Carl T. Bergstrom1. “Imagine we land a space probe on one of Jupiters’ moons, take up a sample of material, and find it is full of organic molecules. How can we tell whether those molecules are just randomly assembled goo or the outcome of some evolutionary process taking place on the planet?”
2. This is the question at the core of the now infamous Assembly Theory paper published last week in Nature and thoroughly panned on social media.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9
My view? There is actually some very cool science here — it’s just extremely well hidden. This thread is my attempt to explain.
3. Let's get a few things out of the way first.
a) The main text of the paper is terribly written. Terribly.
b) It’s obvious why people understand it and were skeptical to say the least.
c) Nature failed both the authors and its readers by publishing it in its present form.
4. I have two potential COIs, one of which matters and one of which people might claim matters.
The one that matters is that I've collaborated with author Michael Lachmann for nearly 30 years, and we are close friends. This matters because if I didn't know Michael so well, I probably wouldn't have taken the time to figure this paper out.
5. The one that people might claim matters is that I’m currently funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
I would disagree, because they’re an entirely separate organization from the Templeton foundation that funded some of the Assembly Theory research, they don’t care what I say, and I wouldn’t pander to them even if they did.
But I want to be upfront about it.
Dianora (Diane Bruce)@ct_bergstrom
Throwing out the science because of the association informal fallacy is also a fallacy IMO. Again, furiously agreed.
Throwing out the science because of the association informal fallacy is also a fallacy IMO. Again, furiously agreed.