I've been saying for a long time that that 'journal' that published the meteorite microbes story was a joke: now someone who has also published in the JoC gives us a look at the review process there. It's not very rigorous, as you might expect.
She also gives a good mineralogical explanation of the structures they were seeing (see also Ian Musgrave's summary). This paper's dead, Jim. But don't be surprised if you see it cited in other papers from the fringe astrobiology crowd in the future.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
You all know that the Journal of Cosmology is complete crap, right? In addition to some of the worst web design ever — it looks like a drunk clown puked up his fruit loops onto a grid of 1990s-style tables — the content is ridiculous, predictable, and credulous. Their big thing is seeing life in…
Having made reference to the referee system in my post about a paper being accepted, this seems like a good point to dust off an old post about the peer review system in physics.
Like many of the other Classic Edition posts I've put up here, this one dates from July of 2002. Apparently, I wrote a…
Do scientists see themselves, like Isaac Newton, building new knowledge by standing on the shoulders of giants? Or are they most interested in securing their own position in the scientific conversation by stepping on the feet, backs, and heads of other scientists in their community? Indeed, are…
No.
No, no, no. No no no no no no no no.
No, no.
No.
Fox News broke the story, which ought to make one immediately suspicious — it's not an organization noted for scientific acumen. But even worse, the paper claiming the discovery of bacteria fossils in carbonaceous chondrites was published in ……