Junk science! A new computer simulation by scientists now proposes that there was microscopic life on Mars billions of years ago, but its existence served to destroy the climate and kill all life!

The press appears to be eating this story up, with enthusiasm. From the New Atlas story above:

Humans might not be the first lifeforms in the solar system to face the threat of their own activity changing the climate of their home planet. A new model suggests that ancient Mars was once habitable enough to support methane-producing microbes, and they may have wiped themselves out by causing irreparable damage to the Red Planet’s atmosphere. [emphasis mine]

A Space.com story is written better, but it still jumps on the bandwagon:

According to the study, simple microbes that feed on hydrogen and excrete methane could have thrived on Mars some 3.7 billion years ago, at about the same time that primitive life was taking hold in Earth’s primordial oceans. But while on Earth the emergence of simple life gradually created an environment conducive to more complex life forms, the exact opposite happened on Mars, according to a team of scientists led by astrobiologist Boris Sauterey from the Institut de Biologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure (IBENS) in Paris, France.

Sauterey and his team conducted a complex computer modeling study that simulated the interaction of what we know about the ancient atmosphere and lithosphere of Mars with hydrogen-consuming microbes similar to those that existed on ancient Earth. The researchers found that while on Earth the methane produced by those microbes gradually warmed the planet, Mars instead cooled down, driving the microbes into deeper and deeper layers of the planet’s crust to survive. [emphasis mine]

My readers should understand that almost any science story that uses the words “computer model,” “simulation,” “might,” or “could” is treated with great skepticism on my part. Such words indicate that scientists have not discovered anything in the real world, but have simply recreated their imagined universe in a computer. There are times this work has its uses, but it isn’t an example of real research leading to new discoveries. Such simulations are only minor guides that should not be taken very seriously.

Nor does this skepticism apply only to climate change stories. It applies to any press release I read that is based on these words. Notice for example how I described yesterday’s story about the Moon’s creation as “science fiction.”

That so many of today’s science journalists fail to have a comparable skepticism and instead use such press releases to create meaningless clickbait is truly unfortunate. I hope my readers will begin to notice this as well, and become more educated consumers of science thereby.