Hi Brian
Thanks for your reply to my various posts above. I'll try to respond to the substantive points made.
You said:
"None of yout notes can be substantiated"
Remember that I am not an astrobiologist. As I indicated earlier I am just throwing out speculations based on a number of observations and deductive thinking. I leave the substantiation to the Scientists with the relevant resources and clout, but, based on their preconceptions, it is unlikely that they would attempt to substantiate any of what I've said. for, if the kicking off point is that life can't exist on Mars, the only way that any of these points can be substantiated is when a well equipped exploration gets there. The falsification suggestions I've made in one of my posts above are therefore unlikely to be taken up.
However, I think that several of my points are indeed valid and can be substantiated and that the concretion hypothesis is not a certainty but is riddled with certain problems that have prompted questions by geologists who have proposed other models.
You said:
"Many points, such as berry separation can be rejected. If you don't believe me do some research on other earlier threads within this forum".
I've seen some of the research re. magnetism and it is'nt fool proof. Grateful If you could point me to the others. However, Several berry field images, show significant separation of berries in places where, if wind were indeed moving those berries around, the distribution should be more random.
Grateful if you would specify the other points which can be rejected as well as the points which may have some merit, in your view, as you said "many points can be rejected " instead of "all points".
You said:
"RATs expose asymetric spherules buried within sedimentary deposits, such as your post 72. This scream concretion. No, there ain't no energy source within a surface rock in this environment to sudtaib a living berry that domehow rises to the surtace".
I agree that those images strongly suggest concretions. My suggestion related to those entombed berries was that they might be featureless, immature, resting stages (needing minimal energy) which only elaborate the features found in the exposed berries when they are at the surface. I can't substantiate this, of course but I think it is a reasonable explanation if one assumes that the berries might be alive. Remember, we are talking about a putative organism that is likely to be almost totally different to an earth organism.
You said:
"Vostok is indicative of a crater filled by regolith, and there is every indication that sufficient depth of sedimentary deposits across the entire area has been eroded to provide the berry population".
I think the jury is still out on that speculation. There is still argument by geological heavy hitters as to whether or not the original layer of berries might have been several hundred meters or just a few meters. My speculation that the layer of berries now being seen might be a case of regeneration cannot be invalidated with the current hard evidence available.
You said:-
"Spherules are HARD. The rovers needed re-programming in RAT sequencing to prevent termination of commands to RAT because of this. The rocks are SOFT. Just look at the RAT image to see this".
I don't doubt that the spherules inside the rocks are hard. I'm just saying that the recent scraping of those 3 SURFACE berries by the brush indicated that those berries were covered by a relatively soft external layer and exposed a structured inner inside, and that the inside of several surface berries have been seen from eroded and split berries to be also structured and seemingly easily erodable. Marsman has shown at least 2 berries where the innards are well eroded. these certainly do not betoken hard innards lasting for billions of years. In addition, I've shown that the Rover instruments are incapable of characterising the inner 78% of the volume of an exposed typical berry and indeed cannot estimate the chemical content of one berry only, so current data cannot prove that the berries on the surface are totally made of hematite.
You said:
"I would be delighted if you could provide a single sustainable indicator of living berries, but I believe your post 72 proves the opposite. Concretion. Please prove my conviction wrong. No-one would be more delighted".
The sustainable indicator of living berries will only come when Geologists recognize that Mars life is unlikely to look like current earth life, carefully reexamine the various abiogenic proposals and recognize that the concretion hypothesis may be unsustainable and that the several small indicators of life, like Henry and Marsman's statistical measurement results, are worthy of testing.
I think I have pointed out a number of inconsistencies in the concretion hypothesis. You don't accept my offerings, and that's fine, but don't reject them only on the basis that they can't be currently substantiated in your view. Many of the tenets of the concretion hypothesis also cannot be substantiated.
You said:;
"But it is disturbing to watch an intelligent poster drift towards the illogical outerdark inhabited by ES and RW"
Thanks for describing me as an "intelligent poster". However, I think that my postings here have been far from illogical. They differ substantially from the default hypothesis but I don't think they are illogical, unless you define logic as being totally within the box of the default hypothesis. I think I have set out a logical framework for a living berry and tried to answer the specific challenges, albiet in a piecemeal fashion. The speculation still needs work. but none of the examples you have brought up invalidates that speculation, IMHO.
None of us can be 100% sure that the concretion hypothesis is correct. I'll try to develop a structured short paper over the next 2 weeks or so to provide "chapter and verse" to the hypothesis of the living blueberries.
Thanks again for responding
Winston Small