In short, the authors and NASA strongly disagree with the decision to retract and argue that this is clearly outside of the typical norms for what retraction is supposed to represent. A paper being wrong isn't and shouldn't be the standard for retraction, particularly in this case when the original paper was published with multiple technical responses and rejoinders.
That was helpful context, thank you for highlighting it. From the NYT article, it sounds like the NYT’s pursuit of a feature piece last year [0] (also worth reading) spurred Science to revisit making a retraction.
> The internet and scientific critics largely moved on, and so did the journal. While some researchers called for the paper’s retraction, Science instead published technical critiques of the finding. Then last year, Science’s stance shifted. A reporter contacted Science for a New York Times article about the legacy of the #arseniclife affair.
> That inquiry “convinced us that this saga wasn’t over, that unless we wanted to keep talking about it forever, we probably ought to do some things to try to wind it down,” said Holden Thorp, editor in chief of Science since 2019. “And so that’s when I started talking to the authors about retracting.”
Science explains in the article that this retraction is consistent with evolving scientific norms:
“Over the years since the paper was published, and especially in the past 5 years, as research integrity has become an even more important topic, Science has moved to retract papers more frequently for reasons other than fraud and misconduct. In this case, a number of factors led to the publication of a paper with seriously flawed content, including the peer review process and editorial decisions that we made. With this retraction—and with all retractions and corrections—we acknowledge and take responsibility for the role that we played in the paper’s publication.”
Important context to be found in the reporting on this saga, e.g., https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/science/arseniclife-retra....
In short, the authors and NASA strongly disagree with the decision to retract and argue that this is clearly outside of the typical norms for what retraction is supposed to represent. A paper being wrong isn't and shouldn't be the standard for retraction, particularly in this case when the original paper was published with multiple technical responses and rejoinders.
Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/science/arseniclife-retra...
That was helpful context, thank you for highlighting it. From the NYT article, it sounds like the NYT’s pursuit of a feature piece last year [0] (also worth reading) spurred Science to revisit making a retraction.
> The internet and scientific critics largely moved on, and so did the journal. While some researchers called for the paper’s retraction, Science instead published technical critiques of the finding. Then last year, Science’s stance shifted. A reporter contacted Science for a New York Times article about the legacy of the #arseniclife affair.
> That inquiry “convinced us that this saga wasn’t over, that unless we wanted to keep talking about it forever, we probably ought to do some things to try to wind it down,” said Holden Thorp, editor in chief of Science since 2019. “And so that’s when I started talking to the authors about retracting.”
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/science/arseniclife-felis...
Science explains in the article that this retraction is consistent with evolving scientific norms:
“Over the years since the paper was published, and especially in the past 5 years, as research integrity has become an even more important topic, Science has moved to retract papers more frequently for reasons other than fraud and misconduct. In this case, a number of factors led to the publication of a paper with seriously flawed content, including the peer review process and editorial decisions that we made. With this retraction—and with all retractions and corrections—we acknowledge and take responsibility for the role that we played in the paper’s publication.”