Well, there has been an announcement that a NASA scientist has found evidence for bacteria on three meteorites that point to an origin of life that is not Earth. Wow, this is big – even if it turns out to be wrong like the supposed bacteria found on a Martian meteorite back in the 1990s. This will be big new, it will dominate discussions, and we’ll see all sorts of religious nutcases come out against it. Sure, I’m friends with lots of planetary geologists (and married to one), and my view may be a bit different from most, but I love it. I’m setting up a metaphorical lawn chair, setting up the cooler full of beer and getting ready for a heck of a show.
3 comments:
There's a lot less than meets the eye on this. Check out this blog post by PZ Myers:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/did_scientists_discover_bacter.php
Basically, the study itself is heavily flawed. Worse, it's in the Journal of Cosmology, which is basically a crank journal that basically consists of advocating for panspermia.
Ahh...thanks for that. I didn't have time last night to search up other reactions - I suppose I should have waited. This is what I figured would happen, I just thought that it'd take longer (I didn't realize how poorly written the study was and that it had already been rejected by more reputable journals).
And here is the link from above so you can just click:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/nasa_speaks_out_boldly_on_the.php
Thanks. I wasn't sure how to post links on this type of comment form, since it only allows a handful of HTML tags.
Test: link
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