'Most Earth-Like' Exoplanet Gets Major Demotion 206
audiovideodisco writes "Last month, the team behind NASA's Kepler planet-finding mission announced the discovery of the most Earth-like planetary candidate ever spotted: KOI 326.01, an approximately Earth-sized planet orbiting in the habitable zone of its star. There was much excitement; one astrophysicist even calculated the value of the new planet as exactly $223,099.93. But when an innocent fact-checker's question sent one of the researchers back to look at some figures, she noticed that the star's brightness was listed incorrectly in a reference catalog, throwing the planet's properties into doubt. After jiggering the calculations, the Kepler team now says that KOI 326.01 is neither Earth-sized nor in the habitable zone, and may actually be orbiting a different star. The Kepler researcher says, 'We're seeing the scientific method playing out in real time.' While this news is a bit of a downer, Kepler is just getting going, and it's expected to find many, many more Earth-like planets."
Re:space science (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation: I'm a pathetic, visionless stump of a human being who goes on Internet forums to try to convince people that my apathy is somehow equatable to cleverness.
How "Earth-like" was it in the first place? (Score:5, Insightful)
When your only criteria are size and distance, you're not doing much to prove "likeness" to the Earth. In fact, you're doing less than 2 parameters/N parameters, since size and distance may have nothing to do with how habitable the planet may be to humans or any life forms.
Stoichiometry and temperature are far more significant. The existence of stabilizing processes in the atmospheric and geological systems are also more significant.
And then there's the little matter of the precise history of Earth, which went through several specific, major eras of development before it had these stabilizing systemic features and could support the formation of the first structures of life and their evolution into the first cellular beings.
And then it went through several more specific, major eras of development to result in large, complex, multicellular plant and animal forms of life, interacting as a (somewhat) stable ecosystem, capable of surviving events that nonetheless mass-extincted whole swathes of species.
The part about guessing wrong about which star the planet is orbiting is just bad astronomy, and is way past where they should be shutting up about its being "Earthlike."
Review First, Then A Press Release (Score:2, Insightful)
'We're seeing the scientific method playing out in real time', eh? How about letting that scientific method play itself out before you release your findings to the popular media? Or was it getting near the end of your fiscal year?
Re:Real time science indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
At least it attempts to explain reality with observable phenomenon instead of the old "God did it, no thinking required" that religion is so fond of.
Re:Really .. (Score:2, Insightful)
Epic SCIENCE you noob.
"Oh shit, if that number is wrong then this planet is in a whole different place! Let's check! IT IS! HUZZAH! We know more today than we did yesterday!"
That's science. And you suck.
Re:Real time science indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that science can at least admit that it could be wrong.
Unfortunately, some of the more hardheaded religious folks consider that to be a reason why religion is superior. I can't find the link, but a while back I came across a site that among other things had a series of one-panel comics by a creationist, and one of those comics made fun of science precisely because of its ability to change its mind about things.
"Reporter: A new discovery changes everything you thought you knew about the origin of life.... wait, no, that discovery was just debunked by an even newer discovery."
Re:Real time science indeed (Score:2, Insightful)
You're saying it doesn't happen in science? That misrepresented "facts" are never taught as "truth" in science? Or is it that you hate it when what passes for science is compared to religion ... well because it acts a lot like religion?
You want an "intractable belief" that is prevalent in science? Here's one ... that science is without bias.
This is a fine case of bias leading to a conclusion that was passed around as true, because science wants it to be true. How else do you explain how far wrong it might be that the planet they said was one thing, couldn't be further from the truth.
However, in science's defense, they correct their mistakes eventually. And no doubt they might actually discover "earth like" planet, around a "sol like" sun, in an "earth like" habitable zone. On the other hand, they might never find such a thing. One thing is for sure, scientists will believe there is one, even if they never find evidence, and someone else will fabricate data to prove it.
Remember, it took 40 years to discover that the Piltdown man was a hoax, and in those 40 years, thousands of people got their masters and doctorates based in part on their thesis using Piltdown man, and not one of those degrees were ever revoked. Science doesn't have the sterling reputation it thinks it has.
My point is, that science is flawed, because people performing it are flawed. It does tend to correct itself over time however, but it cannot nor does it attempt to fix the problems it causes when it is wrong.
This has nothing to do with religion except where science acts like a religion while trying to pretend it never does.
Re:Real time science indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
You want an "intractable belief" that is prevalent in science? Here's one ... that science is without bias.
Except that's not a prevalent belief in science, unless you mean in the literal sense that "science" is without bias because it is a concept, not a sentient entity.
The prevalent belief is that bias (and other failings) are an endemic property of the humans who conduct science, and it is only through the rigorous application of scientific methods that the effect of these failings can be mitigated, a process which is itself subject to the same human failings.
This is a fine case of bias leading to a conclusion that was passed around as true, because science wants it to be true. How else do you explain how far wrong it might be that the planet they said was one thing, couldn't be further from the truth.
Because there was an error in a reference catalog whose existence predates any knowledge of possible exoplanets, and therefore any possible motivation to "want" that planet to be around that star and with certain properties.
Of course that's still a fuck-up. But it was a simple mistake, not bias, that lead to the conclusion. Maybe bias prevented them from investigating the catalog data prior to someone asking a question specifically pertaining to it, but then I would have to assume that they did do this for other discoveries in planets. Which I doubt. More likely, the real bias was being biased towards thinking their reference information was correct, and that bias applied to every observation, not just the ones they were especially excited about.
My point is, that science is flawed, because people performing it are flawed. It does tend to correct itself over time however, but it cannot nor does it attempt to fix the problems it causes when it is wrong.
Scientists already know scientists are flawed.
And what does that last part mean? Science does attempt to fix problems it causes. A chemical with an unexpected side effect, they try to eliminate it if possible. They miscalculate the trajectory of a probe, they try to correct it if possible. And they try to fix the methodologies themselves to try to prevent the problem from repeating.
For example, I imagine the catalog data they are using will be thoroughly scrubbed before you see another "earth-like exoplanet" announcement based on it.
This has nothing to do with religion except where science acts like a religion while trying to pretend it never does.
The only similarity between religion and science is that they both involve fallible, fundamentally irrational humans. The biggest difference is that science views fallibility and rationality as problems to be worked around, and accepts when those properties resulted in the wrong conclusion.
In truth, this is a perfect example of science not acting like religion.