Two degrees of connexion

So what's it to be with crime - punishment or rehabilitation? Having done stupid, dangerous, illegal and cruel things in my life [but not all at once!] I vote for rehabilitation. Recent Blob disagreeing with the cries of bang 'em up and throw away the key for killers. 

The Boy 'takes' The Economist, and sends me their weekly Simply Science round-up. I read most of this and occasionally ask for a guest-link to the full article. Second week in December there was a piece on quantum physics about which I know as much as would fit on a photon. I perked up at “Don’t worry your head about what’s really going on,” was the attitude of the early quantum engineers, according to Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University. “This is the so-called ‘Shut up and calculate’ school.” Those engineers ended up creating semiconductors, leading to the device that you’re using to read this, and much more. But only because Paul Davies (physicist, writer and broadcaster) [R] and I were both on the U.NuponT payroll at the same time in the 80s. Even back then Davies was a star and he started his meteoric rise to the firmament while hop-scotching through 7 prestigious Universities on three different continents. Knocking off 28 [!] popular science books along the way . . . as well as his day job pubs.

I double checked in Wikipedia that 'my' Paul Davies in 1980s Newcastle was the same bloke as the Economist sound-byter in the 2020s [✓]. My eye slid down the page to Davies was a co-author on the 2011 Science article "A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus". Whoa! We know that paper! It was cited by Tony Kavanagh [on The Blob] - extraordinary claims require extraordinary levels of proof, and in this case not even ordinary levels of proof had been carried out. Eeee, he were quite cross, our Tony! Back in 2013, I didn't scrutinize the [N = 12] authors but in 2025 I was in name-and-blame mode and I saw John F Stolz on the list.

I know that guy too. He was in Boston University graduate school at the same time as me 45 years ago! He was doing a PhD on stromatolites and early-early microbial life-forms with . . . Lynn Margulis my late lamented friend and mentor. I guess he had something to add to The Arsenic Paper: having a lifetime of expertise in the oddbiome. As a co-author, you have, in the first instance, to trust that your colleagues are doing the work assigned to them. If we could flip eppendorfs AND grind multivariate statistics AND GIMP graphics then we wouldn't need graduate students and/or to 'buy-in' expertise from another institution. Paul Davies not so much??: Apparently he said "I had the advantage of being unencumbered by knowledge. I dropped chemistry at the age of 16, and all I knew about arsenic came from Agatha Christie novels." WTF? Why are you endorsing the paper if ya know nuttin'? It is entirely possible that, given the power of celebrity in our culture, that adding his name to the Arsenic Paper's author list helped bring it to the attention of the editorial board of Science - and then get it over the line and into print. Of course, that editorial board [and at least two independent referees] were culpable for publishing sexy without conducting due diligence - to get ahead in the Nature vs Science rating wars.

I must add that there is no suggestion that anyone on The Arsenic Paper was making stuff up or finagling the data or being dishonest. But when you think you've found something exo-biology extra-ordinary never found on Earth before then you need extraordinary levels of proof which means going the extra mile to be sure to be sure that you're not going to finish up with a red face.

Maybe I am the connecting link between Stolz and Davies: I'm quite prone to being credulous: my first reaction to a compelling sciencey headline is more likely to be Hey that's neat rather than sounds like a loada bollix. Perhaps Dulled Crap Detector DCD is a contagious virus and I was the vector. That Arsenic Paper was a) controversial and b) conclusively shown to be wrong within a year of publication but it continued in a zombie state to be available online in Science until July this year. when it was RETRACTED. Which is perhaps inappropriate? Because the team may have been wrong but they weren't doing anything wrong. If you can't be wrong in Science you're not close enough to the cutting edge. And <tsk!> the News&Views layperson summary to the paper (which I cited in my 2013 Blob) is still failing to flag that the original paper is suspect; giving ammunition and succour to bad-faith nut-jobs from the Planet Zorg.

And hello Jason Hosken at The Economist who put together the relevant Simply Science round-up which started me off on this rant: when you're looking for a quote next time maybe look over the shoulder of Paul Davies to find someone with less tarnish on their street cred.

Before I sign off, let's emphasize that we should condemn the sin and not the sinner. Everyone can make a mistake or even, like me, do stupid, dangerous, illegal and cruel things. The correct response is not to cross the street when we see them coming, refuse them work or healthcare. Then again it's okay to remember past transgressions and factor that into how we move forward. Life isn't black and  white  it's beige.