The Calm Before The Storm: An Interview With Dr. Gilbert Levin

"18) Finally a report in the November 7th 2003 issue of Science "Mars-Like Soils in the Atacama Desert, Chile, and the Dry Limit of Microbial Life" casts heavy doubt on whether Viking and in particular your LR instrument detected living microbes on Mars. Have you read this report and do you have a rebuttal?

The authors, three of whom I personally, know to be fully aware of my numerous and recent publications on the subject of the presumptive oxidants on Mars, problems with the results of the Viking GCMS, and the chiral LR experiment I have published and proposed to NASA several times, mislead the reader by omitting references that contradict their approach and conclusions. Particularly egregious is their presentation of the very experiment I have reviewed with each of them, the use of chiral compounds to distinguish biological from chemical reactions, as their own. Chris McKay has told me he deliberately omits references to the papers I presented to the preeminent Astrobiology Division meetings of SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering) because their publications are not "peer reviewed." This conveniently allows the authors to ignore addressing the specific points I made in my 1997 publication that first announced that the LR had detected living microorganisms, and in my many follow-up papers. However, even this protective device does not shield the authors from papers that I did publish in peer reviewed journals that:

1) Rule out strong oxidants as the cause of the LR response.
2) Rule out UV as the source of the LR response.
3) Shows that the extended control regimens run on Mars strongly mitigate against chemical or physical cause of LR reaction.
4) Shows a metabolic response from Antarctic soil in which GCMS detected no organics.
5) Rule out specific oxidants recently proposed by others, and rule out oxidants in general.

Not to mention any of the above is indicative of an extreme determination to mislead the reading public. With respect to the article itself, there are a number of points I will comment on to Science. They show a somewhat amatuerish, but still strongly biased approach with respect to microbiological technique, the use of appropriate controls, the interpretation of results, and the use of long-dead strawmen arguments in a vain attempt to cover up, rather than to discuss objectively, the results of the Mars Viking LR experiment. "

News flash Gil - It's not generally considered good form to reference a non peer reviewed article. Your response flat our ignores the two most damaging piece of evidence to your case:

1) An LR like response was obtained for both chiral forms. Something even you have admitted would rule out life yet you choose to ignore that fact. You deserve scientific credit for suggesting the experiment and scientific scorn for ignoring the results

2) The soil was oxidative unlike biologically active soils. No specific oxidant was detected, but the presence of an oxidant is a scientific fact. This supports the idea that Mars soils could also be oxidative even if we don't know the mechanism.

Your comments 1-5 seem tangential in the face of an obvious nonbiological cause for LR like results and the obvious presence of an unknown oxidant. 1-2, and 4-5 are obviously suspect or irrelevant in the face of this data. 3 ignores that your compatriots on the Viking team reached a different conclusion.

Yet once again you ignore the preponderence of evidence and focus on the open questions of a chemical explanation rather than the gaping holes in a biological explanation. The sloppiness of your response as well as your apparent incomprehension that water vapor exists in equilibrium with ice as well as liquid water indicates good reason to ignore your non reviewed articles. Claims of amatuerish techniques when you make use of non peer reviewed publications to push your claims seem rather ironic. The techniques you label amatuerish passed peer review muster. It appears you have either skipped that process or went around it after rejection on numerous occasions. Claims of a cover up are classic signs of pseudoscience rather than science especially when you have avoided the open light effect of the peer review process on numerous occasions. Why don't you try and get a paper published in Science in rebuttal rather than using BD as a mouthpiece in a non peer reviewed forum once again? In the science community when you publish erroneous article after erroneous article your work tends to be ignored. These latest comments reinforce the perception that you ignore any data that does not fit your claim for life on Mars.

I see now why BD never replied on Altacama before. He had to get the word from Gil to paste repetitively since he doesn't know enough about biology to argue technical details on his own. No doubt we will now be treated to endless links and pastes from this article while BD ignores all counter arguments.

Regards,
Mark Eby