Poll: Are You Convinced?

Does this article prove Life on Mars, to YOU?

Vote here

e s

NO. Reasons? This article needs some more work:

1) It is based off a series of assumptions, each building off the next. There is no evidence or references given for where these assumptions are taken from, or why we should agree with these assumptions.

2) The paper makes no mention of other factors or opposing explanations/theories. While it might be OK for political opinion pieces to ignore arguments and facts that do not agree with the author's theory, I don't think thats OK for a real scientific paper.

Daniel,

What are the "opposing explanations/theories" that you are talking about? I did not hear any

es

Like I said ES - if you want to put out a fluff propaganda piece, you're doing just fine. But for a serious paper, you need to bring up (and shoot down) facts and theories that conflict with yours.

Daniel,

I have choosen the simplest case available.
There are just two points, that go into the conclusion here.

1. The observed object has a hook.
2. Rocks never have hooks.

Nobody yet have challenged any of those facts. Do you doubt any of them?

es

Oh for goodness sake, this crap has a home elsewhere in this forum.

The observed object appears, to some, as if it MAY have something that LOOKS like a hook.

To say that it 'has a hook' is fundamentally wrong and missleading.

Doug

Yes. I doubt both of them

1) The rock is buried. It looks like the top part of a crack or crevice that is jutting up into the sand.

2) That is an assumption. And its a VERY VERY wrong one.

here is a site that I googled under Rock and Hook (first one I found under images.google.com - google Ventifacts for more examples):

[link]

It shows windshaped rock forms in the Antartic:
1) An even more hook shaped rock than yours
2) little pyramids (didn't someone claim rocks couldn't form pyramids too?)
3) A rock that has holes in it
4) A rock that looks like a crashing wave

No. Sorry. It's a reasonable idea, that there are some shapes we don't usually expect to see in in rocks, and a hook is one of those shapes. But rocks do sometimes come in unusual shapes.

It would be more convincing if the paper gave more than one example. By that I don't mean lots of hook-like rocks all very different from one another. That's the problem with your "theme park" paper - lots of examples but they're all very different from one another. No - I mean two or more rocks which look like *identical* or nearly-identical hooks. That is because life always replicates, so if what you have found really is life then we should expect more than one specimen to exist, with only small differences between the specimens. Of course if something is rare then it might be hard to find the second specimen, but that's what you've got to do, at the very least, to win over the sceptics.

Even finding strange shapes exactly duplicated might not be enough, because the geologists might be able to imagine a geological process which could produce the strange shapes; but it would be a very good start. It would be a *lot* more effective in convincing people than a single example.

*Many* of the objects we've seen *might* be more than just rocks, and people might even look at our Mars pictures in a few decades and say "how could people not see the fossils in these? Practically every picture is packed with fossils." But for now the mere possibility that something *might* be a fossil (or a living creature) is not enough to sway opinions. Only finding duplicates can do that. Or, maybe catching a strange-looking "rock" in the act of doing something obviously biological in a time-lapse movie would do the trick. L. Von Lange's animation came close, but it was from just two frames with the intermediate action interpolated by morphing software. Something like that but based on a few real images could be a clincher.

Daniel,

I doubt you use 3D glasses.

Martin,

having everything in mind, what probability would you assign to the hypothesis that the object in question is of biological origin?

es

Shame on BOTH of you ES and Martin. I post a link showing examples of what only a few million years of wind erosion (compard to billions on Mars) and neither of you bother to even look at that. If you had, you would see waaaaaayyyyyyy more hook shaped rocks that ES has posted.

EXTRA SENSE - I'VE DISPROVED #2. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY?

Daniel,

Do you wonder at all, that we know much less about that Earthly rock, than about the rock on Mars? We do not have stereo picture of it. So we do not know if the hook touches the ground, for example.
It does not look as anything of biological origin, but you can not even guarantee it is not whale bones.

e s

ES - You stated that ROCKS NEVER HAVE HOOKS. I have posted an example of a ROCK THAT HAS A HOOK.

Or as Favonio puts it - why are you FRIGHTENED of pictures of ANTARTICA?

ES writes: "Martin, having everything in mind, what probability would you assign to the hypothesis that the object in question is of biological origin?"

Quite high, actually, but that's because I'm approaching that hypothesis from a completely different direction than either you or Daniel.

First of all, I'm not particularly sceptical about the notion that there is life on Mars. I think it is overwhelmingly likely that this is the case, and that this life will be found. It may be that life has already been found, just not recognised as such. There are various candidates for biological origin in the pictures we have seen - not least among them being the spherules. However, I think that claims made for any individual life-candidate such as the particular object mentioned in your paper need to be treated with caution.

To me the object looks like a damaged and weathered hollow shell. The "hook" arises because of the particular pattern of cracking and weathering. It is not a functional design, it just happens to be shaped like a hook.

But, I expect shells to be a characteristic of most macroscopic Martian life, especially near the equator. This is because a shell is needed to provide protection against UV and against the heat of the noon sun. A Martian organism will boil at noon in the low atmospheric pressure unless it either has a shell which can be pressurized when needed, or it can burrow down into soil which retains the cold of the previous night.

On Earth there are some hollow shell-like rocks, but we do not get them in the same profusion and variety that we see on Mars. My guess would be that a significant proportion of the hollow rocks we see on Mars are in fact fossils. I just wish I could spot two or more which are identical.

Daniel, I did read the page you linked to. I had a good look at all the examples. What makes you think that I didn't?

Daniel,

Nobody is frightend. The thing apparently has to be further investigated. I have pointed out to you, that we know much less about the "rock" you shown, than we should.

ES

Martin,

I was trying to deal with the idiotic attitude of the official science on this issue.
Normally they should have published my claim, so that it would be discussed. You seem to agree that it is a reasonable claim, may be not 100% fool proof.

Instead, the Astrobiology response was that they are interested in more out of mainstream ideas.

As to your suggestion that more examples would be more convincing, I have tried that too.

The thing is, that imbeciles are in charge.

e s

Martin,
hopefully you have 3D glasses.

Here is an example of analogous objects from sol 16 and 176.

e s

ES, what makes you think it's not a rock?

gregp,

You must use 3D glasses.
Those two objects are similar in a sense that geometrically they are like heart, cut in half, with similar chamber geometry, with general appearance of walnut shell halfs.

They occur on Mars rare, as very few rocks have relatively large cavities, let alone cavities and shape suggesting bio origin.

So, this pair of rare but similar objects must be considered one of the leading candidates for Martian biology specimen.

e s

It's a rock for goodness sake.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should go to the following site and then realise your mind is playing tricks with you.

http://www.liquidgeneration.com/sabotage/inkblot_sabotage.asp

CM,
You can believe anything you wish, it is free for all. It does not make it so.
In this case, your mind is playing tricks on you.

e s