[pertinhower]

Scientists need to be extraordinarily careful about this kind of vague, "might be", "coulda been" kind of speculation. Finding the "spark of life" would be amazing, but speculating about how it might have formed without actual evidence shows a lack of skepticism that runs counter to the whole ethos of science and ultimately undermines it. When the public sees scientists hoping and wishing that they can find the "spark of life," and raising up hands of praise when some vague suggestion of how it might have happened is proffered, they're bound to gain suspicions that this part of science, anyway, is nearer to a religion that a cold, surgical pursuit of verifiable truth.

If you don't see the handwaving speculative wishfulness of the article, note this sentence: "A related issue is that the reactions observed so far only go in one direction; from complex sugars to simpler molecules like pyruvate." Ah, so when you heat up sugars they decompose into simpler molecules? Amazing! Must have created life! God is dead; long live Nature! Praise be!

[dalke]

It sounds like your concern is more with the language of Linda Geddes, who wrote the New Scientist article, than with the scientists. Are you sure your caution shouldn't instead be more applied to science journalists?

For example, the "spark of life" is from the New Scientist, not from the researchers, and the word "spark" doesn't exist in the underlying paper except in the references, in the title of another paper.

Nor does the paper say something as simple as "when you heat up sugars ...". Instead:

> Due to the complexity of the metabolic pathways, it has been argued that metabolism‐like chemical reaction sequences are unlikely to be catalysed by simple environmental catalysts (Lazcano & Miller, 1999; Anet, 2004). However, to our knowledge, this possibility has not been tested systematically, and at present stage, thermodynamic approaches are not predictive about which molecules form in the presence of simple catalysts from a precursor (Amend et al, 2013). Here, we studied the reactivity of intermediates of glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway upon replicating a plausible chemical composition of the prebiotic Archean ocean. We report that under these conditions, the intermediates of the two pathways undergo non‐enzymatic interconversion reactions and form neighbouring intermediates that constitute these pathways in modern cells.

That is, the goal was to look for 'metabolism‐like chemical reaction sequences', and not the creation of more complex sugars.

[falcor84]

I agree regarding science journalists and feel the need to put this here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?n=1174

[jebus989]

When a scientist says "an explanation for X could be Y" it shouldn't be interpreted as "here's a guess, I want it to be true and am undermining science", rather it's a sign they are being extraordinarily careful but they're reporting that they have observed some evidence which appears to agree with a given hypothesis.

Also I suggest reviewing high school biology, glycolysis isn't simple the breakdown of glucose into simpler molecules but involves many seemingly complex stages of isomerisation and reactions which are shepherded under specific conditions within various enzyme's active sites.

Consider reading the paper for more information: http://msb.embopress.org/content/10/4/725

[csense]

> high school biology, glycolysis isn't simple the breakdown of glucose into simpler molecules but involves many seemingly complex stages of isomerisation and reactions which are shepherded under specific conditions within various enzyme's active sites

That's more like college level biology there. In high school biology I learned something along the lines of "sugar is used to produce ATP, and ATP is energy". (I was pretty skeptical of the tail end of this claim even then.)

[e_modad]

I wouldn't characterize it in such an extreme way. This kind of educated guessing, beard-scratching and "coffee house hypothesizing" is exactly how some of the raw ideas in science are generated.

But yes, I agree with your basic premise of skepticism. No one should accept these ideas because they want them to be true. To me it doesn't sound like magical thinking so much as thinking out loud to involve other scientists in the conversation. Is that a problem?

[enraged_camel]

>>Scientists need to be extraordinarily careful about this kind of vague, "might be", "coulda been" kind of speculation.

Speculation is built into the scientific method itself. It's called "hypothesis."