The authors measured P in the 40 mM As media, and its concentration was no different than in the no-As condition where growth did not occur. I think that you are grossly misrepresenting…

Leaving aside the “shrill” part, I want to point out that this was essentially a microbiology paper lacking level 101 controls; not exotic, difficult techniques but such basics as density gradients. If a scientific paper lacks basic controls there are two conclusions: either the authors are incompetent or they did the experiments, did not like the results they got, and decided to suppress them.

If the former, I dread the future of astrobiology; if the latter, I dread the future of science.

1. The Oremland group was never told it should not publish its findings — but that it should have done so after performing basic controls and scaling their conclusions to fit results, not what they would like to think the work showed.

2. Researchers like Penny Boston have been discovering and characterizing bacteria as exotic as GFAJ-1 for literally decades, and they never got the hype (or even recognition) that their work actually merits.

3. All results that challenge paradigms are subjected to extra scrutiny, as they should be. The group’s conclusions were anything but modest and their tone even worse. The term “shrill” is better applied to the original announcement, rather than to the responses that met it.

4. I agree that Oremland has a much larger share of responsibility than he has been willing to shoulder, but he’s older, male and established. So he’s cut his losses and is back to business as usual, leaving others (most notably Rosie Redfield) to clean up the mess. Wolfe-Simon, young, a woman, and just starting, is not as lucky — and giving interviews to Glamour Magazine while stonewalling colleagues over the scientific issues did not help.

5. The funding climate in the sciences is so bleak that long-established researchers with decades of work are being pushed out. To present Wolfe-Simon as a hero rebel “wronged” and “forced out of science” by stodgy sticks-in-the-mud (or jealous wannabes) borders on the disingenuous.

The author lists his address as a NASA center at the time of publication:

http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

That is indicated as follows:

Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites
Richard B. Hoover, Ph.D. NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

My memory may be off, but I don’t recall NASA being in any way involved in the Hoover paper or its subsequent publicity, beyond the fact that Hoover once worked with NASA in the past.