Thomas Gold comes up with fascinating theories.
But has he ever nailed any of them to the wall?
Panspermia is a cool idea. It it doesn't exist,
we should invent it.
However, inventing theories for panspermia before
panspermia itself has run the Occam's Razor gauntlet makes only for fascinating
speculation. I love speculating myself, but I don't claim to be a
scientist. Fred Hoyle was good (and also loudly bad) at this kind of
thing, but I think Hoyle had a few solidly established theories to his
credit.
Thomas Gold thought the Siljan Ring would bear
out his theories after a year of drilling. After six years of drilling,
and long wrangling over the results, the theory that fossil fuels are truly
fossil-based is still bouncing bullets off its hairy chest.
It's time for this:
The Seven Warning Signs of Voodoo Science, in Digest
Form:
1) A
discovery is pitched directly to the media
2) A powerful "establishment" is said to be
suppressing the discovery
3) An effect
is always at the very limit of
detection
4) Evidence for a discovery is
anecdotal
5) A belief
is said to be credible because it has endured for
centuries
6) An important discovery is made in
isolation
7) New laws
of nature are proposed to explain an incredible
observation
Thomas Gold isn't
claiming a discovery, and what he says about interstellar planets doesn't
directly match any of the criteria above. However, we haven't detected any
interstellar planets, they may not be at all abundant, and ... how would we
know? You're stuck in (3) "An effect is always at the very limit of
detection". In this case, interstellar planets are probably well beyond
limits of detection we currently have, barring some very lucky observation for
which a repeat would be
unlikely.
A close reading of
Gold's interstellar-planet panspermia theory reveals a stealthy affection for
his Deep, Hot Biosphere hypothesis - which was "pitched directly to the media"
in a book that's been glowingly reviewed. It takes quite some Google
searching to discover that Gold's theory is still on wobbly legs. It's so
cute that a lot of people have been sold
already.
"Evidence for a
discovery is anecdotal" - well, in the first link above, you hear petrochemical
scientists complaining that the Russian cohort selling abiogenic origins for
fossil fuels still hasn't come up with compelling evidence. Abiogenic
origins still can't explain more than a tiny fraction of what's found.
Gold complains that people aren't looking hard enough. Well, but even he
ended up looking much harder than he predicted, without coming up with
conclusive
evidence.
"Endured for
centuries" - ah, not in the details, perhaps, but I wonder if some digging
wouldn't turn up a manuscript proposing panspermia by Giordano Bruno, who
UNSCIENTIFICALLY insisted that God had created a universe full of life, who
tried to make it dogma, not a scientific hypothesis. The idea of a
non-terrestrial origin for terrestrial life might be a century old, and it might
be much older - there are some interesting hints in ancient literature that
people were thinking all kinds of thoughts that we associated more with
post-Enlightenment
science.
I score Gold maybe
1.9 out of 7. A good scientist sticks as close to zero as possible, though
I like Jeff Bell's idea that every accomplished scientist is entitled to one pet
wacko theory.
-michael
turner
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- Thomas Gold on alien life deep under the surface LARRY KLAES
- Re: Thomas Gold on alien life deep under the surface Michael Turner
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- Re: Thomas Gold on alien life deep under t... LARRY KLAES
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