Scientists see fatal flaws in the NASA study of arsenic-based life

[Sosa]

Redfield blogged a scathing attack (http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/arsenic-associated-bacteria-nasas.html) on Saturday. Over the weekend, a few other scientists took to the Internet as well. Was this merely a case of a few isolated cranks? To find out, I reached out to a dozen experts on Monday. Almost unanimously, they think the NASA scientists have failed to make their case. "It would be really cool if such a bug existed," said San Diego State University's Forest Rohwer (http://phage.sdsu.edu/members/profile.php?user=flr), 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 (http://cires.colorado.edu/people/copley/) of the University of Colorado.

http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/pagenum/all/

[Nolan]

Woot go peer review.

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

So does this mean it was a fake?

[Sosa]

not a "fake" per say....it just means that their research was sloppy. Bad science. That's what I gathered from the article, I don't think they were trying to purposefully manipulate the results

[RojoBandera]

Well, at least this can serve as a good example of bad research being threaded out by peer review.

I'm damn dissapointed though. I was actually getting excited about this.

[Black Sheep]

Not 100% related, but Youtube's Thunderfoot mentioned some criticism almost a week ago.

FWAYBgl69gw

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

What's really galling is that NASA made such a song and dance about this now-dubious finding, and that will have repercussions for future funding; why is NASA seemingly run by complete idiots? If I were running the place, there would be none of these silly press conferences unless there really was something major, like extraterrestrial life.

[Widerstand]

If I were running the place, there would be none of these silly press conferences unless there really was something major, like extraterrestrial life.

That's why you wouldn't be running the place.