Jacobson's retraction of his fifty year-old statements also shows how the topic of evolution is often linked to the origin of life when they are in fact two different discussions. It seems to be a creationist tactic to position them as the same.
On 10/25/07, Malcolm McCallum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > FYI, from the Chronicle of Higher Education: > > http://chronicle.com/news/article/3312/scientist-retracts-1955-errors-now= -cited-as-evidence-by-creationists?commented=3D0#txpCommentInputForm > > October 25, 2007 > Scientist Retracts 1955 Errors Now Cited as Evidence by Creationists > Sometimes it can take a half-century to realize you've made a mistake. > Homer Jacobson, a professor emeritus of chemistry at the City University > of New York's Brooklyn College, learned that lesson when he decided to > Google himself and found that incorrect statements he made in 1955 had > come back to haunt him. > > To make amends, Mr. Jacobson retracted two statements from an article > published in American Scientist magazine more than five decades ago. In a > letter in the magazine's November-December issue, Mr. Jacobson said he ha= d > made incorrect assessments of how improbable it would have been for > processes on the early earth to bring about the first organisms. > > Mr. Jacobson said that it is not normal to retract such old errors but > that he was motivated because creationists were now quoting his article t= o > support their cause. "I am deeply embarrassed to have been the originator > of such misstatements, allowing bad science to have come into the purview > of those who use it for anti-science ends," he said. > > Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, applauded Mr. Jacobson in an > editorial in the same issue. "Jacobson responded in the noblest tradition > of science," she wrote. The episode is described in today's New York > Times. > > In his original article, Mr. Jacobson asserted that it was "utterly > improbable, in all the time and space available for the origin of > terrestrial life," for the environment to create a single amino-acid > molecule. He now says that statement was based on a calculation assuming > there was no external source of energy involved in forming amino acids. > > But in 1953, only two years before Mr. Jacobson wrote those words, a youn= g > chemist named Stanley L. Miller and the Nobel laureate Harold C. Urey had > published a paper in the journal Science showing how lightning could have > caused simple molecules to form amino acids, which are the building block= s > of proteins. > > Now Mr. Jacobson notes that electrical discharges, such as lightning, and > other forms of energy on the early earth could have provided the energy t= o > produce amino acids. His earlier statement "is completely inapplicable," > he said in the letter. =97Richard Monastersky > > Posted on Thursday October 25, 2007 | Permalink | > > > Thank you for adding your comment. Your comment is pending moderation. It > will appear after it has been approved. > > > > Malcolm L. McCallum > Assistant Professor of Biology > Editor Herpetological Conservation and Biology > http://www.herpconbio.org > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --=20 Elizabeth L. Rich, Ph.D. "The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns t= o its original size." --Oliver Wendell Holmes
