Talk:Godfrey Louis

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Most of the text on this page was lifted directly from a news item (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html).

What is the process for eliminating blatent plagiarism from Wikipedia?

• ... the encouragement of constructive editing? Davy p 02:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

this article is fanciful at best and contains zero information. I would suggest deleting it as this man has not done anything noteworthy.

• As far as I can see, Godfrey Louis's third paper on the red rain, 0601022, published on arXiv astro-ph is seriously flawed; as are the related postings on the Cardiff university (Centre for Astrobiology) website. Nevertheless Louis was featured on BBC's Horizon pop-sci programme about panspermia on 14 November 2006, so the issue remains current. (I haven't yet watched this programme - but story rumbles on.) Given that 'alien spores' received a fair amount of acclaim (e.g. World Science, and in the UK New Scientist, The Times, Observer etc.) I imagine that a fair few people might want to know more, even if it is disppointing to learn that the Earth probably hasn't actually been invaded by microbes transported on a comet.

• My personal views on the subject do not immediately mesh well with Wikipedia's principle of neutrality. I would, for example, favour the setting up at Mahatma Ghandi university of a department of bioremediation rather than one of astrobiology which seems to be Louis's aim. However, rather than deleting Louis's entry, might it not be better to edit the present 'lifted' text without serious disrespect and add links to the preprints on arXiv that Louis published there? Much of the discussion seems to be second- and third-hand opinions around the original articles, and this could ground the issue rather than leaving it floating or ignoring it in the hope that it will go away.

• Davy p 02:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GCMS)

The paragraph that I'd added about the failure to use GCMS analysis was removed on the grounds of being Original Research. It isn't, and I've replaced it with a shorter version.

GCMS is a now standard technique which is used whenever 'unidentified' chemical stuff turns up, especially if it might potentially be hazardous. To mention the lack of such a test isn't OR but a courtesy to readers who may be unaware that such test equipment exists. If 'original resarch' was involved it was in reading Louis's papers themselves rather than second- and third-hand accounts, and in following the affair. I remain astounded than none of those involved in the 'microbes from space' episode - Louis, Wainwright, Wickramasinghe - put the red raindust through GCMS: this would have been expected to provide useful information in short order. Mention of the failure to use GCMS does not seem at all inappropriate.Davy p 20:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The reason I considered it OR was the lack of citation. Unless you happen to be aware of every use of gas chromatography ever, even those uses that went unpublished, you cannot truly say that it was "never apparently done." To say this is your own original research, as in, your own inability to find a publication of it. And no matter how many other Wikipedians are unable to find publication of it, until the fact that this test has never been undertaken appears in a reliable source, it doesn't belong in the article. Someguy1221 22:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)