on molecular biology (which itself, as a field, has a lot of problems with shitty papers in which the data inadequately support the conclusions), typically with some population biology (e.g., wombat mating habits), radioastronomy (who knew Kasey Kasem broadcast from space?), and plate tectonics (look at 'em go!) crap thrown in.

Science and Nature are prominent because they're the bridge between scientists and journalists.Journalists don't read Physical Review Letters or Angewandte Chemie, but they do scan Science and Nature for story grist. Voila! The problem is born. Many Science and Nature are essentially glorified press releases for this reason.

37 >>> 1/2 Creepy Hand Model Good.. I wasn't the only one who noticed a similarity

38

Back in the day, I used to teach my chem grad students that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Guess they don't do that anymore.

Science has become dogmatic.  It has become about credentials and being published rather than evidence.  Most annoying of all is when assholes like Bill Nye claim to be skeptics, then say that people who don't believe in global warming are guilty of 'treason'.

39 What Y-not said, although I would emend his characterization of Science to read one of the most prominent scientific journals in the world. In content I would not call it a top journal

Yeah, I should have clarified that I was classifying it based on the Science Citation Index rankings.  'Haven't looked at them in a while, but I think Science and Nature are still at/near the top for the life sciences and many other fields as well. The SCI is calculated using an equation that incorporates citations - a measure that others are reading and citing the work. 

The next tier journals are often better vehicles for publication. 

40 Allah wonders if NASA didn't have some kind of subconscious financial motive to rush something grabby out the door, stat, given cuts likely to be coming. That's certainly possible; scientists are not secular saints.

But wait a minute... why, that could be said of<i>Global Warming "Science,"</i> could it?

41 @41
Yeah, maybe.

In fairness, a lot of the over-hype came from the journal, not NASA.  When you publish in Science, you agree to abide by their publicity scheme.  You have to embargo results and do the press conference under their conditions.  So Science is definitely part of the problem here.

Of the two journals - Science and Nature - I always found Science (the US based one) to be much more prone to politicizing things than was Nature.  Science is the publishing arm of AAAS - a large scientific society - but I don't think Nature (published in the UK) is.  That may be part of it.  AAAS may even lobby etc.  'Not sure about that. 

42 #42 AAAS may even lobby etc.  'Not sure about that.

Here is AAAS's policy concerning lobbying:

The AAAS does not, as a general policy, engage in direct or grass roots lobbying. To retain its tax-exempt status, AAAS must insure that “no substantial part” of its activities constitutes lobbying activities. There are two kinds of lobbying: direct and grass roots lobbying. Direct lobbying generally is any attempt to influence any legislation through communication with any member or employee of a legislative body (both Congress and state and local legislative bodies).

43 Relax, during our Muslim Uplift we found a hate-based lifeform and it thrives throughout areas of the Middle East.

44 41 Allah wonders if NASA didn't have some kind of subconscious financial motive to rush something grabby out the door, stat, given cuts likely to be coming. That's certainly possible; scientists are not secular saints.

But wait a minute... why, that could be said of<i>Global Warming "Science,"</i> could it?

Posted by: CoolCzech at December 10, 2010 01:32 PM (tJjm/)

I bet NASA and her had this issue.  Her grant money was probably running out.  NASA needs some major news to justify funding so they send out the request of "does anyone have something groundbreaking we can hang our hat on?"  And this stupid bitch sees dollar signs to continue her ride that is completely useless.

45 There's always silica based life to chat with

46 Oh well, another one I thought I had on the Creationists that I have to flush down the old memory hole.

Hey everybody look, I'm taking my revenge out on Pam Geller again on a spanking new thread!

47 Posted by: Kratos (Ghost of Sparta) at December 10, 2010 01:40 PM

Thanks.  That's good to know.

I think they do try to influence science policy, though, at least through their editorial policies and "news" pieces in Science.  That's part of AAAS's mission.  And AAAS is located in DC. 

48

I thought at the time that this chick was long on enthusiasm and short on age and experience.  A recipe for disaster.  She had too much of that girly thing going on which is usually gone by the time they're mature enough to be publishing serious papers.  Why this was being promoted through NASA as being a great discovery but at the same time the author didn't want to discuss the specifics was a big red light to me.

I like that one thread where ace quoted another blog as saying "THIS IS DEFINATELY ALIEN LIFE!!!!"  which I rolled my eyes to, along with many others... and I assume those people who believed all this think of themselves as intellectuals who know better than the rest of us.  uh hu

49 This is why we superior intellects at NASA should never release our data to the public.  Nobody outside of NASA is capable of understanding our work.  The hockey stick shape of the bacteria proves it is alien.

50 After my morning coffee, I left a sulfur-based life form in the jakes.

51 5

I blame Islam.

Why? Because the math may have been faulty? Well, there wouldn't be any math at all if it weren't for Islam.

Uh, wrong?  If it wasn't for India, we wouldn't have any math.  At least, not the math that we know.  Arabs (NOT Islam, really) simply adopted this info and passed it on to the West.  I'm sure with the trade routes that, at one point or another, it would have made its way to the West eventually.  A lot of the claims about Islamic nations/empires having "golden ages" of learning or science, etc., are complete bunk.  Most of the great innovations (the few there actually were) that came from said nations/empires usually originated either with non-Muslims living within the populations or were simply re-transmissions of information/learning from other/previous peoples.  NOTE:  I did not say ALL, just most.

the sinner,

Patrick

52 Incidents like this, the global warming debacle, the alleged finding of a "missing link" that led to shows on Discovery, etc., illustrate the problem with science in the West: it is often viewed as though scientists are, in fact, "secular saints."  This is a very prominent problem in Western culture - the rampant scientism that affects so much of our cultural presumptions that it infests all sorts of avenues of thought.  For instance - the natural reliance of many people on "experts" *because* they're labeled experts.  Or studies, or "scientists say," etc. 

Don't get me wrong, this isn't some "anti-science" rant (though the very idea of that is telling I think, let alone when it is thrown around as an accusation).  I'm simply trying to point out the *cultural* aspects and effects of scientism, NOT science itself.

the sinner,

Patrick

53

Nobody outside of NASA is capable of understanding our work.

Hey, I've had a long-standing interest in Astronomy.

I'm an Aquarius.

54 all the Islamic math schoalrs where converts to Islam rather than pay the "tax" or get their heads hacked off ...

55
who basically said that science would progress much more sanely if we were all limited to publishing 10 papers in our entire careers

Just as long as the author doesn't suffer what I called Joanne Simpson-itis: the woman couldn't publish a paper that was less than 20 journal pages long. As a gradual student, it seemed like punishment to be assigned one of her papers to read and try to understand.

56 Peer-reviewed scientific papers should all be written in Latin. Everything else is a press release.

57 I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Any activity and information about outer space is the new global warming.  The environmentalists failed with the myth of global warming so now they have latched on to the myth of invasion from aliens in outer space.  When this schlick fails, as it must, they will find another way to get money from us and power over us.  They will never give up as long as they draw breath.  We need to be vigilant to stop them.  It will be never ending.

58

"I was outraged at how bad the science was," she told me.

It's a damn  shame that climate scientists won't apply the same critical thinking skills to climate science.

59
My take on the NASA junk science:

It is about funding. They are coming up against big budget cuts and they need a bull shit story like this to keep the money spigot open. It happens every political cycle.

60 I just wanted to point out; I Was Right.

With all due humility, of course.

61 This should have been questioned from the outset when it was learned that the name of the mcrobe, GFAJ-1 stands for Give Felicity a Job. And yes, that is reported in Live Science as the actual meaning for the initials.