[throwaway_pdp09]

Too many people say stuff on subjects they're not qualified to speak about. Occasionally you get someone who knows his stuff, and I've no reason to disbelieve his PhD claim. A sarcastic response doesn't seem appropriate here.

[Rooki]

I don't doubt his (or her) PHD claim either! The casual dismissal of the work of a team of experts across multiple institutions like this just surprised me, and that parent has a PHD in the field made it even more shocking.

The team that worked on this said they were thorough in going through the possible abiotic pathways that could cause this on a rocky planet like Venus. Now of course it's possible they missed something, like parent says: "There's about eleven bajillion abiotic routes to phosphine". I guess it was a sarcastic remark, but maybe parent really could have saved everyone a ton of time and $$. They're publishing as a starting point for the rest of the world to dig into this now, hopefully someone nails down what's happening one way or the other without waiting on a probe to be sent there!

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> The casual dismissal of the work of a team of experts across multiple institutions like this just surprised me, and that parent has a PHD in the field made it even more shocking.

It's a casual dismissal only because it's a comment on HN, rather than e.g. a review comment in a peer-reviewd journal. Otherwise, that's exactly the kind of reaction one learns to expect when one is doing research. Your work will be criticised. Ruthlessly.

It's not even a bad thing, long-term, quite the contrary. Only work that has survived the criticism of experts in a field can be expected to make a real impact.

And this is really just me being philosophical about it because of course criticism stings and rejection hurts. But you learn to live with it and I think most researchers who have taken a baptism of fire (submitted to a journal- or conference in CS) eventually come to terms with it: people will rubbish your work constantly. Until they are convinced it's good work.

[Rooki]

Generally the paper would at least be glanced at before unloading the criticism though right? Did parent even know how much phosphine they'd found when making the above comments?

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I assume the OP, being an expert in a relevant field, has enough information to form and express an opinion. Myself, I am not an expert in a relevant field and so I have no idea whether one needs to know how much phosphine was found before smelling a rat.

From what I've read, the amount of phosphine plays a role, i.e. if there's lots of it it's a stronger sign of life. However, that's what I've read in the lay press that reports on the opinions of experts. Now, the thing about the opinions of experts is that there are always other experts that hold a completely different opinion and when you read an interview with one expert they very strongly support their own opinion, but don't really do justice to the opinions of others- because that's not their job. So it's often hard to know which expert's opinion is closest to the truth by reading what one team of experts tell the lay press. Science is a debate, after all- but not a debate carried out in news sites and internet forums (or at least not primarily there, I understand theoretical phycisists like their internet flame wars).

So, personally, before accepting anything as evidence of this and that, I'll just wait patiently until the dust has settled and the experts have agreed to disagree.

I wish more people did that when it came to my own area of expertise, btw. What I say above is what I've observed on reportage of my own field in the lay press.

[throwaway_pdp09]

As I see it the probkem us he said "You can make phosphine from entirely abiotic common elements and salts literally hundreds of ways" but doesn't state them, and got justly criticised for it.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

That's a separate issue and mabye it's a fair criticism. I just wanted to point out that criticising someone's work is a normal thing in research.

[andi999]

Well, maybe he would have saved everyone time and money, but then there wouldnt be a nature publication. I remember a long while ago, the space agency is not too shy to sometimes publish questionable conclusions

[throwaway_pdp09]

You've made your point very clearly, and I can't disagree. Thanks.