Hey, if we're talking about Brits, don't get me started about
Brian Josephson... The Nobel Prize winning physicist who was
duped by Uri Geller...
><<My bowl overfloweth... Please, help yourself to all the Brazil nuts
>you want but save me a couple pecans. ;^)>>
>
>The "nut" mission continues, eh?
What mission is that?
>It's so easy to slap on this label when someone disagrees with a
>cherished position.
No it's not. But I have problems when they disregard obvious
shortcomings in their arguments and push the data far further than
it allows. When this happens, I worry. It's not a matter of
disagreement with a "cherished position". Dawkins also runs afoul
in this area pretty often. I realize that prevailing opinions fall
all the time. (On a "micro-scale" you should see how often this can
happen in the field of DNA transcriptional regulation.)
>But it gets to a point of diminishing returns after awhile. The "nut"
>allegation rings hollow, leaving only an empty shell.
I'm not saying they're _complete_ nuts as much as they're way out of
their element in this area. I've provided a pointer to some of their
problems (like I have in the past in other discussions). Read Professor
Shapiro's assessment. I'm sure that the talk.origins FAQ files have
several pieces on H&W (The last time I read their names in the t.o.
newsgroup was in regard to their claims about fossil hoaxes).
>Better to discuss the merits. Jim Foley did a good job of this with
>Goodman. Would you like to take up Prof. W? And I don't mean by
>quoting Robert Shapiro or anybody else. I mean by reading his work
>yourself, and arguing from that. I'd be happy to listen.
I did read some of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's earlier works on
the subject and I think that Dr. Shapiro did a fine job discussing
their interpretations of interstellar IR spectra. There's not a
lot to add. The basic take-home message is that because the spectral
peaks observed are so indistinct and broad, H&W really don't have
good support to propose that macromolecules common to terrestrial
life are found in interstellar spaces in any detectable amount.
I've done IR spectroscopy. I know what good data looks like. I also
know that with crummy, broad peaks (no fault of astronomers, BTW - It's
a built-in limitation), you can fit just about any set of compounds
to the spectra. You can even do this with good spectra if there are
too many compounds in the sample. It's like looking at something
far away through frosted glass. You can see just about anything
in the blur.
I'm going offline for at least a month, starting tomorrow (June 31).
It would be fun to chat about the practical limitations of spectroscopy
and perhaps we can later. There are chemists on this list you could ask.
They would certainly know as much as I (probably more). In the meanwhile,
if you see Dr. Shapiro's book and still have problems with his treatment
of H&W's IR fitting methods, we can bring this up when I get back.
Regards, Tim Ikeda (timi@mendel.berkeley.edu)