The New York Times distorts the situation with the rejected paper “Arsenleben” from 2010 – why evolution is true

A remarkable discovery appeared in the journal Science In 2010, Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues in California Salzig Mono-Lake reported a bacterium that could replace arsenic with phosphorus in his metabolism. This was breathtaking because Phosphorus was considered an essential part of many biological macromolecules, including proteins and DNA. The latter using phosphorus as part of his backbone. (By the way, the bacterium was called GFAJ-1 to “give Felisa a job” because it apparently looked for a permanent academic position.)

In any case, these were great news, and for many goods for many, including hype-freomoting journalists, implies that if the life of arsenic could thrive, the danger to life on other planets was higher than we thought. Wolfe-Simon himself implied that there might have been a “shadow biosphere” on earth, including organisms, which we did not know that their biochemistry was so different as that of life we ​​knew.

The public relations work that took part in this discovery was huge: NASA organized a press conference in which Simon was the only of the dozen authors that had appeared. Simon also gave a Ted lecture on this topic and 2011 Time Magazine She called her as one of Time 100 people, supposedly the most influential group in the world.

The problem that occurred pretty quickly is that this discovery was wrong. Research was sloppy, the reviewers obviously didn’t have the right know -how to check the paper, and researchers who had the expertise Science. As Wikipedia determines,

If this is correct, this would be the only known organism that can replace phosphorus in its DNA and other vital biochemical functions.^{((14)))((15)))((16)))} The Science The publication and a one-hour NASA press conference on December 2, 2010 were published and led to “Wild speculations on the Internet about extraterrestrial life”.^((17))) Wolfe-Simon was the only one of the authors of paper at this press conference.^((18))) The press conference was immediately met by scientists and journalists on criticism.^((19))) In the following month, Wolfe-Simon (and its co-authors and NASA) reacted to criticism through an online FAQ and an exclusive interview with one Science Reporter, but also announced that they would not react any further outside the scientific peer review.^{((20)))((21)))} In April 2011 Time The magazine called Wolfe-Simon at one of this year 100 people.^{((22)))((23)))}

The Science Article “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus” appeared in the print version of June 3, 2011 by Science;⁽⁽¹⁾⁾⁾ It had remained six months after the acceptance of publication on the Science Express page “Publication before pressure”. However, Rosemary Redfield and other researchers at the University of British Columbia and Princeton University carried out studies in which they used various techniques to examine the presence of arsenic in the GFAJ-1 DNA, and published their results in early 2012 found no detectable arsenic in the DNA of the bacterium. In addition, they found that Arsenat does not help the trunk if phosphate was limited, which indicates that Arsenat does not replace the role of phosphate.^{((24)))((25)))}

After the publication of the articles that question the conclusions of the original Science In articles first described GFAJ-1, the website retreat guard was used that the original article should be withdrawn due to the incorrect representation of critical data.^{((26)))((27)))} In October 2024, Science The editor Holden Thorp informed the authors of the article about his intention to withdraw and argued that the current practice, while this used to have only a justified retraction, made it possible for restless people.^((22)))

I wrote about the controversy at the time; See my different posts here. Simon et al. Apparently dead were wrong. This was first revealed by Rosie Redfield (who later published a criticism in literature) and followed by eight reviews in Science Via the Wolfe-Simon et al., Paper and two failed attempts to replicate their results, both of them failed. Wolfe-Simon did not get her coveted job and as the new NYT article below reports, she now spends her time to make music for the oboe and work part-time on bacteria that apparently can use the earth’s magnetic field to too navigate.

Now the NYT has revised the controversy on the 15th anniversary and published a long and remarkable article that does its best relieve Wolfe-Simon and demonize their critic. As the following heading implies, it has changed science forever. This is wrong. Why do you do that? Greg Mayer has two theories that are his and I will mention them below.

Click below to read Sarah Scoles’ NYT article, which is also archived here.

The article is remarkably soft for Wolfe-Simon, plays down the scientific sloppiness of your topic and makes it a kind of heroine that was wrongly attacked by a social media mob. The mistakes of Wolfe-Simon et al., Although a link goes to her. The article implies, as I said, that “its discovery” (it was a group of people!) Nevertheless changed science forever, because it was criticized on social media (something that implies the NYT is bad) and from Since science, it was checked before the official publication of non -scientists or scientists who publish their criticism on social media, including blogs. This influenced science so that it was never the same.

Scoles is wrong and roughly exaggerates the situation. The papers were criticized long before Wolfe-Simon on social media, but theirs were particularly pointed out because it was not only a remarkable phenomenon to believe one thing, but also because the authors gave him a great hype that of the press helped. Remarkable results deserve remarkable attention. And in the end, the problems with the Wolfe Simon paper and the failure to replicate it found scientific literature, so that nobody believes that there is a bacterium of arsenic. In this way, science should work, and in this case it worked. A sloppy and false report was corrected.

Now others, including ScienceThe editor Holden Thorp and David Sanders in the Retreat Article below from 2020 Feel that Wolfe-Simon et al. Paper should be withdrawn. I do not agree. If it is used for anything, the retraction for papers should be reserved that contained double goods and fake data or incorrect claims. Wolfe-Simon et al. Simply a false and poorly checked paper produced, but there was no fraud. The paper should remain and it simply fulfilled the fate of many papers that were wrong (remember that at least two Nobel prices were given for sloppy and false science). It is an object hour about how Wonky results are repaired.

Click below to read this REtraction Watch Article from 2021 or see the newer article here.

The question remains: Why did NYT paint a misleading picture of Felisa Wolfe-Simon, its critics and the scientific process? Why did they make themselves so easy and made them a heroine who bullyed unfair – to the point where she could not find an academic job. Greg Mayer suggested two theories:

1.) Greg notes that the article that brings them out as a victim plays into the “sacrificial narrative” of scientists who were treated unjustly (she was also a woman who flows into this narrative). And newspapers love victims.

2.) Greg also wrote that “The article seems in accordance with the hug of Woo: Another example of the gullible reporting on unusual claims, a latest UFO reporting.”

I become Greg in these theories that have been expanded. So come back to this post later to see what he says. I mainly agree with him and we both agree that Wolfe-Simon’s paper should not be withdrawn.

Addendum by Greg Mayer.

My first proposal is actually the narrative “Scientist as hero”, which represents the only scientist as an anchored orthodoxy that tries to suppress its discoveries. For some discussions about the narrative, her mistakes, but also your upward trend, see this post by Andrew Gelman and the links in it. The media love this narrative – sometimes it is even true! It is even better that the “hero scientist” becomes a “victim” – now they are Galileo! It doesn’t hurt when the victim of heartless male editors such as Holden Thorpe seems to be rejected. It helps if you neglect it to mention that some of the most impressive criticisms came from another female scientist. But as someone once said, you can not only wrap yourself into the cloak of Galileo just because the orthodoxy opposes you: you must also be right. Getting a likeable re -evaluation in the Times also fits well with the initial strategy of the maximum attention of the media (NASA -Pressure Conference, Ted Talk, GlossPresent TimePresent Wall Street Journaletc.) to his career and with the general approach of the science of the media, including the Just.

The second proposal that does not exclude each other is that the article follows this Just The latest attraction in Woo, such as astrology and UFOs. Many elite media have embedded themselves in the latter – see Andrew Gelman again, especially here. He points out that the media seem to be believed to be skeptical about elites and authority, when they paper this stuff, but while they doubt authority, they carelessly accept what they have told. (There is a very similar burden in RFK Jr.’s approach to science.) As Gelman states, extreme skepticism is triggered in credibility.