[tt] [wta-talk] ’55 ‘Origin of Life’ Paper Is Retracted

[Eugen Leitl]

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From: "Reinhard H." <reinhard.heil at googlemail.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:53:35 +0200
To: wta-talk at transhumanism.org
Subject: [wta-talk] ’55 ‘Origin of Life’ Paper Is Retracted
Reply-To: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List <wta-talk at transhumanism.org>

'55 'Origin of Life' Paper Is Retracted

By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: October 25, 2007

In January 1955, Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn
College, published a paper called "Information, Reproduction and the
Origin of Life" in American Scientist, the journal of Sigma Xi, the
scientific honor society.

In it, Dr. Jacobson speculated on the chemical qualities of earth in
Hadean time, billions of years ago when the planet was beginning to
cool down to the point where, as Dr. Jacobson put it, "one could
imagine a few hardy compounds could survive."

Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, he said in a
telephone interview from his home in Tarrytown, N.Y. But today it is
winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want — from creationists
who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without
divine intervention.

So after 52 years, he has retracted it.

The retraction came about when, on a whim, Dr. Jacobson ran a search
for his name on Google. At age 84 and after 20 years of retirement, "I
wanted to see, what have I done in all these many years?" he said. "It
was vanity. What can I tell you?"

He found many entries relating to his work on compounds called
polymers; on information theory, a branch of mathematics involving
statistics and probability; and other subjects. But others were for
creationist sites that have taken up his 1955 paper as scientific
support for their views.

Darwinismrefuted.com, for example, says Dr. Jacobson's paper
"undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident."
Another creationist site, Evolution-facts.org, says his findings mean
that "within a few minutes, all the various parts of the living
organism had to make themselves out of sloshing water," an impossible
feat without a supernatural hand.

"Ouch," Dr. Jacobson said. "It was hideous."

That is not because he objects to religion, he said. Though he was
raised in a secular household, he said, "Religion is O.K. as long as
you don't fly in the face of facts." After all, he said, no one can
disprove the existence of God. But Dr. Jacobson said he was dismayed
to think that people might use his work in what he called "malignant"
denunciations of Darwin.

Things grew worse when he reread his paper, he said, because he
discovered errors. One related to what he called a "conjecture" about
whether amino acids, the basic building blocks of protein and a
crucial component of living things, could form naturally.

"Under the circumstances I mention, just a bunch of chemicals sitting
together, no," he said. "Because it takes energy to go from the things
that make glycine to glycine, glycine being the simplest amino acid."

There were potential sources of energy, he said. So to say that
nothing much would happen in its absence "is totally beside the
point." "And that is a point I did not make," he added.

Another assertion in the paper, about what would have had to occur
simultaneously for living matter to arise, is just plain wrong, he
said, adding, "It was a dumb mistake, but nobody ever caught me on
it."

Vance Ferrell, who said he put together the material posted on
Evolution-facts.org, said if the paper had been retracted he would
remove the reference to it. Mr. Ferrell said he had no way of knowing
what motivated Dr. Jacobson, but said that if scientists "look like
they are pro-creationist they can get into trouble."

"There is an embarrassment," Mr. Ferrell said.

Dr. Jacobson conceded that was the case. He wrote in his retraction
letter, "I am deeply embarrassed to have been the originator of such
misstatements."

It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they
discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong.
The idea that all scientific knowledge is provisional, able to be
challenged and overturned, is one thing that separates matters of
science from matters of faith.

So Dr. Jacobson's retraction is in "the noblest tradition of science,"
Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist, wrote in its
November-December issue, which has Dr. Jacobson's letter.

His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist
who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public
correction," and people who "cling to dogma."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/25jacobson.html

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