There are some ad hominem attacks, which the author acknowledges by the way. Doesn't mean it's right, but at least he recognizes his possible bias.
Putting that aside, he does provide arguments against the article, which you chose to totally ignore. If you want to refute his point of vue, please do discuss the actual arguments.
Now, concerning some of your remarks:
> Do you think this article would pass peer review and be published in a journal?
That's why it was published in slate and not a peer reviewed journal. And that's to the author's credit: if a paper was published every time a crackpotery was exposed, there would be too much noise in scientific journals.
> I don't know why scientists just can't keep an open mind.
I don't see how refuting a paper using sensible arguments is showing a lack of open mind. What do you suggest? That we all happily accept every piece of crackpotery to show that we have an open mind?
> Maybe life comes from outer space. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe diatoms are in meteorites. Maybe they aren't. No one really knows, do they?
Well the point of the JOC article was to show that there are diatoms in meteorites. The point of the slate article is to show that the JOC article is of dubious quality, and does not prove what it claims. Let me say it again: the slate paper does NOT say that there aren't diatoms in meteorites, it just says that this has not been proved.
> If you want to refute his point of vue [sic], please do discuss the actual arguments.
Maybe you could summarise them for me. Once all the needless vitriol is removed it couldn't be more than a few lines. I just can't trawl through them without gagging.
I'm not compelled. That was a cynical comment intended to make the point that once all the extra verbosity was removed you could probably fit his points in a very succinct and easy to read article.
Putting that aside, he does provide arguments against the article, which you chose to totally ignore. If you want to refute his point of vue, please do discuss the actual arguments.
Now, concerning some of your remarks:
> Do you think this article would pass peer review and be published in a journal?
That's why it was published in slate and not a peer reviewed journal. And that's to the author's credit: if a paper was published every time a crackpotery was exposed, there would be too much noise in scientific journals.
> I don't know why scientists just can't keep an open mind.
I don't see how refuting a paper using sensible arguments is showing a lack of open mind. What do you suggest? That we all happily accept every piece of crackpotery to show that we have an open mind?
> Maybe life comes from outer space. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe diatoms are in meteorites. Maybe they aren't. No one really knows, do they?
Well the point of the JOC article was to show that there are diatoms in meteorites. The point of the slate article is to show that the JOC article is of dubious quality, and does not prove what it claims. Let me say it again: the slate paper does NOT say that there aren't diatoms in meteorites, it just says that this has not been proved.