NASA-Funded Apologist Blames Media for Kepler's Botched PR

"Kepler will never find an Earth-like planet."

ahuh?

Maybe Ray means that Kepler will never find one because it never lost one to begin with.

Or maybe he's talking about Johannes Kepler, who can't find it because he never head a telescope or because he's didn't have a good enough telescope.

I'm amazed that even though the cat's out of the bag (there IS a strong statistical signal saying there are lots of Earth-like planets out there) nobody seems to care and all are waiting for the "official word".

Hey - maybe wikiLeaks can shed some light on this for us?

I think everyone interested has always assumed these planets are out there - as has society at large. "Official word" is why we bother to pay for telescopes!

Everyone would be very interested in official word that we found a living planet, including people who aren't following this at all.

And by some mix of poor word-choice and lazy journalists, it was announced. Then retracted. And everyone was annoyed. Scientists ought to be more careful in the future, and be mindful of these issues, because the mass media sure as hell isn't gonna lift a finger. Hell, they got two big stories in a row!

Also, no cat's out of no bag. They confirmed there are lots of small, rocky planets. The people who thought ET was found never even knew this was an issue. Again, people want to hear that we found an Earth-like planet. Not that we discovered that they're out there. Of COURSE they're out there.

Interesting news to people interested in astronomy, mistakenly turned into news interesting to everyone else.

I don't suppose this is really a huge deal as long as we haven't already trained people to ignore the phrase "Earth-like planet".

I think that's wrong Joe.

I gave this a lot of thought over the years, and I am definitely one one the crowd who cares.

Assuming our Solar system is typical, then of course there's be other planets out there. But there's no reason to think our system is typical - and I am not a "rare earthist".

It's a valid point that our one data point is not a random sampling of the galaxy, but is highly tainted.

It's also true that of the myriad observations we've made, there was not evidence on whether typical solar systems are like our own or whether most have heavy inner planets that screw everything up.

Recent planet observations were loaded the other way - they tended to observe only screwed up solar systems.

So to me, the information that leaked is the biggest result of them all. I don't really care about the official corroboration of the individual planets. I don't care if 30% of them is wrong. All I care is that we have the first solid indication that rocky planets in inner orbits are common. That's the rub, and it's being totally lost in the noise.

This scandal is merely the decoupling of context. We only identify something as "like" something else through the senses. Kepler is an extension of the senses. So the critical context is, "what manner of extension of the senses is Kepler?" Some planet candidates are earth-like in the same respect that an elephant is tree-like or rope-like, measured by our limited senses. If a follow-on investigation discovered that such a planet was habitable, but lacked hypocrisy and shopping amenities, "earth-like" would be an inappropriate verdict.

I am actually with Keith and the media on this one; Misrepresentation of scientific issues in the general media is a given (although of course this doesn't apply on this forum), but that Sasselov guy strikes me as a bit unhinged. What business did he have to go to this rather bad event to talk about Kepler data anyway?

I looked it up, this was a typical feel-good talkshow with people such as a writer of Islamic cartoons, various guises of lyefstyle gurus, singers, etc... Possibly thought-provoking, most likely globish, boring rehashing of mainstream ideas. This was no place for a significant scientific announcment of this astronomy mission. Do the Hubble team go to TED to show pictures of galaxies alongside the latest Google gadget?

This is all sad a quite worrying; Not even the scientists have a sense of rationality in the US now?

A.

I don't think anyone's waiting for official confirmation to believe what he said... Though what wound up being the big news did kill the mood, which is a shame.

So yes, many many rocky planets. Yes, that is exciting.

@Crazy Eddie Blogger:
"(Kepler will never find an Earth-like planet) ahuh?"

Yes, it never will. Kepler can find Earth-sized planets, but it cannot estabilish them as Earth-like (as in "biology present"). Funny that you make same mistake that is explained many times over already. Slow thinking very much?

"Hey - maybe wikiLeaks can shed some light on this for us?"
Fortunately paranoia and conspiracy thinking is treatable. Maybe.

I am on the media's side for this. I can see how small differences in terminology could make a big difference to someone who does not have a detailed background on these topics. They are interpreting the words for what they describe. It's funny, that I read the original article and, knowing the background to Kepler and how the search for exoplanets works, I had assumed it said earth-sized all along, and I had to go back and check to see that it was different. I just expected that due to knowledge on the subject. I also assumed that the findings were candidate planets and only some would be confirmed. NASA seems to be blaming the media for not having enough background knowledge on the topic, but I don't think that is fair.