http://phys.org/news/2013-10-watery-asteroid-dying-star-habitable.html
http://www.pentagonpost.com/scientists-discover-waterrich-asteroid-orbiting-dead-star-gd-61-solar-system/83413157
The headlines are proclaiming that scientists have found a water-rich asteroid orbiting a dead star! This supports their new (old) theory that asteroids delivered water and life to Earth!
Only problem is, if you read the article, they haven't found a water-rich asteroid orbiting a dead star. What they've found is the signature of heavy elements and oxygen in the light from a white dwarf star. They then assembled this data into what they wanted to find, and voila! They have a water-rich asteroid orbiting a dead star.
They even say that the asteroid was torn apart by the white dwarf star and now exists only as a smear of atomic elements in the star's atmosphere. So why are all the headlines reporting that they've found a water-rich asteroid ORBITING, present tense, a dead star? And is the star dying or dead? Depending on which article you choose to read, it could be either.
Oh, and there may still be rocky, terrestrial planets orbiting this same star, potentially habitable planets that pushed this water-rich asteroid into the star. This last statement proves that they don't have photographic evidence of this asteroid or the imaginary planets, because obviously they couldn't have photographs of a small asteroid, yet have no photographs of much-larger planets. Yes, I know they don't even claim to have photographs, just spectrographic data from the star. But that's my whole point.
SHOW ME THE PHOTOGRAPHS! A picture is worth a thousand words. Unless you can show me photographs of this distant water-rich asteroid, or these potentially-habitable planets, then you've got nothing other than a few lines on a spectrograph. Don't tell me you've found water-rich asteroids and potentially-habitable planets.
This is what is wrong with modern science. They get a trickle of raw data, draw sweeping conclusions that match what they want to find, and then report the conclusions to the public. And suddenly we have the public believing scientists have found water-rich asteroids and Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars, monstrous black holes at the centers of galaxies gobbling up entire solar systems, Higgs particles, etc, etc.
I don't have any problem with the notion that there are habitable planets and water-rich asteroids orbiting distant stars. There probably are. What I have a problem with is the propensity of modern science to draw premature conclusions from tiny trickles of data.
