Retracting a 52-year old scientific paper — Scientists getting into the business of historical revisionism
| October 26, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Science |
Below is a fascinating report in the NYTimes about a long-retired professor who found that his work was being cited by “creationists” and THEREFORE decided to retract it. But, as an attorney friend points out, the very concept of “retraction” is inapplicable here. A retraction is something the original author is entitled to do ONLY IF he has discovered, by re-examining his original data or reasoning or mathematics, that it was flawed.
That’s not what happened here. Instead, we have a situation in which — if we take the scientist (Homer Jacobson) at face value — later work by other people implies that the earlier work was wrong for some other reason. The proper action in such a case is not to “retract” a paper — which is an effort to erase it from the record — but to acknowledge it to have been in error, as revealed by later work. Such an acknowledgement is not a power unique to the author — anyone can declare an older theory superseded by a later one.
For example, (and I’m continue to crib from my attorney friend) take Darwin’s theory of how genetic information is passed on: not via DNA, of which he knew nothing, but by little items he called “gemmules” generated by each organ, and sent to the genitals to be combined in some way. He theorized that as the environment caused changes in the organs of a creature, the gemmules generated by that organ would reflect the changes, and that is how new body forms would show up in the offspring. Of course, the theory has been rejected, but still it is praised as good scientific theorizing — which it was. But so too is the work in this scientist’s 1955 paper. Even if it is wrong, it ought to remain on the public record. But by having its author not merely dsavow its superseded conclusions, but formally “retract” the paper, the effect is to wipe it out of history.
Welcome to the world of scientific revisionism.
’55 ‘Origin of Life’ Paper Is Retracted
By CORNELIA DEAN | NYTimes | October 25, 2007In 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.
38 Responses to Retracting a 52-year old scientific paper — Scientists getting into the business of historical revisionism
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Mr. Bitsko
Here is what he says:
He is asking them to retract his statements, not simply asking them to publish his letter or saying that he retracts those statements.
Mickey:
Let me clarify as my writing skills seem to be going down the tube.
I agree with you. I wanted reasons, and I didn’t see that you had already found the reasons. This is good enough for me. This is what I was trying to say: “Asking for a publication is a bit rash on my part. All I want is a reason. You found and supplied his reason, thanks.”
bornagain77:
I think this is cooler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkgEUUYcQUM
A few points are in order here.
First, has there been any work in the past 50 years which can serve to refute the work of Jacobson’s 1955 paper? If so, then there is no need for a retraction.
Second, does Jacobson have any quantitative evidence that shows that his previous work was in error.
The normal scientific protocol would be to write a new paper, with new results showing that the previous work was in error. I don’t care if the guy is 80. He can hire a grad student to do all the work. If he doesn’t have new results then the old ones stand.
third, he can’t erase the records. There are plenty of paper copies left if someone wants the originals.
The real issue is that the so-called ‘creation scientists’ have been citing the paper but clearly never did any research on the subject themselves. Is there anything that could be clearer evidence that what they are doing isn’t science?
http://exploringourmatrix.blog.....ience.html
Seems to me that all the legalistic hair-splitting over corrections, redactions, and retractions misses the point. Just read the plain language. Dr Jacobson says:
Note what he does. In the very statement in which he repudiates conjecture, he says that the necessary developments “might well have occurred….” Hmmmm.
I’m curious if Dr Jacobson’s defenders can explain why simply replacing with one conjecture with another is such laudable, high-minded science.
ReligionProf, the ‘so-called’ness that you prescribe to the creationists, who use the title ‘scientist’, should be under question if they are not rightly degreed. But you have tried to dupe the reader into seeing that scientists, who do believe in a literal Biblical account, can be written off as ‘so-called’. That is ingenious, and obviously untrue, as a quick search of any of the organisations that promote YEC can testify to PhDers and working scientists.
A major point that I draw from your thread is that where YECs have used this quote it has been as a point of assembling a critique of many pieces of divergent thinking that portray the confused state of evolutionary thinking. This, as you note, is “not science”, and the people who have put these together would probably agree with that too. It is, instead, collated on websites showing what evolutionists believe, have had published in journals, and in many cases have gone on to become part of the scientific mantra (as Jonathan Wells has adequately brought to the fore).
If an Intelligent Design advocate makes up a webpage, puts forth a number of quotes from evolutionary sources, finds that something they quoted from is now deemed wrong, then your line, “Is there anything that could be clearer evidence that what they are doing isn’t science?” could be leveled squarely at the ID movement. So, since the web jockey didn’t do the science, but relied on the printed (albeit wrong) word of the evolutionist, all IDer’s would be similarly informed that they are not “doing … science?” Your blunderbuss approach to this issue is not accurate.
The YEC websites that are sourced as being behind Homer Jacobson’s vanity name Googling aren’t YEC research bodies. As far as I can ascertain, the major ones haven’t used this quote. If I’m wrong, then they should write something to the degree that, “This is what was once printed in a respectable journal, was considered plausible by the evolutionary autocrats, was finally seen for its unmerited status, and has been debunked by its original author. We too shall no longer hold this up as what scientists believe, but what they used to believe!”
Oh, to the attached link … what bollocks. To the last line, “Parents, please protect your children from this dangerous cult. A group that teaches its adherents to claim that they are right even when the evidence says they aren’t does serious harm to the psyche, to say nothing of the soul.” I remember a 60 Minutes interview nearly 20 years ago of a Geology Professor, who allowed his wife the last say on the issue of creationists. She said, through tears, something like, “ … please, don’t let your children listen to the creationists. The harm that will befall them is too great (sob, sob, sob).”
Years go by, and the number of YEC’s blowing up buildings, undertaking kidnappings, being at the centre of white collar corruption, etc. just seems to be growing … Damn you, YEC’s! Both the McGrath blog and the wife’s reply show the emotion, but nothing of the reality or truth. They just keep stirring the same empty pot.
How pathetic.
Interesting. The Pharisees were not, to my knowledge, blowing up buildings or undertaking kidnappings. Jesus seemed to think they were deserving of criticism anyway.
If you want to get your knowledge of biology from a hydraulics engineer, I have no objection. I prefer to listen to people with PhDs in relevant fields.
ReligionProf,
I choose the letter ‘S’:
Dr Joachim Scheven, Palaeontologist
Dr Young-Gi Shim, Chemistry
Dr Mikhail Shulgin, Physics
Dr Emil Silvestru, Geologist/karstologist
Dr Harold Slusher, Geophysicist
Dr E. Norbert Smith, Zoologist
Dr Andrew Snelling, Geologist
Prof. Man-Suk Song, Computer Science
Dr Timothy G. Standish, Biology
Prof. James Stark, Assistant Professor of Science Education
Dr Esther Su, Biochemistry
Dr Dennis Sullivan, Biology, surgery, chemistry, Professor of Biology
I ensured I didn’t allow the engineers a guernsey.
I hope you have no objection to my usage of facts rather than your weak argument as presented.
You have a point though: Darwin studied medicine and theology in a university setting, and who listened to him? He didn’t have the ‘relevant fields’ to be listened to, did he?
But they did.
My knowledge of biological systems comes from strictly separating biology and systematics on the one hand, and evolutionary theory on the other: Operational V Origins science. Operational science, as I hope you would know, deals only with repeatable observable processes in the present. Origins science implores us to attempt reconstructing the past through ‘best guess’.
That PhDers from distant scientific fields, and others from philosophy and law, have – under the banner of ID or creation – taken evolutionary biology to task and made significant inroads can not be understated. The PhDers with a biology degree are not infallible, and what is presented to the masses is not gospel. That you will only, as you state, ‘prefer to listen to’ what the disciples of Darwinian biology provide (because they have a PhD in EVOLUTIONARY biology)presents you as one unable to question their spin on the same facts that are available to everyone.
Even an hydraulics engineer can see that through that one …