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417 points fuidani | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.437s | source
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weberer ◴[] No.43714466[source]
Here's the primary source

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adc1c8

They possibly detected dimethyl sulfide, which is only known to be produced by living organisms.

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perihelions ◴[] No.43715076[source]
I'm not convinced about the methods. It looks a lot like p-hacking to me: they have a highly specific hypothesis drawn from a large universe—that dozen or so molecules (§3.1) in their infrared spectrum model they're fitting experimental data against. I don't buy the way they created that hypothesis. The put a handful of highly specific biosignature gases into it, things that were proposed by exobiology theory papers. One very specific hypothesis out of many, and a low likelihood one. And that's the hypothesis they get some borderline ~3σ signals for? Really?

edit: Any chance someone might have the charity to explain why my criticism is so far off-base, according to the HN consensus?

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1. moefh ◴[] No.43715363[source]
So if I understand correctly, this[1] is what they did?

[1] https://xkcd.com/882/