"We're Getting There" Baloney Recurs in Science Literature

Imagine a father in the Queens area of New York City who tells his children that he will take them to a  big water park at the east end of Long Island. To do that, he needs to travel to the east. But imagine the father mistakenly travels to the north, assuming that the water park is to the north. After a while, the kids will get impatient, and begin asking, "When will we get to the water park?"  The father might try to soothe the kids by saying this: "We're getting there," But that would not be accurate in his situation. Given his blunder,  he would not be really "getting there" at all. 

Such a situation reminds me of a frequent item in the science literature, a kind of paper or article that discusses scientists who are making no major progress (often because they have made the wrong assumptions), but which tries to make it sound as if some great  progress is being made.  We can call this kind of story a "we're getting there" narrative. 

An example of a very inaccurate "we're getting there" story is an article or paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, one entitled, "Inner Workings: Making Headway with the Mysteries of Life's Origins."  The paper tries to create some idea that progress is being made in understanding how life could have naturally originated. No such thing is actually occurring. 

The paper starts out by using the same old hogwash that writers about the origin of life have been shamelessly peddling for seventy years, the entirely unfounded idea that the Miller-Urey experiment represented some progress in understanding the origin of life.  That experiment was no such thing, because the experiment was nothing like a realistic simulation of early Earth conditions. 

DEFECTS OF THE MILLER-UREY EXPERIMENT
Unrealistic gas mixture	The Miller-Urey experiment used a mixture of ammonia, methane, hydrogen and water vapor to simulate the early Earth's atmosphere. It is now believed that such an atmosphere consisted of mainly nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor, with little ammonia, methane or hydrogen.
Unrealistic length of electricity exposure	The Miller-Urey experiment used a week-long electrical discharge to simulate lightning. Lightning actually jolts any specific little spot on Earth no more than about a tiny fraction of a second during any week.
Unrealistic prevention of electrical dissipation	Actual lightning occurs in the open air, where electricity can dissipate. The Miller-Urey experiment kept the electricity in a little glass apparatus minimizing such dissipation.

The author tells us that the Miller-Urey experiment "was meant to simulate conditions on the early Earth," trying to insinuate that the experiment realistically simulated the conditions on the early Earth, without explaining to us any of the three very big reasons why the Miller-Urey experiment did not actually realistically simulate the early Earth.  We now know about the first of these reasons (that the wrong mixture of gases was used in the experiment).  But the two other other big reasons why the experiment completely failed to realistically simulate the early Earth have been very obvious from the beginning: the fact that the experiment used a small enclosed glass apparatus unlike anything that existed on the early Earth, and the fact that the experiment used continuous electrical discharges in a small enclosed space, unlike anything that ever would have existed on the early Earth.  The seventy years of evoking the irrelevant Miller-Urey experiment as "progress on the origin of life" is one of the most outrageous examples of blatant baloney in science literature. 

The author then proceeds to make a widely-made but very false claim that the stuff of life is common in outer space, telling us "the chemical precursors of life are common throughout the cosmos."  This is the same bunk that Carl Sagan kept telling us in the 1970's, and that SETI enthusiasts have shamelessly repeated since then.  The simplest one-celled organisms are built from functional proteins and nucleic acids. There are no reliable reports of any such things ever being discovered in outer space. The building blocks of proteins are the twenty amino acids used by proteins. Only one of those twenty amino acids has ever been discovered in outer space: glycine, the simplest amino acid.  Glycine has only been detected in the tiniest trace amounts in outer space. Some amino acids have been found in meteorites that fell to Earth, but only in trace amounts no greater than about 1 part per million.  Such trace levels are so low that it is hard to determine whether the amino acids found arose from earthly contamination, and also hard to know whether the trace amount detection is a misidentification (like the recent  "phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus" report that seems to have been a misidentification). The building blocks of nucleic acids are nucleotides, which have never been detected in outer space.  It is therefore very false indeed to claim  "the chemical precursors of life are common throughout the cosmos."  

The author then proceeds to make the untrue claim that "many meteorites that fall to Earth are packed with biomolecules."  Brittanica.com defines a biomolecule as "any of numerous substances that are produced by cells or living organisms," and says there are four main examples: carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids and lipids.  No proteins or nucleic acids or lipids have ever been found in meterorites, except for things that can be accounted for by earthly contamination.  A paper claims to have found a tiny trace of the carbohydrate ribose in a meteorite, but only in the tiniest trace amount, less than 1 part in 10 billion.  No one has ever discovered anything like a meteorite "packed with biomolecules." 

We then have the following very big non-sequitur:

"Sasselov has shown that exposing the various isomers to ultraviolet light preferentially destroys the non-useful ones, leaving behind those relevant for life. The results imply that the origin of life might have happened in shallow water exposed to sunlight, rather than near deep-sea hydrothermal vents, as some researchers have previously hypothesized."

We should doubt the "has shown" claim made (which is not made in the abstract of Sasselov's paper), and were such a thing to be shown, it would do nothing to show the possibility of abiogenesis (the formation of life from chemicals), a possibility that is actually made all the more improbable when we consider harmful ultraviolet radiation. 

We then have a statement that moves from two "might have" statements and a "could have" statement (along with an additional "might" statement and an additional "if" statement) to a very  unjustified "would have" statement that does not follow from any of the preceding statements, and is not based on experiments.  Below is the statement (I have put the speculative words in boldface). 

"Given such findings, researchers now have an idea for how the compounds of prebiotic chemistry might have been stockpiled on our planet. Early on, the Earth’s atmosphere might have mainly contained simple molecules, including carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, and molecular nitrogen. Lakes containing carbon minerals could have accumulated phosphorous in their depths. Dissolved hydrogen cyanide would have created ferrocyanide salts. Evaporation cycles could then repeatedly dry the lakes out and concentrate all these materials during wetter seasons. Volcanoes and meteorite impacts might add additional necessary metals, such as magnesium and potassium, to the mix. If such a rich body of water were exposed to sulfur dioxide and ultraviolet radiation, the resulting chemical reactions would produce a wide diversity of organic molecules. The stuff of biochemistry—nucleotides, amino acids, and lipids, which help form cell membranes—would have all sprung up in this fertile environment in the specific forms needed for cells."

The final "would have" statement is a non-sequitur that does not logically follow from the preceding statements, and has no empirical or experimental basis. In fact, no experiments realistically simulating early Earth conditions have ever produced nucleotides or amino acids, and the Miller-Urey is not any such experiment realistically simulating early Earth conditions.  There is no scientific basis for believing that if the preceding imaginary events occurred, "the stuff of biochemistry—nucleotides, amino acids, and lipids, which help form cell membranes—would have all sprung up in this fertile environment in the specific forms needed for cells." 

You could compare the statement above to someone claiming that if he went to New York City without any money in his pockets, he might have got some coins after begging, and that he could have used such coins to buy a winning lottery ticket, and that this would have made him the richest man in the world.  Such a lottery win would have done no such thing. 

Then, after the author resorts to one more "might have," another "could," and another "perhaps," the author describes the self-replication of an RNA molecule, claiming that such an idea is "plausible." No, the word "plausible" means "likely." No one has ever been able to produce a self-replication of an RNA molecule outside of a cell, and such an imaginary phantasm is pure fantasy, not something "plausible."  There is no basis for believing that such an RNA molecule could have existed before cells existed, since no experiment realistically simulating the early Earth has ever produced any of the buiding blocks of RNA molecules.  "Plausible" is one of the most abused words in scientific literature, where thousands of things that are enormously implausible have been described as "plausible."

The author then makes it sound like explaining the origin of proteins needed for life to begin is just a little detail waiting to be filled in. He states the following:

"Yet even here, many gaps remain before researchers can see their way to creating life. 'The dot, dot, dot happens when you get to inventing proteins,' Chen says. Those gaps have yet to be filled."

We have been given here the totally erroneous insinuation that origin-of-life researchers have kind of explained the origin of RNA,  leaving some little detail (a "dot,dot,dot") of explaining the origin of proteins.  The reality is that origin of life researchers have not got anywhere in explaining the origin of DNA, RNA or proteins.  They have not produced any such things in any experiments realistically simulating the early Earth. Moreover, such researchers have not even produced any of the building blocks of DNA, RNA or proteins in any experiments realistically simulating the early Earth.  So the title of the article (claiming that researchers are "making headway with the mysteries of life's origin") is very inaccurate. No such headway has been made.   There has been no real experimental progress in understanding life's origin.  The problem of explaining the random origin of the 50 or more types of proteins needed for the simplest living things is a difficulty as great as explaining how someone could dump on the ground a dumpster filled with Scrabble letters and have them form into fifty coherent instructional paragraphs. But rather than being honestly described, such a problem is misleadingly described as some little "dot,dot,dot" kind of "gap," as if it were something minor. 

The "Inner Workings" paper is very much like someone who does not actually have a spacesuit (but only a sweater and a motorcycle helmet) insinuating that he kind of has the beginning of a spacesuit, and  is therefore almost ready to explore planets revolving around other suns,  talking like this:

"As you can see, I've made substantial progress and I'm partially ready for interstellar exploration. Of course, there are still some little gaps, such as the dot, dot, dot of getting the warp-drive faster-than-the-speed-of-light interstellar spaceship."

The history of origin-of-life research has been a history of the most ridiculous overconfidence and hubris. In 2006 a chemistry professor proclaimed, "We shall understand the origin of life within the next five years." Zero progress has been made in understanding any way that life could have naturally originated.  No experiments realistically simulating the early Earth have produced either the building blocks of microscopic life (nucleic acids and protein molecules) or even the building blocks of the building blocks of life (amino acids or nucleotides). 

Cognitive neuroscientists have made no real progress in proving their never-warranted claim that the human brain is the source of human thinking and understanding, and their never-warranted claim that the brain is the storage place of memories. But they often try to assure us that such efforts are proceeding well, in articles and papers that conveniently fail to mention the very many reasons for thinking the brain must be too slow,  noisy and unstable to be the source of human thinking and recall which can occur with astonishing speed and reliability (such as the instant accurate recall of fifty-year-old memories). 

In the field of neuroscience,  a typical way of presenting a misleading "we're getting there" story is to do what is called a review article.  The review article usually presents no new research, but merely discusses previous research.  For example, there may be a review article discussing research on neural correlates of mental activity. Or there may be a review article on neuroscience research on memory.  Such articles may try to assure us that significant progress is being made in understanding a neural basis for memory, or a neural basis for mental activity such as thinking, understanding and imagination.  But no such progress has actually been made. 

So how do these reveiw articles accomplish the trick of suggesting to us that progress has been made when no such progress has been made? They do it by citing many weak, unconvincing experimental studies that used what is sometimes called Questionable Research Practices.  Typically, nothing will be said to assure us that the experiments were properly designed studies using adequate study group sizes and good experimental techniques such as all study groups having at least 15 subjects, a thorough and well-documented blinding protocol, and pre-registration of a hypothesis and the exact methods to be followed.  Instead, the review article will merely tell us whatever was reported as being found by the study, without discussing factors relevant to the quality of the study. 

How a Typical Review Article Is Done	How a Review Article Should Be Done
Discuss results reported by Study #1	Discuss results reported by Study #1
Discuss results reported by Study #2	Analyze whether Study #1 used “best practice” techniques to get a robust result, or whether it used Questionable Research Practices
Discuss results reported by Study #3	Discuss results reported by Study #2
Discuss results reported by Study #4	Analyze whether Study #2 used “best practice” techniques to get a robust result, or whether it used Questionable Research Practices
Discuss results reported by Study #5	Discuss results reported by Study #3
Discuss results reported by Study #6	Analyze whether Study #3 used “best practice” techniques to get a robust result, or whether it used Questionable Research Practices
Discuss results reported by Study #7	Discuss results reported by Study #4
Discuss results reported by Study #8	Analyze whether Study #4 used “best practice” techniques to get a robust result, or whether it used Questionable Research Practices

 

We also have misleading "we're getting there" stories involving the search for life in space. A typical story of this type will talk about the discovery of some not-very-important chemicals in distant space, and try to describe such things as "building blocks of life." The chemicals typically described are no such things.  The building blocks of visible life are cells, and the building blocks of microscopic one-celled life are functional proteins. No such things have been discovered in outer space, outside of human spacecraft or space stations.  A typical but misleading tactic is to describe carbon chemicals that are not any of the building blocks of life as "organic compounds."  The phrase "organic compounds" means any compounds at all made out of carbon, no matter how biologically irrelevant.  "We're getting there" stories on the search for life typically tout the discovery of extrasolar planets.  But finding such planets is no more progress in the search for life in space than the purchase of lottery tickets is progress towards becoming a millionaire. 

In the world of physics, we also have "we're getting there" baloney.  A recent article by a physicist has a subtitle asking "is a grand theory of everything finally within reach?" Notice the kind of "we're getting there" sound of such a question. It has always been phony language for physicists to use the term "Theory of Everything" for some theory that would go beyond the Standard Model of Physics, as such an imagined theory has always been merely a theory of physics, not at all a "theory of everything." No real progress has been made in establishing any such theory. There has been merely been arcane speculation that has failed all observational tests. 

In this article we have a couldn't-be-more-false statement that refers to the arrangement of charges in a fundamental particles, and states, "It’s a motley crew of jumbled-up numbers, which doesn’t seem to have much rhyme or reason to it." To the contrary, the arrangement of charges in fundamental particles (with each proton having an electric charge that is the very precise opposite of the electric charge in each electron) is an "exact opposite" relation that has tons of "reason to it," for if that "exact opposite" relation did not exist, the chemistry in our bodies would be impossible, and planets would not hold together. 

In the field of cosmology, we recently had "we're getting there" baloney in the recent form of a publication of a "dark matter map" that purports to show us concentrations of dark matter.  But dark matter has never even been observed. So publishing such a "map" is rather like publishing maps of Oregon forests purporting to tell you where there are concentrations of Bigfoot creatures, except that the Bigfoot map would probably be on firmer ground, since at least some people claim to have seen Bigfoot.  You won't be more confident in such a claimed "map" of dark matter when you read that it was reverse-engineered by artificial intelligence. 

The same type of "we're getting there" baloney goes on when scientists discuss the current state of developmental biology, the study of how a speck-sized egg is able to progress to become a baby the size of a newborn baby. Scientists have no real understanding of how such a miracle of progression is able to occur. There is no truth to the idea that a tiny speck-sized egg turns into a 8-pound baby because a blueprint for making is read from DNA. No such blueprint of the human form exists in DNA, which only specifies low-level chemical information such as which amino acids are in some particular protein. If such a blueprint of the human body were to exist in DNA, it would not explain the origin of a human body, because of the simple fact that blueprints don't build things.  Blueprints are merely instructions used by intelligent agents that build complex things. We know of nothing in the human body that would be capable of reading and understanding a genetic blueprint for how to make a human body if such a thing happened to exist, and also capable of acting on such instructions to make the body of an 8-pound baby.  

So how do modern biologists explain the origin of a full grown human body? Some will tell the utterly false lie that there is a blueprint for making humans in DNA. Other biologists will not explicitly tell such a lie, but simply use loaded or suggestive language trying to make you draw the conclusion that DNA is some kind of blueprint or recipe for making a human. 

Other biologists will avoid such deception, but engage in a more subtle use of misleading language: trying to suggest that in this tiny way or that tiny way some progress is being made in a getting a mechanistic explanation for the origin of an individual human body.  There will be some talk of some tiny progress made in some tiny millionth of the problem of explaining how a human body originates, and some talk of some other tiny progress made in some other tiny millionth of the problem of explaining how a human body originates. Then there will be some language such as this:

"Clearly progress is being made in unraveling this deep riddle. We're getting there. Scientists are beginning to see hints of the answers slowly emerging. Things are starting to slowly fall into place.  There's a long way to go, but much progress has been made. Scientists can start to faintly see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Language such as this is profoundly misleading when talking about the origin of life, the origin of human mental phenomena, and the origin of individual human bodies.  If you look hard enough around the borders, you can always find some little thing that can be called some little signs of tangential progress.  But the plain facts are:

• Scientists are not really getting anywhere in explaining how life could have naturally originated.
• Scientists are not really getting anywhere in explaining how a brain could produce the main types of human mental phenomena.
• Scientists are not really getting anywhere in explaining how a full-sized human body arises from a speck-sized egg. 

The reason why no such progress is being made is largely because scientists are trying to prove assumptions that are wrong in the first place. For example, sweeping aside illusory progress made by the use of dubious research practices, no real progress has been made and no progress can ever be made in explaining how a brain could produce the most impressive types of mental phenomena, because the main types of human mental phenomena are not and cannot be caused by a brain, an organ too slow, too noisy and too unstable to account for the wonders of human mental phenomena such as the instant creation of permanent new memories, the instant recall of things learned decades ago, and the accurate recall of 60-year-old memories.  Similarly,  sweeping aside progress on tangential matters, no real progress has been made in producing a mechanistic description of how a human body originates, for such a miracle of origination (a billion times more impressive than a 52-card house of cards rising up by itself from a deck of cards) must involve some currently unfathomable reality far more than mere chemical and low-level biological activity. 

The "we're getting there" stories we so often see in science literature are often like some little child on the eastern United States wading into the Atlantic Ocean, and then claiming that he's "getting there" on his plan to swim to Europe. 

Postscript: An article in the current edition of the widely read science magazine Nautilus may give us further evidence of the often-erring state of scientific academia.  It is written by the authors of a paper entitled "Scientific conclusions need not be accurate, justified, or believed by their authors."