Now Winston, play nice.
You and others on this forum have an unshakeable faith that there is life on Mars. The definition of faith in this context being a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea that has not been proven. Fair enough, nothing wrong with faith provided it does not take the leap to extremism where faith rejects any evidence that the idea is flawed.
My approach to this faith of life on Mars is one of empirical agnosticism. The existance of life on Mars is undetermined but could be proven one way or another as data is analysed.
My approach (and comments) are based on reviewing all possible explanations in context (and I stress in context) and accepting the most likely unless additional data requires a change. The simplest explanation of the importance of context in empirical agnosticism is Levin's water pools on Burns Cliff. Given the context an absolute impossibility.
With respect to Viking results empirical agnosticism notes that perchlorides would not provide the same outcomes as the Viking experiments. It also notes that the other constituents of the sample (ie oxides super or not, chlorates etc)have not been identified and that superchlorides would have been the first identified due to the nature of the sensor.
You have enough unqualified support on this forum Winston, and I am an admirer of your posts. But you need someone like me challenging you, but with the knowledge that if you can show me beyond reaonable doubt then yes - I will believe.
