Monday, December 20, 2010

A tale of an ingenious experiment with a dubious interpretation

A couple of months ago, I attended a talk given by Robert Austin from the Princeton University Physics department. I debated with myself for quite a while about whether to report on this talk for two reasons: the results are largely unpublished, for reasons that will become clear; and, frankly, he has excellent technology and great biology, but it was combined with what seems to be a crappy understanding of evolution.

So, what I will do is present this in reverse order, because the technology should become an important tool to microbiologists, but Austin has poisoned the well so thoroughly that no one will touch it until it is invented independently of him. The part about evolution will be left until last, and it'll be short, and, hopefully, not too ranty.

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