Science and Society

The truth of the matter is not only "many scientists studying Mars will openly admit they want to find water there" .... the theory of evolution needs it too. The uniqueness of the Earth is too uncomfortable for them.

Of course not, That is so absurd to say it is proof of water in one place like that on the side of a crater. It is a landslide. I always knew it was a landslide. People are so desperate to try to prove their ideas that they lose touch with reality.

How about cleaning up the flaming fithy mess you have made on this planet before you stick your primitive american clapped out space junk on other planets

you know nothing about his planet,..now you want to search for oil and gold on others?
get real stupid Toxic Americans

This does not disprove the existance of water on Mars, it doesn't even disprove the possibility of liquid water on Mars. It only shows that in this particular instance it probably was not liquid water. Maybe we can get AJ to go look for it.

Perhaps, perhaps. We won't know for sure until we get there, and we'd damned well better get there to find out. Otherwise, we'll be committing slow suicide by total ignorance. If we don't look, we'll be nothing more than primitive savages wondering about the lights in the sky. Find out, find out, find out. Then we'll know, one way or another.
And, yes, I'll be the first to volunteer aj for the job.
Well, the second, Quietman.

I guess that makes me the third!
All the new information shows us is that we don't know everything, gotta go and see it - well after AJ lets us know it's OK.

Hey, Quietman! I came back from the other side of the deep dark black place of the nothingness of cyberspace. Well, not really but it makes no difference if there is any form of H2O on Mars because it has already been determined there is no life there. So even if there are billions of tons of ice beneath the surface, it makes no difference at all because there are not even microbes there.

Well, other countries are not that much better than Americans to be judging them so harshly. In fact, in many ways they could be worse. So what does that prove? Nothing at all except that it is not too smart to be berating other people. (and at least I am not a clone like some of these other people seem to be.)

Anyway, Andy, our salvation does not depend on us getting to Mars. It could be more of a trap than anything. We should just be content to enjoy life fully (which is what Shalom is).

I can't say too much about God or I will have to go back into the deep dark blackness of cyberspace deletions.

The moment I first saw this picture, I was telling people at work that these "scientists" are crazy. It is so obvious to anyone who has any kind of real experience with nature that it is a landslide. They are making the rest of us look bad. They are making good money to make us all look silly.

...and I do agree with what CM Loke said. If the historical record, as we have it, is true, they could have a lot to lose and a lot of explaining to do.

Being held responsible for what we say and do, that is a novel idea!

PQQAm
The need to know if life is there is partly academic - some of us are curious. It's also partly in the interest of our use of the planet - is there a chance that we could disturb an existing form with our presence or would it be a danger to exploration.

And the importance of water is for selfish reasons. We want to go there and be able to return.

Evolution falls under the academic interests - not under the practical interests.

It seems some people take any reason to bash science

It's to their credit as scientists that they admitted what they found was not what they wanted. I feel a lot more comfortable with these people than the evolution pushers.

CM Loke
The uniqueness of the Earth is thus far only in this one little solar system. We do not yet have the technology to determine if it is truely unique.

PQQAM
Re: "Nothing at all except that it is not too smart to be berating other people."
I said nothing at all to berate, merely suggested that since Americans are so stupid and toxic that he would be much better qualified to go look.

This is how science is supposed to work. One group collects data and interprets it, and publishes it for others to review. If someone else thinks the interpretation was wrong, they publish their evidence for saying so. If it still isn't resolved, they or someone else figures out how to test the alternatives. Eventually a consensus is reached - the strength of the consensus depending on the strength of the evidence. New evidence, who knows? That's what makes it exciting.

And consensus is ONLY used where there is not as yet any means to prove that a hypothesis is correct and all others wrong. At that point a consensus is no longer required. For example: The world has been proven to be a globe, it requires no consensus.

Hi Quietman,
No, I wasn't aware of that. I don't know how the comments work anyway. It looks like my other "blog" type comments are still there. I only care about the science discussions anyway, so maybe I'll just stick to this. The rest is pretty much a waste of time.

I think I use the word consensus fairly loosely. I know in some deliberative bodies, such as the U.N., "consensus" generally means unanimous. That certainly is not my intention when talking about science. I basically just mean that the large majority of scientists that I respect seem pretty confident about it. I don't know how other people view the word when it is used so much in the climate change debate. There the percent that seem quite confident is well over 90% (really it's probably over 99%, but I don't want to get into any stupid arguments over dueling lists of scientists). That is a good enough "consensus" for me, but of course that doesn't mean it is absolutely certain, although I think it makes it likely enough to prompt action.

jock59801
I concur, unanimous or close to it. I was thinking of science, more along the lines of paleontology or climatology where absolute proof is elusive.

Well, there are consensuses and consensuses. There is a consensus among those who believe that pi should be 3 even, and there is a consensus among those who believe that hell awaits those who don't follow the "true" beliefs. I would also believe that there is a consensus among those who believe (and those who don't) about water on our neighbor, Mars. Who is to be the final judge? We'll probably need a consensus there, too. The only real way to end the discussion, one way or the other, is to get ourselves hence.

Andy
Re: "get ourselves hence"
My point exactly.

But I thought the consensus on Pi was to use 3.1417 for more seriuos calc and 3.14 for GP use.

sorry for the disflexic spelling.

Quietman, There was an actual movement some years ago to legislate pi to be equal to 3.0. It failed, of course, but there's no limit to the asininity of modern man.

Quietman, That berating comment was intended for AJ. I see it was not very clear.

That must really bother the evolutionary scientists to know that the earth is an extreme exception to the norm. There is a difference between the extreme excess of life and everywhere else there is no life, not even microbes.

PQQAm
Re: "no life, not even microbes"
Among scientists that is a consensus issue and to tell the truth I do not think that they even have a consensus on it yet. That's why they are still looking. The Mars meteorite with traces of possible microbes is still very much in dispute. I don't know the consensus on that issue but it IS still an issue. Until we find positive proof that there was never any life, or that there was or is, it will remain an argument.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." We're still looking, and we can't stop until we prove it one way or the other. Science is hardwired for that. It's an imperative. It also goes for the idea that we're unique in the universe, an idea which is stunning in its ignorance. As Carl Sagan said, "If we are alone in the universe, it's a heck of a waste of space."

At some point you (we) are going to have to believe something. Stand on something. If it falls through, it falls through but we can't live our life without believing. It has to be one thing or another. It can't be both. Either God made everything or He did not (but there is still no other explanation).

The teaching of Scripture has already beaten, hands down, every other philosophy because chemicals and proteins cannot assemble themselves. That is what Scripture calls idolatry. We can't give credit to rocks and trees for everything that we see. We can't give credit to chance for so much order and perfection. It is not entirely perfect because of the weakness of the flesh but the ideal of perfection is clearly seen even if that perfection is running down and running out.

It comes down to believing the only historical record that we have of our origin or to keep on looking for another origin with no evidence of there being such a thing as that.

So now instead of teaching the history that we have, evolution is teaching something that there is no evidence for. For every extinct creature that we find, it increases the odds even more of the story of chance being true. It couldn't happen to one species let alone for the millions of plants and animals. The math supporting such a thing is just not there.

This is the reason why Evangelicals and the like are so annoyed by such baseless statements being taught in our schools.

People who might say that aliens planted life here on earth have more reason than evolution. There is still the problem of who made the aliens, how they got here, where they went from here and why they came or why they went.

The only story that has any reason at all is that God created the heavens, the earth and put all of the life on earth that we see. Our existence is the proof of God that everyone keeps demanding to see. How much proof do you want?

This whole argument infuriates me. We know there is water on Mars and have known of it's existence for decades (At the poles.).

This article is simply about a single anomaly and it's interpretation.

Expanding this report into an argument about this existence of water on Mars is absurd.

Russ
The issue isn't frozen water, It's about liquid water. The Martian surface is too cold for liquid water so they got excited when they saw what they viewed as an anomaly.

But I think there was other evidence that Spirit and Opportunity found that strongly argued for the previous existence of liquid water (hematite, etc.). I'm not sure where these arguments stand, but this "landslide" or whatever it was is not the only piece of evidence.

Russ - I have heard that there is some frozen water at the poles, but I thought most of the polar ice caps were carbon dioxide??

Jock
I believe that the reason the next lander will be near the poles is to settle that issue once and for all.

Regardless of some people beliefs, if humankind wants to survive, we'll need to colonize other planets. Eventually, earth will be without recources, too overpopulated and with all those killer asteroids flying around, it's far too dangerous to put all our eggs in one basket (earth)

there is no life out there,everything that exists out there is right here on earth

93 million miles from the blistering surface of the sun hangs the planet earth,a rotating sphere perfectly suspended in the center of the universe,the size,position and angle of the earth is a scientific phenomenon,a few degrees closer to the sun wed disintegrate,a few degrees further wed freeze.
the axis of the earth is tilted at a perfect 23 degree angle,and its no mistake that it is,this allows equal global distribution to the rays of the sun,making it possible for the food chain to exist,or take for example the combination of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere we breathe every day,it just happens to be the exact mix that life needs to prosper,it doesnt happen on any other planet that way,

I read the abstract document, it illustrates a rather unique method to determine facts but lacks exact data for determination of what dry material could flow in such a way, chemical elements can be tricky whereas the model did not state that any absorption of liquid was occurring or not into the defined gully down its wall. The value of knowing which material is important to distinguish it from a general material which the surface would have been abundant of, such is the case of lava dust as which can settle over a span of time esp. on side walls of a gully since a flat surface dust granules would tend to move to fill voids of ditches and trenches and be blown into piles. A molecular fine dust would be so sensitive that the slightest object dropped onto it would cause a landslide affect which is what we are seeing in the photos. If we could obtain newer photos it would clarify how the slide was begun as long as a upper landslide did not cover the previous slide. It is not water but of a granular form and it shows disruption so heavier material is being added as the flow approaches lower levels. A object as small as a softball flying through the air tossed from a volcanic eruption could cause the result we see in the photo hitting directly. A smaller object such as a marble would have to travel across the surface of the material covering approximately the same area to cause a landslide. Either penetration point would be covered by the upper downflow of material.

I can't believe in the 21st century we're still trying to prove water exists' on Mars. I thought we Earthlings we're so smart.
Considering the billions spent I think we should have proven by now water is on Mars, Cricky!