What kind of multicellular life will we find on Mars?
Robert Clark
existing at or below the surface of the Red Planet. However, there are
some possibilities of more complex life forms existing on Mars. Barry
Digregorio in his book _Mars: the Living Planet_,
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1883319587/ , describes certain lichen
that get their water from water vapor in the air; that is,
*environmental* liquid water is not required. He also describes a
species of desert rat that never actually drinks liquid water. They
obtain their liquid water requirements from the water contained in the
plants they eat.
This may be relevant to the life on Mars question because of a
remarkable plant species that exists in the Namibian desert,
Welwitschia mirabilis:
Welwitschia mirabilis Hooker 1863.
"Dioecious perennial plant with short stem and taproot. Beyond that,
the plant is often described as 'bizarre', 'weird', or (more
explicitly) 'unlike any known plant on earth'. Its short, woody,
unbranched stem is surmounted by two strap-shaped leaves that grow
from a basal meristem throughout the life of the plant, becoming
twisted and frayed with the passing centuries."
http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/we/welwitschiaceae.htm
Welwitschia Mirabilis.
http://www.namibweb.com/welwitschia.htm
THE NAMIB DESERT
http://hentiesbay.com/desert.htm
Welwitschia mirabilis: a plant from Tatooine?
http://biology.fullerton.edu/facilities/greenhouse/stories_out_of_school/welwitschia_mirabilis__ap.html
This plant has the ability to survive on the liquid water existing in
fogs alone.
In the Namibian desert was also found a species of beetle that gets
its liquid water from fog:
Water wings aid desert survival.
"A desert beetle turns fog into drinking water with its wings, new
research reveals. Materials mimicking the insect could help humans
survive harsh environments."
Nature Science Update, 1 November 2001.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/011101/011101-14.html
Multicellular life such as Welwitschia and this beetle might be able
to survive on Mars because there are known to be low lying fogs on
Mars at low altitude locations:
Clouds in Noctis Labyrinthis.
http://planetscapes.com/solar/cap/mars/noctis.htm
In my opinion, these low elevation, low latitude fogs almost
certainly consist all or in part of supercooled liquid water droplets:
Winter Rainbows And Supercooled Water.
"In fact, as Bohren points out, liquid water can exist at temperatures
as low as -40 degrees C (or F), at which point the molecules become so
sluggish that there is a high probability that enough of them will get
together for a sufficiently long time to form a nucleus even in the
total absence of foreign matter. Lacking any outside influence, pure
water can nucleate itself even at the relatively high temperatures of
a refrigerator freezing compartment. But, says Bohren, the chances of
this happening are about the same as for all the air molecules in a
room suddenly rushing into one corner."
http://www.aspirations.com/Alaska_Science_Forum/Water_Snow_Ice/winter_rainbows.htm
However, even if animals could get liquid water from plants, there
would be the problem of oxygen. All advanced animal life on Earth need
*environmental* oxygen as O2 in order to survive. Even fish for
example do not get oxygen from chemically separating oxygen from H2O
but from the O2 that suffuses through the water from the atmosphere.
The amount of oxygen in water is low, perhaps 0.5% by volume. Fish
are able to get their required oxygen by having the large surface area
of their gills to draw water in through which the oxygen will diffuse.
Could something analogous work on Mars? The oxygen levels in the
Martian atmosphere is even less than that in the oceans on Earth. Only
0.13% of Mars atmosphere is O2, and that is in an atmosphere that is
less than 1% as dense as Earth's.
Most fish can't even breathe on land in any case, but according to
this web site that is because their gills collapse. The Walking
Catfish is a type of fish that can breathe through its gills in air:
How Do Fish Breathe?
http://www.geocities.com/aquarium_fish/how_fish_breathe.htm
Question: how large would "gills" have to be to draw in an equivalent
amount of oxygen in Mars atmosphere as they do in Earth's oceans?
Another possibility might be a creature that is part plant, part
animal, in a type of symbiotic relationship. The plant part would take
CO2 from the atmosphere and supply O2 to the animal part.
Bob Clark
Randall L. Rathbun
found on Mars, it would be of earth origin and probably unicellular. I
think that this possibility needs to be considered strongly.
His prediction was several years before searching for life on Mars became
the vogue.
As to multicellular, let's look for unicellular first, there are awful big
hurdles to pass.
- Randall
Ref:
Hugh Ross, "The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific
Discoveries of the Century Reveal God" (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993).
Quote:
"Though I'm convinced that the origin of life defies a naturalistic
explanation, I am expecting that life, or the remains of life, will
eventually be discovered on Mars. My reason has nothing to do with
spontaneous generation and everything to do with Mars' proximity to Earth"
(p. 144). Dr. Ross made his prediction on the basis that microbes are
regularly lifted into the earth's upper atmosphere. There, solar wind is
able to carry them into space. Since Mars is in close proximity to earth,
it makes sense that some of them would wind up on Mars. Further, he reports
that experiments indicate that some microbes could live in space for as
long as five days and can absorb a great deal of radiation without damage.
Mycroft Holmes
ice where
big or small animals and plants could be surviving on large masses of
oxygen
trapped within.
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Volker Hetzer
"Robert Clark" <rgrego...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:832ea96d.02060...@posting.google.com...
> The debate on life on Mars has largely centered on microbial life
> existing at or below the surface of the Red Planet. However, there are
> some possibilities of more complex life forms existing on Mars. Barry
> Digregorio in his book _Mars: the Living Planet_,
> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1883319587/ , describes certain lichen
> that get their water from water vapor in the air; that is,
> *environmental* liquid water is not required. He also describes a
> species of desert rat that never actually drinks liquid water. They
> obtain their liquid water requirements from the water contained in the
> plants they eat.
Did it ever have an earth like period with an oxygen rich atmosphere
and temperatures above freezing?
What about active volcanoes?
Personally I think that life in current mars conditions would be small
simply because there is not enough energy to support large plants
or moving animals.
Bacteria films as a precursor to true multicellular beings are the
highest form of life that I expect there.
Greetings!
Volker
Mike Williams
>"Besides the possibility of liquid water there could be big caves in the
>ice where
>big or small animals and plants could be surviving on large masses of
>oxygen
>trapped within.
What would be their primary energy source?
Since they're underground, they can't be getting much energy from
sunlight.
I reckon that it would be implausible to suggest a stable ecosystem
based on geothermal energy inside a sealed cave. Geothermal energy
sources are quite variable - the creatures that live near black smokers
in our deep seas can move further away or move off to find another
source if their smoker becomes too strong or weak, but you can't do that
in an airtight cave. Also the volcanic gasses would (a) tend to build up
sufficiently to unseal the cave, allowing the oxygen to escape (b)
overwhelm the oxygen with CO2, methane, etc.
--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure
Brian Davis
> The debate on life on Mars has largely centered on microbial life
> existing at or below the surface of the Red Planet.
For good reasons; if life is present at all, microbial life
certainly is, and would likely be wide-spread and therefore much much
*much* easier to detect.
> ...certain lichen that get their water from water vapor in the air...
> ...a species of desert rat that never actually drinks liquid water...
> ...Welwitschia Mirabilis...
Actually, lots of life can survive without drinking water in a
liquid form. However, all known forms of life require liquid water as
a solute, and it's tough (not impossible, but rather difficult) to
meet this condition on Mars. Additionally, there's very very little
water vapor on Mars either, far less (IIRC) than for any desert on
Earth.
> Supercooled Water.
> "In fact, as Bohren points out, liquid water can exist at temperatures
> as low as -40 degrees C (or F), at which point the molecules become so
> sluggish that there is a high probability that enough of them will get
> together for a sufficiently long time to form a nucleus even in the
> total absence of foreign matter.
Huh? While this may be true, I can think of *lots* of good
nucleating materials on a planet who's atmosphere is repeatedly filled
with smoke-sized particles of rock dust saturated with hyperoxides and
sulfates. And even supercooled water droplets are tough to use
biologically; when they hit you, they freeze on you.
> However, even if animals could get liquid water from plants, there
> would be the problem of oxygen. All advanced animal life on Earth need
> *environmental* oxygen as O2 in order to survive.
Another good reason to look for microbiological life, and to doubt
macrobiological life, on Mars. We can examine the atmosphere on this
count fairly easily; no O2 worth breathing.
Using your figures (0.13% of a 1% atmosphere is O2) I get that the
pO2 on Mars is roughly 1500 times smaller than for a fish in water (or
you, breathing air; it's the pO2 that counts, not neccessarily the
fraction O2). That's a tough order for a gill, or even better yet a
bird lung (much more efficient than our's for instance).
> Question: how large would "gills" have to be to draw in an equivalent
> amount of oxygen in Mars atmosphere as they do in Earth's oceans?
Good question, but one that I have to think about a lot more. The
comparision isn't very simple (I think).
--
Brian Davis
Robert Clark
supercooling can occur on Mars. Note though in the case of Noctis, it
is known that near equatorial latitudes can approach 30C temperature
during the daytime. So fogs close to the surface may actually be above
freezing temperatures.
The amount of dust in the atmosphere of Mars varies. There are likely
days when it is comparable to the amount common on Earth. Supercooled
fogs can still occur on Earth when there is dust in the air; the
temperature to which supercooling can occur is just not as low.
Another key factor is that some aerosols such as sulfates and
sulfuric acid particles can actually aid the supercooling process by
lowering the bulk freezing point of the solute mixture.
This is discussed in this report:
Airborne Measurements of Tropospheric Ice Nucleating Aerosol Particles
in the Arctic Spring.
"Ice Nucleation Processes
"The formation of ice in clouds can occur through several mechanisms
including nucleation processes or interactions of cloud particles with
pre-existing ice. The nucleation processes can be further divided into
homogeneous (involving only water substance) or heterogeneous
(involving reactions with aerosol particles). Homogeneous freezing of
liquid water depends on the mass of liquid water and its temperature;
in general, pure water will spontaneously freeze near -40°C. Haze
drops that grow from sulfuric acid drops or deliquesce on soluble CCN
may supercool below -40°C because the solute lowers the freezing point
(e.g., Chen et al. 1999)."
http://raf.atd.ucar.edu/~dcrogers/Arctic/JGR99/ArcticIN.htm
The article also mentions that not all particles will cause
nucleation.
Note that there has been a recent report that some bacteria are able
to live in supercooled liquid droplets in clouds:
Living It Up On Cloud Nine.
http://www.spacer.com/news/life-00zq.html
Sattler B, Puxbaum H, Psenner R (2001) Bacterial growth in supercooled
cloud droplets. Geophys Res Lett 28 (2): 239-242
See also this page for several articles on the effect of aerosols of
the temperature of supercooling in clouds:
Thomas Koop --- Publications.
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/staff/koop/publications.html
Bob Clark
brd...@iusb.edu (Brian Davis) wrote in message news:<f5ead130.02060...@posting.google.com>...
BFelix
So often Mars science degenerates into repeating received "truth" --
such as the supposed presence of massive amounts of superoxides,
without a shred of evidence from the surface of Mars itself. It is so
important that people like you keep asking fundamental questions and
suggesting ways to think about and make discoveries.
There seems to be less and less resistance to the notion that there is
likely some form of microbe on Mars -- possibly microbes that
originated on the Earth, perhaps delivered by some of the various
unsterilized space craft that have landed or crashed on the surface.
It would be quite a shock, but maybe not a surprise, to find such
creatures in the by and bye.
But then you ask about multi-cellular creatures that could inhabit
Mars. What about that?
The recent discovery of apparently massive amounts of apparently
frozen near-surface water on Mars has been met with surprising
silence... But if there is so much ice so near the surface, isn't it
likely that this is fluid not far beneath? And couldn't that imply the
presence of a fluid water sea at least several dozen or hundreds of
meters deep under at least parts of the Vastitas Borealis, the
long-suspected bed of a former ocean?
If there is a sea or ocean there, wouldn't it make sense to find some
sort of multi-cellular life in it, analogous to life in our own seas?
I would say yes, were it not for the abundant evidence on the Martian
surface of extraordinary destruction by impact and interior processes.
Something has happened on Mars, I would say fairly recently (much less
than 4 billion years ago), which catastrophically remade much of the
surface and no doubt affected any ocean or sea that may have been.
This catastrophic period may well have caused the extinction of any
multi-cellular life that may have been. Consequently single-cellular
life may be all that remains. Of course, there is no reason microbal
life on Mars couldn't be quite elaborate -- not unlike slime molds on
Earth, for example.
Just speculating here!
Wouldn't it be wonderful to find out!
Cheers, BFelix
François Müller
"Volker Hetzer" <volker...@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:adg7go$o8a$1...@dackel.pdb.sbs.de...
> What is the current view of mars history?
> Did it ever have an earth like period with an oxygen rich atmosphere
> and temperatures above freezing?
No. As much as we know, Earth have had a period with a Mars-like
atmosphere. (with higher ambient pressure probably)
O2 is the *result* of primitive vegetal life. In truth, it'sm virtually
imposible to imagine primitive live development with such a poisoning gas
like O2 (too reactant).
The lack of O2 in Mars atmosphere is not an indication for the imposibility
of vegetal life but can be consider as an indication of absence of vegetal
life.
A bit diferent ;-)
F.
Volker Hetzer
"François Müller" <francoi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:aeaqf3$5ij1d$1...@ID-99230.news.dfncis.de...
I raised the point in response to whether life above microbiological level is
possible. I don't think that one can do a lot of plant evolution without
the evolutionary pressure of animals eating plants.
Threfore my question about earth like conditions having made possible earth-like
evolution.
Greetings!
Volker
Brian Davis
> Nice to see your hard work continues, Robert.
Agreed - thank you Robert for the references.
> So often Mars science degenerates into repeating received "truth" --
> such as the supposed presence of massive amounts of superoxides,
> without a shred of evidence from the surface of Mars itself.
Hmm... Well, I must admit that I was repeating information that I
had read in what were percieved by me to be reliable sources
(peer-reviewed literature). I must admit that I've not actually gone
to Mars myself to test for superoxides first-hand. I assume then that
the existance of sulfur as a common component of the Viking landing
sites is also in doubt, as well as it's oxidized state?
What exactly do you think is a valid conclusion to draw from the
Viking chemical data, and why do you feel the rest of the scientific
community has missed this likely interpretation?
> The recent discovery of apparently massive amounts of apparently
> frozen near-surface water on Mars has been met with surprising
> silence... But if there is so much ice so near the surface, isn't it
> likely that this is fluid not far beneath?
Perhaps, although given the likely (completely inferred!) geotherm,
and the best estimates of the saturated regolith depths, it's
considered by some to be doubtful
> And couldn't that imply the presence of a fluid water sea at least
> several dozen or hundreds of meters deep under at least parts of
> the Vastitas Borealis, the long-suspected bed of a former ocean?
Umm, if by "sea" you mean "pore space", perhaps. Funny definition
of sea.
> If there is a sea or ocean there, wouldn't it make sense to find some
> sort of multi-cellular life in it, analogous to life in our own seas?
Why? Liquid water implies multicellular life? I wonder what
Europa's going to be then... or Ganymede, for that matter.
> Something has happened on Mars, I would say fairly recently (much less
> than 4 billion years ago), which catastrophically remade much of the
> surface and no doubt affected any ocean or sea that may have been.
Have you ever looked at the geological maps, and their inferred
ages, based on orbital mapping and crater counts?
> Just speculating here!
>
> Wouldn't it be wonderful to find out!
On that, you and I are completely in agreement.
--
Brian Davis
BFelix
Regarding the supposed presence of massive amounts of superoxides on
Mars, unless I'm mistaken, there is absolutely no surface measurement
that demonstrates the presence of *any* per/super/hyperoxide. That
doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there. It means there is no
measurement on the surface of Mars showing the presence of such
reactants. Yet that presence has been invoked as if it were true (and
confirmed) since 1976, often without a proviso or caveat that there is
no proof that there are per/super/hyperoxides on the Martian surface.
That strikes me as repeating claims over and over as if they were
true... without making those claims true.
>
> Hmm... Well, I must admit that I was repeating information that I
> had read in what were percieved by me to be reliable sources
> (peer-reviewed literature). I must admit that I've not actually gone
> to Mars myself to test for superoxides first-hand.
No measurement has ever been made by any Mars lander, orbiter or from
the Earth which demonstrates the presence of surface superoxides on
Mars. They are *assumed* to exist in order to fit the lifeless
paradigm. Not unlike the habit of "saving the phenomena" for the
erroneous Ptolemaic System.
>I assume then that
> the existance of sulfur as a common component of the Viking landing
> sites is also in doubt, as well as it's oxidized state?
Sulfur was found along with its oxides IIRC.
> What exactly do you think is a valid conclusion to draw from the
> Viking chemical data, and why do you feel the rest of the scientific
> community has missed this likely interpretation?
I would prefer the issue and findings be stated accurately. For
example, that there is at present no chemical evidence from the
surface of Mars demonstrating the presence of per/super/hyperoxides.
It strikes me as a "cultural" convention to aver they have been found,
or they "must be there." The actual chemical data is enigmatic. Like
much else about Mars. Things are not always what they seem to be...
>
> > The recent discovery of apparently massive amounts of apparently
> > frozen near-surface water on Mars has been met with surprising
> > silence... But if there is so much ice so near the surface, isn't it
> > likely that this is fluid not far beneath?
>
> Perhaps, although given the likely (completely inferred!) geotherm,
> and the best estimates of the saturated regolith depths, it's
> considered by some to be doubtful.
Seems to me that the announcement was essentially of the presence of
"dirty ice" (not saturated regolith) over much of the surface to a
considerable depth. I could be mistaken. We wouldn't *necessarily* see
ice at the surface (except at the poles) due to the tendency of ice to
sublime or melt away under appropriate conditions, leaving soil-like
material behind. (cf: Utopia landing site among others). The Acidalia
region, however, shows a large number of craters with apparently
previously fluid interiors and whitish material surrounding them.
Though no measurements have shown this material to be ice, it could be
just the same. There are pingo-like mounds all over the surface of
Acidalia and other areas -- some even showing signs of icy extrusions.
If there is extensive ice near the surface, and it extends to any
depth (say several tens of meters or more) and the temperature
increases with depth, it is reasonable to suggest that at some depth
at least in some areas, there should be reservoirs of liquid water.
These reservoirs could be quite large, as for example in the Solis
Planum region.
>
> > And couldn't that imply the presence of a fluid water sea at least
> > several dozen or hundreds of meters deep under at least parts of
> > the Vastitas Borealis, the long-suspected bed of a former ocean?
>
> Umm, if by "sea" you mean "pore space", perhaps. Funny definition
> of sea.
Much of the surface of Mars shows extensive signs of collapse. In some
areas it appears that the surface has been undermined, and the surface
material has fallen into a void space below. In other areas, it
appears there are vast sink-holes. There are many signs of caves,
especially in Tharsis but elsewhere as well. The margins of Arabia
show signs of extensive crustal breakup and movement, all of which
could be related to the presence of a sub-surface liquid "sea." Or
seas. I don't think we've even begun to figure out how such features
would behave.
> > If there is a sea or ocean there, wouldn't it make sense to find some
> > sort of multi-cellular life in it, analogous to life in our own seas?
>
> Why? Liquid water implies multicellular life? I wonder what
> Europa's going to be then... or Ganymede, for that matter.
>
Indeed. If there are subsurface liquid water reservoirs or seas on
Mars, or in it, and sources of energy in them, why *shouldn't* there
be fully adapted multi-cellular life? I think it would be stranger if
there weren't any. Why shouldn't there be similar life on/in Europa?
Ganymede? Callisto? Why not, even, Triton? If conditions are right for
the presence of complex life anywhere, explaining its absence -- if
none is found -- ought to be the difficult problem.
> > Something has happened on Mars, I would say fairly recently (much less
> > than 4 billion years ago), which catastrophically remade much of the
> > surface and no doubt affected any ocean or sea that may have been.
>
> Have you ever looked at the geological maps, and their inferred
> ages, based on orbital mapping and crater counts?
Have you ever *really* looked at Martian craters? Have you ever
thought that many may have been formed by internal rather than
external processes? Does anyone really know what the impact rate on
Mars has been? Crater counts are interesting, but they should not be
used for absolute dating purposes. There is so much to learn!
>
> > Just speculating here!
> >
> > Wouldn't it be wonderful to find out!
>
> On that, you and I are completely in agreement.
Cool.
Volker Hetzer
"BFelix" <brf...@lycos.com> wrote in message news:c1c72a59.02062...@posting.google.com...
> Brian Davis:
> Indeed. If there are subsurface liquid water reservoirs or seas on
> Mars, or in it, and sources of energy in them, why *shouldn't* there
> be fully adapted multi-cellular life? I think it would be stranger if
> there weren't any. Why shouldn't there be similar life on/in Europa?
> Ganymede? Callisto? Why not, even, Triton? If conditions are right for
> the presence of complex life anywhere, explaining its absence -- if
> none is found -- ought to be the difficult problem.
And the sun is a pretty big energy source, much bigger and covering a much
larger area than some underwater vulcans.
So, IMHO the should be nothing more complex than say, something
like the volvox algae.
Of course, I'll eat my words most happily if our next ice-penetrating
ganymede probe gets eaten by some big multicellar organism. :-)
Greetings!
Volker
George William Herbert
>Regarding the supposed presence of massive amounts of superoxides on
>Mars, unless I'm mistaken, there is absolutely no surface measurement
>that demonstrates the presence of *any* per/super/hyperoxide. That
>doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there. It means there is no
>measurement on the surface of Mars showing the presence of such
>reactants. Yet that presence has been invoked as if it were true (and
>confirmed) since 1976, often without a proviso or caveat that there is
>no proof that there are per/super/hyperoxides on the Martian surface.
>
>That strikes me as repeating claims over and over as if they were
>true... without making those claims true.
A poorly reported study was done taking rocks and dust and sand
similar to the suspected Mars surface materials, putting them in
a 6 millibar CO2 atmosphere, and exposing them to the light
spectrum expected on Mars (higher UV fraction due to the
atmospheric constituents, etc). Superoxides were produced,
though the long term equilibrium was not precisely determined.
It is therefore lab-experimentally demonstrated that it is highly
likely that Mars has superoxides, to the point that nobody inside
the field really has thought that it required a field test to
be sure they were there.
One of the areas I research is Mars rovers and EVA surface
systems and operations, and prior to any manned mission I
believe that we need to do a detailed physical chemistry
analysis on the surface materials. I do believe however
that for scientific purposes, we can reasonably conclude
that there are superoxides there.
It would certainly help questions like this if the research
done in science and engineering from 1900 to 1995 were
to be back-tracked and scanned in and put up on the web
for people to be able to search and find in a more
practical matter than finding someone who's been close
enough to the core of the field who just knows.
But that's a very different problem than the experiment
not having been done either in the field or in the lab.
It's a fair point that people on the outside, who have
enough knowledge to know that it's a valid question
but don't know about the poorly publicized study,
might quite reasonably conclude that this was a poor
use of scientific method and proper research.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Robert Clark
on Mars:
Evidence That the Reactivity of the Martian Soil Is Due to Superoxide
Ions.
Science, Vol. 289, No. 5486, 15 Sep 2000, pp. 1909-1912.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/5486/1909
[This and other Science links are currently available full-text
through June 27 with free registration.]
which was followed by a response by Gil Levin:
O2- Ions and the Mars Labeled Release Response.
Science, Vol. 291, No. 5511, 16 Mar 2001, p. 2041.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5511/2041a
The superoxide article received alot of play in the science-oriented
press:
Why Life Is Not Found on Mars' Surface.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/rusty_red_mars_000914.html
"Mars in a Test Tube" Raises Questions about Life on the Red Planet.
http://www.planetary.org/html/news/articlearchive/headlines/2000/marsoxidants.html
The Space.com article mentioned an experiment to determine the extent
to which the Martian surface is oxidizing that was proposed to fly on
the Beagle 2 mission to Mars. This experiment has indeed now been
selected to fly on Beagle 2:
MARS ATMOSPHERIC OXIDANT SENSOR (MAOS): AN IN-SITU HETEROGENEOUS
CHEMISTRY
ANALYSIS.
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIII (2002).
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2002/pdf/1423.pdf
However, the Science superoxide article only mentions the oxygen
production observed in the Viking biology experiments. This actually
has to do with the the Gas Exchange experiment, not Levin's Labeled
Release experiment. Levins's experiment refers to detection of
radioactively labeled carbon dioxide. The article makes no attempt to
explain Levin's results, which are the most important ones arguing for
a biological explanation of the Viking results.
The article in fact refers to an Icarus report of Zent and Mckay that
discusses the fact that there were so many different responses
observed by the biology experiments, that not one oxidant species
would be enough to explain all of them. It is because of this that
Levin argues that a chemical explanation is at least as complicated as
a biology explanation of the Viking lander results.
Barry DiGregorio also notes in his book _Mars: The Living Planet_
that in fact the Earth itself is a much more oxidizing environment
than that proposed for Mars and that Earth life has developed defense
mechanisms for this.
This fact has been well known for many years:
What the Heck Do you Mean - Oxygen is Harmful??
"The superoxide anion mentioned above (O2-), if available, can be
converted by an enzyme called superoxide dismutase to hydrogen
peroxide (H2O2) and molecular oxygen (O2) by the following reaction:
2O2- + 2H+ => O2 + H2O2.
Obligate aerobes - organisms which absolutely require O2 (many, many
microorganisms, including bacteria, and a bunch of macroorganisms -
like us) have this enzyme. As it turns out, H2O2 is also toxic -
bummer! - get rid of one thing and another one pops up! But - cells
are "smart." While H2O2 is dangerous, this stuff is significantly less
toxic than superoxide anions. But, cells may also have yet another
enzyme (our cells do - as do obligate aerobes) called catalase. This
enzyme converts H2O2 to H20 and O2 in the following reaction: 2H2O2 =>
2H2O + O2."
"So, all strict aerobes have _both_ of these enzymes.. and although
some bacteria do not have catalase, most _will_ have superoxide
dismutase. If they don't have superoxide dismutase, then they'll have
an enzyme which uses some metal ion (like manganese or some such
thing) which destroys the superoxide anions. Therefore, O2 is
necessary for all aerobes, but certain forms of O2 are dangerous as
well. Consequently, there are very sophisticated systems which protect
cells from the potentially toxic effects of this critical life-giving
substance."
http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/oxygen.html
CATALASE
"Introduction - Catalase is an enzyme that decomposes hydrogen
peroxide (H202) into oxygen and water. Chemically, catalase is a
hemoprotein, similar in structure to hemoglobin, except that the four
iron atoms in the molecule are in the oxidized (Fe2+) rather than the
reduced (Fe3+) state. Excluding the streptococci, most aerobic and
facultatively anaerobic bacteria possess catalase activity. Most
anaerobic bacteria that decompose H202 do so with peroxidase enzymes,
in a manner similar to catalase except only one ferric ion is
contained per molecule."
http://www.vet.uga.edu/erc/WEBFILES/igrpsrca.htm
Interestingly as both of these sites mention bacteria convert such
oxidants as superoxides and hydrogen peroxide into water and O2.
Enzymes to deactivate superoxides also occur in anaerobic oxganisms
which might be the type more likely to currently appear on Mars:
Anaerobic Microbes: Oxygen Detoxification Without Superoxide
Dismutase.
Science, Vol. 286, No. 5438, 8 Oct 1999, pp. 306-309.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/286/5438/306
So the presence of oxidants in addition to the observation of oxygen
produced in the biology experiments might in fact support a biology
explanation of the Viking biology results! If in fact life evolved on
Mars in an earlier less hostile time in it's history then we would
expect them in fact to have evolved defense mechanisms against such
oxidants as has happened for life on Earth.
Note also that recent research shows the Viking GCMS experiment not
to have been as sensitive to organics as thought by some (actually
reading over some of the original reports by the instruments creator
Klaus Biemann from the 70's, they mention the instruments
insensitivity to low numbers of microbes; this fact was just
conveniently forgotten):
Vikings would have missed life on Mars
Early Mars lander missions lacked the acuity to sniff out life.
Nature Science Update, 13 February 2001.
"Last year researchers proposed that chemical reactions of gases in
the thin martian atmosphere, diffusing into the regolith, could supply
the energy needed to sustain a respectable population of sub-surface
microbes."
"Bada's team estimates that this process could support up to 15
million bacterial cells per gram of regolith -- about the same amount
as in some soils on Earth. But the researchers say that the Viking
experiments would not have been able to detect such quantities."
http://www.nature.com/nsu/010215/010215-11.html
State-of-the-art instruments for detecting extraterrestrial life.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 98, Issue 3, 797-800, January 30,
2001.
"The possible presence of organic compounds on Mars is also uncertain.
Using a pyrolysis procedure, in combination with a gas
chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GCMS), Viking did not detect any
organic compounds above a level of a few parts per billion in near
surface samples at two different landing sites (10). However, it is
now apparent that the Viking pyrolysis GCMS instruments would not have
detected the presence of millions of bacterial cells in 1 g of soil
(11). In addition, oxidation reactions involving organic compounds on
the Martian surface would likely produce nonvolatile products that
also would not have been detected by the Viking GCMS (12)."
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/3/797 [full text]
It is important to note here that this fact eliminates the need to
even propose reasons to explain a "lack" of organics on Mars. The
amount of organics and the number of microbes on Mars might in fact be
comparable to the low amounts found in some Antarctic and Arctic
soils.
Bob Clark
gher...@gw.retro.com (George William Herbert) wrote in message news:<af0jtr$6v2$1...@gw.retro.com>...
BFelix
> >Regarding the supposed presence of massive amounts of superoxides on
> >Mars, unless I'm mistaken, there is absolutely no surface measurement
> >that demonstrates the presence of *any* per/super/hyperoxide. That
> >doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there. It means there is no
> >measurement on the surface of Mars showing the presence of such
> >reactants. Yet that presence has been invoked as if it were true (and
> >confirmed) since 1976, often without a proviso or caveat that there is
> >no proof that there are per/super/hyperoxides on the Martian surface.
> >
> >That strikes me as repeating claims over and over as if they were
> >true... without making those claims true.
>
> A poorly reported study was done taking rocks and dust and sand
> similar to the suspected Mars surface materials, putting them in
> a 6 millibar CO2 atmosphere, and exposing them to the light
> spectrum expected on Mars (higher UV fraction due to the
> atmospheric constituents, etc). Superoxides were produced,
> though the long term equilibrium was not precisely determined.
>
> It is therefore lab-experimentally demonstrated that it is highly
> likely that Mars has superoxides, to the point that nobody inside
> the field really has thought that it required a field test to
> be sure they were there.
Oh. Dear. For decades the field has relied on the results of poorly
reported (and apparently poorly understood) lab results (based on
assumed Mars regolithic constituents...) that (if one recalls
correctly) produced superoxides (but without determining long term
equilibrium)... I see.... right. Great...
Why did no one inside the field think it worthwhile to field test
these breathtaking *assumptions?*
>
> One of the areas I research is Mars rovers and EVA surface
> systems and operations, and prior to any manned mission I
> believe that we need to do a detailed physical chemistry
> analysis on the surface materials. I do believe however
> that for scientific purposes, we can reasonably conclude
> that there are superoxides there.
What makes you think this is a *reasonable* conclusion? It's a
*useful* conclusion, of course (and it may be correct, though the
absence of any surface confirmation is troubling). What if it is
wrong? How would that affect other assumptions and conclusions?
> It would certainly help questions like this if the research
> done in science and engineering from 1900 to 1995 were
> to be back-tracked and scanned in and put up on the web
> for people to be able to search and find in a more
> practical matter than finding someone who's been close
> enough to the core of the field who just knows.
> But that's a very different problem than the experiment
> not having been done either in the field or in the lab.
It would be a treat to have access to the research from 1900 to the
present, including all the erroneous assumptions and conclusions (;-)
>
> It's a fair point that people on the outside, who have
> enough knowledge to know that it's a valid question
> but don't know about the poorly publicized study,
> might quite reasonably conclude that this was a poor
> use of scientific method and proper research.
>
Unfortunately, I'm told even people on the *inside* have the devil's
own time trying to get access to research and information.
>
> -george william herbert
> gher...@retro.com
George William Herbert
You have to trust their judgement that the lab tests are sufficiently
good replications of the actual surface environment that the results
are useful, significant, and predictive, but not definitive.
The results of challenges along the lines you suggest (which have
all been made) indicate that the hypothesis that it's a good
experiment and theory seems relatively rigorous. And, to a large
degree, we're now in the realm where the experts training and
judgement is in fact reasonably more valuable in judging the
accuracy of that conclusion than non-experts (and I certainly
am not an expert on it).
The question of how definitive you need to be is perfectly
valid in general, but there's a lot of planetary science
which gets done by making reasonable assumptions, because there
often isn't any practical way to rigorously test something...
the amount of data and experiments is fairly limited.
>> One of the areas I research is Mars rovers and EVA surface
>> systems and operations, and prior to any manned mission I
>> believe that we need to do a detailed physical chemistry
>> analysis on the surface materials. I do believe however
>> that for scientific purposes, we can reasonably conclude
>> that there are superoxides there.
>
>What makes you think this is a *reasonable* conclusion? It's a
>*useful* conclusion, of course (and it may be correct, though the
>absence of any surface confirmation is troubling). What if it is
>wrong? How would that affect other assumptions and conclusions?
I think it is reasonable because it appears that the photochemical
processes involved are fairly generalized, and detail changes
between the lab setup and Mars itself shouldn't change the outcome
that you get superoxides produced.
Every challenge you have thrown forth other experts have as well,
and it's the general conclusion of the experts that the hypothesis
and experiment stand up, albeit not definitively. As noted elsewhere,
Beagle II carries a definitive test experiment.
>> [...]
>> It's a fair point that people on the outside, who have
>> enough knowledge to know that it's a valid question
>> but don't know about the poorly publicized study,
>> might quite reasonably conclude that this was a poor
>> use of scientific method and proper research.
>>
>Unfortunately, I'm told even people on the *inside* have the devil's
>own time trying to get access to research and information.
Oh, yeah... experimental raw results are often devilishly
hard to find, and most fields don't have good overall indexes
of all the publications...
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Henry Spencer
BFelix <brf...@lycos.com> wrote:
>> It is therefore lab-experimentally demonstrated that it is highly
>> likely that Mars has superoxides, to the point that nobody inside
>> the field really has thought that it required a field test to
>> be sure they were there.
>
>these breathtaking *assumptions?*
Why do you assume they didn't? Actually, despite what George said, there
has been a surface-chemistry experiment flown; unfortunately, it flew on
Mars 96 and was lost with Mars 96. And unfortunately, because even the US
Mars-exploration effort is not really as organized as it superficially
looks, there's no immediate plan to fly another one.
The correct question is, why have the people in the field not assigned a
high priority to making sure that the somewhat-approximate lab experiment
actually represents reality? And the answer is, because it basically
confirmed what essentially everybody already expected. This isn't a
question that the people in the field are losing sleep over. The tiny
minority who pooh-pooh the superoxides are seen as borderline cranks,
claiming that theoretical expectations, indirect surface evidence, and
quick-and-dirty lab tests are all wrong because... well... because they
don't want to believe them.
Essentially nobody thinks there is enough of a chance that the superoxides
aren't there to make definitively verifying their presence important. A
detailed look at the surface chemistry is mildly interesting, but it had
its chance and it'll have to wait its turn again.
--
In order to improve computer security, | Henry Spencer
the CEO must care. --Bruce Schneier | he...@spsystems.net
Robert Casey
>
>
> > If there is a sea or ocean there, wouldn't it make sense to find some
> > sort of multi-cellular life in it, analogous to life in our own seas?
>
> Why? Liquid water implies multicellular life? I wonder what
> Europa's going to be then... or Ganymede, for that matter.
Well, it took a few billion years for Earth life to generate multicelliar
critters. Could have easily never happened, and all there would be
here now is some slime on coastal rocks.....
Heard that Earth has about 18 "kingdoms" of life, two of which
you don't need microscopes to see, i.e., plants and animals.
Brian Davis
> Heard that Earth has about 18 "kingdoms" of life, two of which
> you don't need microscopes to see, i.e., plants and animals.
Not sure where you got 18 - the systems I've usually seen use just
5 kingoms. But as to only two of these being visible, there's at least
one more that's commonly visible - fungi. Ever seen a mushroom?
Always leads me to wonder what fundamental food group a mushroom is
suppossed to fit under. Vegetable (it "looks plantlike")? Meat (it's
clearly not a plant, and some can move)? I suspect it's thoughts like
this that get my physician (ie, practical) wife upset with me.
--
Brian Davis
Jonathan Silverlight
<brd...@iusb.edu> writes
>Robert Casey wrote:
>
>> Heard that Earth has about 18 "kingdoms" of life, two of which
>> you don't need microscopes to see, i.e., plants and animals.
>
> Not sure where you got 18 - the systems I've usually seen use just
>5 kingoms. But as to only two of these being visible, there's at least
>one more that's commonly visible - fungi. Ever seen a mushroom?
>
Wasn't there a report a few years ago that one fungal colony was the
largest organism on Earth?
G.M. Wallace
Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
Yes. True. Now all the fungal colony needs is television,
indiscriminate warfare, fast food and neurosis - and it
can be just like homo sapiens.
heh
G.
BFelix
This is part of what makes Mars study and Mars science so challenging,
frustrating, exciting, and ultimately filled with promise -- for
something is most definitely there, though we know not what, partly
because those who have the resources and ability to find out don't
seem all that interested.
Here's the problem, as I see it: In 1976, tests were conducted on the
surface of Mars which produced enigmatic results. In a nutshell, they
showed both that there *was* biology on the surface of Mars and that
there *couldn't be.* Ever since, there has been a strenuous effort
within the Mars science field to argue that any evidence for biology
on Mars is trumped by evidence that there "couldn't be" any life on
Mars because no organics were found by the Viking GCMS.
All kinds of lab tests have been done in an effort to support the
various suppositions coming from the failure of the GCMS to find any
organic material on the surface of Mars. That's where the whole
question of per/super/hyperoxides and their effects came to the fore.
It's not something that just "arose" spontaneously, it is a direct
result of the failure of the GCMS to find organic materials that were
expected in abundance, indeed which should have been spontaneously
assembled by atmospheric reactions. And almost as fast as results of
lab tests are produced and published, there is a counter argument
(from "cranks" like Gil Levin) pointing out the flaws in the
laboratory simulations and sugesting the irrelevancy of what is being
done in any case. While I understand fully that Dr. Levin is actively
supporting his own proposition that his LR experiment did find
evidence of biology on Mars in 1976, his criticisms of the assumptions
and experiments (in the lab, not on Mars) used to support the absence
of organics (and thus absence of biology) hypothesis are very telling.
I don't claim to know whether there is any kind of life on Mars, but
so far, "authoritative" Mars science has failed to provide a
convincing case that the LR experiment on Mars in 1976 did *not* find
evidence of biology. All it has really done is find lots of reasons
why the GCMS did not find organics on the surface. Of course Levin
argues that it's just possible the GCMS didn't find organics because
*it didn't work.* And wouldn't that be a pip.
It doesn't matter a whit whether the consensus of the field "believes"
anything. We have all found that the consensus view, whatever it may
be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
wrong. Being wrong is not necessarily a bad thing in planetary
science. Being wrong and adhering to error despite all the evidence to
the contrary -- or despite one's own instinct -- can and frequently
does severely hamper research and investigation however, particularly
so in the case of Mars (in my humble estimation).
For example, rather than accept the enigmatic results of the 1976
Viking Lander biology experiments for what they were (enigmas) and
attempting future landings and experiments to confirm or refute
various hypotheses (such as presence/absence of peroxides and
superoxides and/or their relevance) the field chose instead to go off
on tangents, to refute Levin's claims, to launch personal attacks on
him, and generally to avoid any effort to acquire more evidence from
the surface of Mars and deal directly with the evidence at hand.
For anyone to claim "we don't need any more evidence" is sophistry of
the worst kind. Yet in Mars science we find this sort of thing all the
time.
Robert Clark has done what I think is a stupendous job assembling a
huge resource base of information related to the questions raised by
the enigmas of Mars. I know of no other resource quite as extensive
and diverse, and he should be commended for it. He also asks some of
the most provocative questions about those Mars enigmas, about life on
Mars, about life in general and its nature.
This is a much broader vision than that offered (so far) by
"authority."
For all we know now, Mars could host a wide diversity of multicellular
life on the surface or more likely underground. If there are
below-surface pools, lakes, rivers, seas -- all of which seem ever
more likely -- and sources of energy (such as volcanic vents) there is
no reason in my mind why there shouldn't be active communities of
organisms something like those found (after Viking, BTW) around vents
in Earth's oceans. If the subsurface conditions on Mars allow for the
presence of biology (water + energy), and no life is found, then our
real problem is explaining why not.
What we've seen is that as harsh as conditions on the surface of Mars
may appear to be, there is no ultimate reason why there couldn't be
life there. And that life -- if it is there -- doesn't have to be
unicellular. The fact is we don't know.
Why don't we find out?
George William Herbert
>[...]
You are way, way overcomplicating the situation.
Null hypothesis is that there is no life on Mars.
Test hypothesis is that there is life on Mars.
The only surface experiments to land on Mars gave
results which are inconsistent with life as we
know it, but consistent with either very strange
life, or super oxides in the soil, or possibly both.
Lab experiments on earth have created super oxides
in soil under Mars atmosphere and UV flux conditions.
These results are robust and reliable.
The only reasonable conclusions are that the
results of the experiments on Mars and the
superoxide experiments on Earth are that there
are superoxides on the surface of Mars, and possibly
life unlike previous life we have encountered,
but the field experiment results are consistent
with there merely being superoxides.
The experiments done do not provide any sort
of positive disproof of the test hypothesis,
but also do not provide positive evidence
for it.
Ergo, the null hypothesis remains the valid
working hypothesis.
It is both inaccurate and frankly an insane
proposition to argue that planetary scientists
actively don't want to find evidence of life
on Mars. I have not met a single one who
would not be turning cartwheels on good,
solid evidence being unconvered. It would
be a massive discovery for mankind as a whole,
and would be a significant enhancement to
their field. The only thing that is holding
them back is their scientific judgement and
their requirement to convince themselves that
it's good data before they start trying to
convince others. So far, other than Gil Levin,
basically nobody in the field has reached
that level of confidence. Nobody is against
more research being done and experiments
being flown, but what they want to see done
is carefully targeted.
You disagree with their judgement about what
experiments might be valuable to re-run or
to validate. In this case, you have failed
to make a comprehensive case which shows
more insight into the overall problem of
scientific exploration of Mars than the
scientists on the various study committees,
NASA science boards, etc. You are free to
continue arguing your point, but what you
are up against is the reasonable judgement
of a field full of experts who live and breathe
this research subject, whose lives would be
significantly enhanced were life to be found
there, and yet who judge that the experimental
priorities Levin and you argue for are in fact
not the best priorities.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Henry Spencer
>within the Mars science field to argue that any evidence for biology
>on Mars is trumped by evidence that there "couldn't be" any life on
>Mars because no organics were found by the Viking GCMS.
Note that it goes farther than just not having found the organic compounds
that should make up life (or its organic waste products, which on Earth
are usually an ever stronger sign). The GCMS also didn't find organic
compounds from carbonaceous meteorites, which should be preserved quite
well on the Martian surface... unless some process is destroying them.
>...That's where the whole
>question of per/super/hyperoxides and their effects came to the fore.
>It's not something that just "arose" spontaneously, it is a direct
>result of the failure of the GCMS to find organic materials that were
>expected in abundance...
True but not the whole story. The results from the life-detection
experiments, while indicating that there was *something* active in the
samples, did not match what had been expected for life very well. If it
wasn't life, then *some* sort of highly active surface chemistry has to be
present, and peroxides etc. seemed the most plausible choice.
>...Of course Levin
>argues that it's just possible the GCMS didn't find organics because
>*it didn't work.* And wouldn't that be a pip.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to make a good case for that, given that
the GCMS *did* find other things. Yes, it was working; yes, samples did
reach it. Other interpretations are conceivable but are a severe strain
on credulity.
The argument that the GCMS was merely not sensitive enough to find small
amounts of life, on the other hand, has some degree of plausibility. Such
small quantities are difficult to reconcile with the vigorous reactions
seen in the life-detection experiments, but set that aside for the moment.
The problem remains: what happened to the meteorite organics?
>It doesn't matter a whit whether the consensus of the field "believes"
>anything. We have all found that the consensus view, whatever it may
>be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
>wrong.
On the contrary: historically, the consensus view is usually right.
Almost all of the unorthodox views that have been advanced, over the
entire history of science, are dead and forgotten, because in the end,
they turned out to be *wrong*. The ones we remember are the tiny, tiny
minority which turned out to be at least partly correct.
Of course, "usually" does not mean "always". But when it comes to costly
and limited resources like planetary probes, it is necessary to decide
where to place your bets. There is an abundance of questions to be
answered, and a severe shortage of berths for instruments that might
provide answers. Gil Levin simply does not have enough support in the
Mars-science community for probe builders to bet an entire instrument
berth, or more than one, on the off chance that he might be right. And
investigation of the surface chemistry, while interesting, is generally
not given a high priority.
>For all we know now, Mars could host a wide diversity of multicellular
>life on the surface or more likely underground...
Underground is a whole different ballgame, much more promising, where the
Viking results are simply irrelevant. However, Levin's claim is that
there is life on the *surface*, and most everybody else thinks the weight
of evidence is strongly against him.
>What we've seen is that as harsh as conditions on the surface of Mars
>may appear to be, there is no ultimate reason why there couldn't be
>life there. And that life -- if it is there -- doesn't have to be
>unicellular. The fact is we don't know.
>Why don't we find out?
People are, in fact, working on it. But getting any useful data on
underground life is going to be seriously hard. At the moment, it looks
like we first need a better grasp of Martian geology, to give some idea of
where to look.
Please distinguish between underground life and surface life. Only the
latter is easy to look for with simple landers. However, it has nearly
zero credibility in the scientific community, and nobody is going to fund
a serious search for it at this time.
(Note that Beagle 2 *does* have an experiment or two directed at surface
chemistry in general and life in particular. Assuming that Beagle 2 makes
it -- it's rather a high-risk mission -- we can hope for a little bit more
data on the matter. Prediction: no matter what it is, it will not change
Gil Levin's mind.)
Christopher M. Jones
> BFelix <brf...@lycos.com> wrote:
> >[...]
[snip]
> It is both inaccurate and frankly an insane
> proposition to argue that planetary scientists
> actively don't want to find evidence of life
> on Mars. I have not met a single one who
> would not be turning cartwheels on good,
> solid evidence being unconvered. It would
> be a massive discovery for mankind as a whole,
> and would be a significant enhancement to
> their field. The only thing that is holding
> them back is their scientific judgement and
> their requirement to convince themselves that
> it's good data before they start trying to
> convince others. So far, other than Gil Levin,
> basically nobody in the field has reached
> that level of confidence. Nobody is against
> more research being done and experiments
> being flown, but what they want to see done
> is carefully targeted.
I think this point confuses a fair number of non-scientists.
Many people are unfamiliar with the concept that someone
can be guided by dispassionate motives. To them a debate is
about two sides arguing over what they *want* to be true.
The thought that someone might want very much for one thing
to be true but will not allow that desire to taint their
opinion on the *facts* of the matter is almost alien to them.
I would wager to say that there are few planetary scientists
who would not explode with joy at confirmed evidence of the
existence of extraterrestrial life. Nevertheless, those
self same scientists will battle to the last in fighting
spurious evidence of life. This is science. It is odd to
some but nevertheless amazing whether odd or not.
--
This sig message protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Henry Spencer" <he...@spsystems.net> wrote in message news:GyA3r...@spsystems.net...
> In article <c1c72a59.02062...@posting.google.com>,
> BFelix <brf...@lycos.com> wrote:
> >...Ever since, there has been a strenuous effort
> >within the Mars science field to argue that any evidence for biology
> >on Mars is trumped by evidence that there "couldn't be" any life on
> >Mars because no organics were found by the Viking GCMS.
>
> Note that it goes farther than just not having found the organic compounds
> that should make up life (or its organic waste products, which on Earth
> are usually an ever stronger sign). The GCMS also didn't find organic
> compounds from carbonaceous meteorites, which should be preserved quite
> well on the Martian surface... unless some process is destroying them.
It actually goes less far than that. Assuming GCMS works, yes, some
process is degrading the quantity of organics on Mars, based upon
what we'd expect from the natural rain of organic molecules from
comets and the like. *-oxides might be the reason; we don't know.
But even if they do exist, it does *not* follow that they destroy *all*
organic molecules and prevent life.
Quite telling, in fact, is that an analysis of GCMS sensitivity shows
that it is very gross compared to the LR experiment. GCMS can
produce negative results *on soils from Earth known to contain
organic molecules, even life*! This is because they are present at
low concentrations. LR could detect the fingerprints of these
molecules; GCMS could not.
>
> >...That's where the whole
> >question of per/super/hyperoxides and their effects came to the fore.
> >It's not something that just "arose" spontaneously, it is a direct
> >result of the failure of the GCMS to find organic materials that were
> >expected in abundance...
>
> True but not the whole story. The results from the life-detection
> experiments, while indicating that there was *something* active in the
> samples, did not match what had been expected for life very well.
This is a falsehood that's repeated *over and over* by the ignorant
because it is the "party line" of the scientific community. If you read
Levin's papers, you'll see he refutes this quite readily.
Moreover, it only begs the question, as alien life might not behave
quite as expected! If you design a test for respiration to determine
if an animal is alive or dead, and you test one animal and it breaths
at such-n-such rate, and then you test another that breaths at a rate
quite unexpected, you don't then leap to the conclusion that it must
be dead!
> If it
> wasn't life, then *some* sort of highly active surface chemistry has to be
> present, and peroxides etc. seemed the most plausible choice.
Mostly plausible *only if it wasn't life*, which wasn't established. But
yes, it is certainly possible. It is also possible it was life.
> The argument that the GCMS was merely not sensitive enough to find small
> amounts of life, on the other hand, has some degree of plausibility. Such
> small quantities are difficult to reconcile with the vigorous reactions
> seen in the life-detection experiments, but set that aside for the moment.
> The problem remains: what happened to the meteorite organics?
Regardless, we don't throw out scientific conclusions just because they
create new questions that we can't answer yet.
> >It doesn't matter a whit whether the consensus of the field "believes"
> >anything. We have all found that the consensus view, whatever it may
> >be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
> >wrong.
>
> On the contrary: historically, the consensus view is usually right.
The argument to authority is not valid logic.
> Of course, "usually" does not mean "always". But when it comes to costly
> and limited resources like planetary probes, it is necessary to decide
> where to place your bets. There is an abundance of questions to be
> answered, and a severe shortage of berths for instruments that might
> provide answers. Gil Levin simply does not have enough support in the
> Mars-science community for probe builders to bet an entire instrument
> berth, or more than one, on the off chance that he might be right. And
> investigation of the surface chemistry, while interesting, is generally
> not given a high priority.
And that's directly a result of the spin on the Viking results. If the results
were widely known without spin - "We don't know; the Viking experiments
created some questions that can only be solved with news experiments." -
there is no doubt people would want to fly those follow-up experiments.
However, instead the spin was, "There's no life; just some weird stuff we
don't understand, but we think we know what it might be so don't worry
about it." And so people nodded and went back to other things.
> Underground is a whole different ballgame, much more promising, where the
> Viking results are simply irrelevant. However, Levin's claim is that
> there is life on the *surface*, and most everybody else thinks the weight
> of evidence is strongly against him.
Depends on what you mean by "surface". Even a few centimeters can make
all the difference.
> (Note that Beagle 2 *does* have an experiment or two directed at surface
> chemistry in general and life in particular. Assuming that Beagle 2 makes
> it -- it's rather a high-risk mission -- we can hope for a little bit more
> data on the matter. Prediction: no matter what it is, it will not change
> Gil Levin's mind.)
That's because you're not flying Levin's more definitive chiral experiment.
Fly it, and you might change his mind.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Christopher M. Jones" <spic...@muso-ken.com> wrote in message news:PN5S8.149239$R61....@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
> I would wager to say that there are few planetary scientists
> who would not explode with joy at confirmed evidence of the
> existence of extraterrestrial life.
I would wager to say that are a few planetary scientists and
NASA folks who would do anything to discredit eveidence
of extraterristial surface life *on Mars*, because it would mean
they fucked up on Viking, and they don't want to admit that.
Bruce
George William Herbert
>"Henry Spencer" <he...@spsystems.net> wrote:
>> BFelix <brf...@lycos.com> wrote:
>> >...Ever since, there has been a strenuous effort
>> >within the Mars science field to argue that any evidence for biology
>> >on Mars is trumped by evidence that there "couldn't be" any life on
>> >Mars because no organics were found by the Viking GCMS.
>>
>> Note that it goes farther than just not having found the organic compounds
>> that should make up life (or its organic waste products, which on Earth
>> are usually an ever stronger sign). The GCMS also didn't find organic
>> compounds from carbonaceous meteorites, which should be preserved quite
>> well on the Martian surface... unless some process is destroying them.
>
>It actually goes less far than that. Assuming GCMS works, yes, some
>process is degrading the quantity of organics on Mars, based upon
>what we'd expect from the natural rain of organic molecules from
>comets and the like. *-oxides might be the reason; we don't know.
>But even if they do exist, it does *not* follow that they destroy *all*
>organic molecules and prevent life.
Nobody credible is claiming that they do.
The superoxides explain the gas evolution and GCMS results,
and they're almost certainly actually present. Their presence,
which we presume, would make the surface inimical to but not
necessarily universally and completely devoid of life.
Like many hostile environments, dealing with it is an
energy / hardening problem. It would, over time,
erode away non-biological organic molecules,
but you might be able to find biological systems
which tolerated it.
>Quite telling, in fact, is that an analysis of GCMS sensitivity shows
>that it is very gross compared to the LR experiment. GCMS can
>produce negative results *on soils from Earth known to contain
>organic molecules, even life*! This is because they are present at
>low concentrations. LR could detect the fingerprints of these
>molecules; GCMS could not.
And your point is?
Nobody credible is calling the Viking results conclusive disproof
of life on the surface. For three reasons: 1) Life might not be
as we know/suspect it to be, ergo simple tests might not be set
up right to detect it; 2) The test sensitivity was sort of flaky
at best; 3) Results were annoyingly ambiguous, though we think
that purely physical chemistry explains that.
Consensus opinion in the field is that the viking results suggest
that life as we know it is unlikely on the surface, but that's all.
>> >...That's where the whole
>> >question of per/super/hyperoxides and their effects came to the fore.
>> >It's not something that just "arose" spontaneously, it is a direct
>> >result of the failure of the GCMS to find organic materials that were
>> >expected in abundance...
>>
>> True but not the whole story. The results from the life-detection
>> experiments, while indicating that there was *something* active in the
>> samples, did not match what had been expected for life very well.
>
>This is a falsehood that's repeated *over and over* by the ignorant
>because it is the "party line" of the scientific community. If you read
>Levin's papers, you'll see he refutes this quite readily.
No. Levin's post-Viking retroactive recalculations do not count.
There were clear pre-landing criteria for detecting life;
the results did not match those criteria.
Again, that's not a conclusive disproof. That's just a statement
that the results as recorded do not match the signatures that were
agreed would mean life was likely detected. Levin believes that he
can argue coherently that the results can be interpreted as being
other types of life. Nobody has ever argued with the idea that
Strange Life might show up in unexpected manners in tests.
>Moreover, it only begs the question, as alien life might not behave
>quite as expected! If you design a test for respiration to determine
>if an animal is alive or dead, and you test one animal and it breaths
>at such-n-such rate, and then you test another that breaths at a rate
>quite unexpected, you don't then leap to the conclusion that it must
>be dead!
You're missing the point.
Viking didn't prove anything.
It disproved that there were easily detectable quantities of
life as we know it on the surface of Mars. It did not rule
out its existence at all, nor the existence of life not as
we know it, nor several alternative physical chemical processes.
Viking in combination with the ground physical chemistry experiments
more or less conclusively suggests that Mars has to have peroxides
in the surface soil and dust. That just matches one possible
interpretation of several for the Viking result ambiguities,
without additionally ruling out the other hypothesies.
It's not that Levin is wrong in the known-to-be sense.
It's that Levin is not demonstrably right given the
available data, and is arguing way past what anyone else
thinks are responsible conclusions based on the level
of data we do have.
>> If it
>> wasn't life, then *some* sort of highly active surface chemistry has to be
>> present, and peroxides etc. seemed the most plausible choice.
>
>Mostly plausible *only if it wasn't life*, which wasn't established. But
>yes, it is certainly possible. It is also possible it was life.
The physical chemical experiments done on Earth make a comprehensive
case for there being peroxides. Their presence is one answer to why
the results would be as seen.
Again, not ruling out other possible causes, just providing a
reasonably clearly known baseline answer.
>> The argument that the GCMS was merely not sensitive enough to find small
>> amounts of life, on the other hand, has some degree of plausibility. Such
>> small quantities are difficult to reconcile with the vigorous reactions
>> seen in the life-detection experiments, but set that aside for the moment.
>> The problem remains: what happened to the meteorite organics?
>
>Regardless, we don't throw out scientific conclusions just because they
>create new questions that we can't answer yet.
>
>> >It doesn't matter a whit whether the consensus of the field "believes"
>> >anything. We have all found that the consensus view, whatever it may
>> >be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
>> >wrong.
>>
>> On the contrary: historically, the consensus view is usually right.
>
>The argument to authority is not valid logic.
It's perfectly valid science.
Gil Levin is not the one magic true always-right god.
Every argument he's made is refutable with logical
counterarguments.
Conversely, the planetary science community aren't always right,
either, and there could be an incorrect consensus.
The factual basis for determining which hypothesis is
correct is not well founded. We are dealing with
judgements and interpretations of value of data
and conclusions.
They're all smart and extremely well educated people.
The fact that there's a large blob of them of population
N-1 centered on a consensus that the results indicate
peroxides, and don't tell us anything else useful,
and an outlier of 1 which is Levin who believes very
differently, you have to argue that Levin is somehow
blessed with special insights that the other thousand
or so active planetary scientists don't have in order
to make the case that he's necessarily right.
>> Of course, "usually" does not mean "always". But when it comes to costly
>> and limited resources like planetary probes, it is necessary to decide
>> where to place your bets. There is an abundance of questions to be
>> answered, and a severe shortage of berths for instruments that might
>> provide answers. Gil Levin simply does not have enough support in the
>> Mars-science community for probe builders to bet an entire instrument
>> berth, or more than one, on the off chance that he might be right. And
>> investigation of the surface chemistry, while interesting, is generally
>> not given a high priority.
>
>And that's directly a result of the spin on the Viking results. If the results
>were widely known without spin - "We don't know; the Viking experiments
>created some questions that can only be solved with news experiments." -
>there is no doubt people would want to fly those follow-up experiments.
>However, instead the spin was, "There's no life; just some weird stuff we
>don't understand, but we think we know what it might be so don't worry
>about it." And so people nodded and went back to other things.
That's Levin's slant, not the communities.
Levin believes he's being persecuted by people who are certain
there isn't life. In reality, they merely reject his level
of certainty in his hypothesis and argue that the unknowns
require us to continue assuming the null hypothesis.
It's perfectly reasonable to conclude as a working assumption
that the Viking results plus earth based lab work suggest that
there are peroxides on Mars; that there probably isn't any
Life As We Know It on the surface; that we have no useful
data on Life Not As We Know It; and that we have no data
about subsurface conditions other than having an idea of
what would show up in the surface experiments and didn't
being a boundary condition.
If you conclude that, then the next tests to do are not
to 100% rule out Life As We Know It, which we've already
determined is unlikely. The interesting next tests are
subsurface, and Life Not As We Know It. Those are where
people are looking these days. Levin's proposed experiments
are believed to be low value low payback, as the evidence
that the answer to the question they're asking is in much
doubt is poor. That is not to say that they are zero value
and would not be conclusive in one axis. But the community
believes that the consensus conclusion on the Viking results
is correct, and plans its "instrument budget" for future
missions accordingly.
When science instrument delivery to Mars is free and
prompt, this will be a moot point. Now, what you're
getting is the community focusing on what they believe
in consensus are the most likely unknown results questions.
>> Underground is a whole different ballgame, much more promising, where the
>> Viking results are simply irrelevant. However, Levin's claim is that
>> there is life on the *surface*, and most everybody else thinks the weight
>> of evidence is strongly against him.
>
>Depends on what you mean by "surface". Even a few centimeters can make
>all the difference.
"Surface" would be "as deep as Viking sampled". I.e., the limit of
the testing done to date.
>> (Note that Beagle 2 *does* have an experiment or two directed at surface
>> chemistry in general and life in particular. Assuming that Beagle 2 makes
>> it -- it's rather a high-risk mission -- we can hope for a little bit more
>> data on the matter. Prediction: no matter what it is, it will not change
>> Gil Levin's mind.)
>
>That's because you're not flying Levin's more definitive chiral experiment.
>Fly it, and you might change his mind.
If it costs the same to fly 2 instruments, and you're 99% sure that
the answer that experiment A will test is going to be "no",
but you are only about 50% sure of what you think the answer will
be to experiment B, which of those is more valuable to fly?
The total number of biology experiments landed on Mars to date is 2.
The number launched towards Mars was 3, though that's about to
go to 4, we hope. And that's over nearly 30 years.
Answer the "big unknowns" first, then fill in where you think you
already know the answer. You may be suprised in the latter testing,
but you *will* be suprised in the former. The former is therefore
more valuable to do first.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Matthew F Funke
>> I would wager to say that there are few planetary scientists
>> who would not explode with joy at confirmed evidence of the
>> existence of extraterrestrial life.
>
>I would wager to say that are a few planetary scientists and
>NASA folks who would do anything to discredit eveidence
>of extraterristial surface life *on Mars*, because it would mean
>they fucked up on Viking, and they don't want to admit that.
But they're okay with admitting that they screwed up Mars Polar
Lander, that Galileo was a partial failure, that Mars Observer was lost
without a trace, that the Hubble was originally *quite* flawed, that
Surveyor 2 was a complete failure, ... ?
Come *on*. NASA has had more than its share of failures, partly due
to the fact that designing things for space is still a tricky business;
it's actually done a pretty decent job of admitting what goes wrong and on
what, IMHO, even documenting the *partial* failures that ultimately mean
little in terms of the overall functionality of their spacecraft in
excruciating detail. And while Viking stands as one of NASA's sterling
successes, I don't think it would bruise *anyone's* ego to admit, "Gee,
that particular experiment seems to have been mistaken." The possibility
of mistaken results is precisely why rigorous scientific testing demands
*many* experiments.
Look at the embarassing things NASA *has* admitted to and reassess
your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone messed up the
units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the taxpayers?)
--
-- With Best Regards,
Matthew Funke (m...@hopper.unh.edu)
Geoffrey A. Landis
>
> I would wager to say that are a few planetary scientists and
> NASA folks who would do anything to discredit eveidence
> of extraterristial surface life *on Mars*, because it would mean
> they fucked up on Viking, and they don't want to admit that.
I know these planetary scientists, and I can tell you that this
statement simply is not true. They have a strong sense of what
constitutes good evidence, and haven't seen it yet.
We argued this out in detail before, and I'm not going to reprise that
argument, since it bores me.
For what it's worth, my thoughts about life on Mars can be found here:
http://powerweb.grc.nasa.gov/pvsee/publications/mars/Halobacteria.pdf
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
Henry Spencer
>> >be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
>> >wrong.
>> On the contrary: historically, the consensus view is usually right.
>
>The argument to authority is not valid logic.
I'm not appealing to authority, but to statistics. :-) Your contention
(quoted above) about "the consensus view" is simply wrong, currently and
historically. This is a verifiable fact.
Does this mean anything in a *particular* case? No, and you were foolish
to imply that it does. "There are no laws of probability in the sense
that laws dictate the course of events." Even if the consensus view were
often wrong -- which it is not -- that implies nothing at all about the
credibility, or lack thereof, of Levin's position.
Historically, unorthodox views in science are usually wrong. But any
*specific* unorthodox view is either right or wrong -- no "usually" about
it -- and no such statement about unorthodox views *in general* can tell
us whether this one is right. (This is a separate question from how you
place your bets, if you are required to bet without *knowing* whether it
is right or wrong.)
And while it may be emotionally satisfying to root for the underdog and
the heretic, this does not constitute evidence that they are right.
Chosp
"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:fnaS8.9096$kw6.48...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
Specifically whom?
How much are you willing to wager?
The assertion is yours. The burden of proof is yours.
Provide evidence or provide a specific wager naming
specific people and your specific reasons for accusing
them.
Otherwise, you are just pissing into the wind.
BFelix
In what way? I am asking questions -- questions which must continue to
be asked as long as there is no follow up on Mars to confirm or refute
the rather extraordinarily complicated hypotheses regarding the
surface of Mars that keep accreting.
>
> Null hypothesis is that there is no life on Mars.
> Test hypothesis is that there is life on Mars.
>
> The only surface experiments to land on Mars gave
> results which are inconsistent with life as we
> know it, but consistent with either very strange
> life, or super oxides in the soil, or possibly both.
What constitutes consistency with "life as we know it?" Be specific.
How do you define "very strange life?" How would you know one from the
other? How can there be BOTH "life" -- very strange or not -- and
superoxides when we have been told over and over and over again that
the consensus is that the surface of Mars is "self-sterilizing" and
therefore lifeless, and that *oxides are one of the reasons. The magic
of ultraviolet light being the other. Which is it? Life or sterility?
Why?
>
> Lab experiments on earth have created super oxides
> in soil under Mars atmosphere and UV flux conditions.
> These results are robust and reliable.
And? ::Sigh:: Experiments have been going on -- on Earth -- oh I don't
know, since about 1976 probably, to demonstrate some mechanism by
which the Viking results could have occurred without the presence of
biology. All kinds of results have been published. None match the
Viking results. Recently superoxide was produced on labradorite
maintained in a lab under simulated Martian conditions for several
hours... fine. So what? These results are interesting, but they
neither confirm nor refute the many hypotheses advanced to explain the
suite of Viking results without recourse to biology. Mars is a planet,
not a test tube. It is much more complicated than a tube of frozen
labradorite in a lab. Is it reasonable to conclude anything about life
on Mars from this terrestrial experiment? I argue it is not.
>
> The only reasonable conclusions are that the
> results of the experiments on Mars and the
> superoxide experiments on Earth are that there
> are superoxides on the surface of Mars, and possibly
> life unlike previous life we have encountered,
> but the field experiment results are consistent
> with there merely being superoxides.
That is *a* reasonable conclusion. There are plenty of others, the
MOST reasonable one (to my mind) being: "We don't know enough to
conclude anything at this point." On the other hand, how can you have
a supposedly self-sterilizing surface AND biology on Mars? Seem to me
the one excludes the other.
>
> The experiments done do not provide any sort
> of positive disproof of the test hypothesis,
> but also do not provide positive evidence
> for it.
>
> Ergo, the null hypothesis remains the valid
> working hypothesis.
*A* working hypothesis, not necessarily the valid one...
>
> It is both inaccurate and frankly an insane
> proposition to argue that planetary scientists
> actively don't want to find evidence of life
> on Mars. I have not met a single one who
> would not be turning cartwheels on good,
> solid evidence being unconvered. It would
> be a massive discovery for mankind as a whole,
> and would be a significant enhancement to
> their field. The only thing that is holding
> them back is their scientific judgement and
> their requirement to convince themselves that
> it's good data before they start trying to
> convince others. So far, other than Gil Levin,
> basically nobody in the field has reached
> that level of confidence. Nobody is against
> more research being done and experiments
> being flown, but what they want to see done
> is carefully targeted.
Insane? Insane to suggest that planetary scientists want to keep their
jobs and if doing so requires going along with the dominant paradigm
to get along, they will do it? I don't think that is an insane
proposition at all. It's the way things are. I don't pretend to
understand motives in any detail, but I am rather familiar with social
conventions and necessities. Since there is no scheduled follow up (by
NASA at any rate) to confirm or refute the many hypotheses regarding
self-sterilizing or biologically active surfaces on Mars, isn't it
reasonable to assume that the question of whether there is or isn't
life on Mars is simply not a priority of the field at this time and
that -- therefore -- in a sense -- the field does not "want" the
question answered? At least not yet.
> You disagree with their judgement about what
> experiments might be valuable to re-run or
> to validate. In this case, you have failed
> to make a comprehensive case which shows
> more insight into the overall problem of
> scientific exploration of Mars than the
> scientists on the various study committees,
> NASA science boards, etc. You are free to
> continue arguing your point, but what you
> are up against is the reasonable judgement
> of a field full of experts who live and breathe
> this research subject, whose lives would be
> significantly enhanced were life to be found
> there, and yet who judge that the experimental
> priorities Levin and you argue for are in fact
> not the best priorities.
What are those best priorities? Care to list them and show where the
search for life on Mars falls?
It's not the job of the American public to sit down and shut up and
let the experts go about their business without questions or
challenges. It is not the job of planetary scientists to meet the
questions and challenges of the public with hostility and contempt. So
long as the scientists and committees and NASA boards, etc., refuse to
follow up with experiments ON MARS that can confirm or refute the
hypotheses of self-sterilization and so on, that many in the field
bandy about as if they were fact, so long should the public challenge
them and insist on better.
Just my opinion of course.
Cheers, B R Felix
> -george william herbert
> gher...@retro.com
Jan Panteltje
Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
<FlaS8.9095$%y6.481...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>:
>
>> (Note that Beagle 2 *does* have an experiment or two directed at surface
>> chemistry in general and life in particular. Assuming that Beagle 2 makes
>> it -- it's rather a high-risk mission -- we can hope for a little bit more
>> data on the matter. Prediction: no matter what it is, it will not change
>> Gil Levin's mind.)
>That's because you're not flying Levin's more definitive chiral experiment.
>Fly it, and you might change his mind.
Cool!
Good idea!
JP
Jan Panteltje
(BFelix) wrote in <c1c72a59.02062...@posting.google.com>:
>What we've seen is that as harsh as conditions on the surface of Mars
>may appear to be, there is no ultimate reason why there couldn't be
>life there. And that life -- if it is there -- doesn't have to be
>unicellular. The fact is we don't know.
>
>Why don't we find out?
Agreed, we need to go there and do the relevant experiments.
Never mind the politics if multicellular life turns out not to be Jewish.
Or any other belief for that matter.
They have to face it, like the bush bush men had their tree gods,
the religious leaders will HAVE to face that life IS common everywhere.
(and likely never heard of any the earthling's tree gods).
It is clear the right experiments were not done for political reasons.
Rather insane to then start calling Dr. Levin names, I think he
deserves a Nobel for his experiment.
So... lets go to mars!
JP
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"George William Herbert" <gher...@gw.retro.com> wrote in message news:afc2ju$a0t$1...@gw.retro.com...
> Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >"Henry Spencer" <he...@spsystems.net> wrote:
> >> BFelix <brf...@lycos.com> wrote:
> >> >...Ever since, there has been a strenuous effort
> >> >within the Mars science field to argue that any evidence for biology
> >> >on Mars is trumped by evidence that there "couldn't be" any life on
> >> >Mars because no organics were found by the Viking GCMS.
> >>
> >> Note that it goes farther than just not having found the organic compounds
> >> that should make up life (or its organic waste products, which on Earth
> >> are usually an ever stronger sign). The GCMS also didn't find organic
> >> compounds from carbonaceous meteorites, which should be preserved quite
> >> well on the Martian surface... unless some process is destroying them.
> >
> >It actually goes less far than that. Assuming GCMS works, yes, some
> >process is degrading the quantity of organics on Mars, based upon
> >what we'd expect from the natural rain of organic molecules from
> >comets and the like. *-oxides might be the reason; we don't know.
> >But even if they do exist, it does *not* follow that they destroy *all*
> >organic molecules and prevent life.
>
> Nobody credible is claiming that they do.
I disagree... the general scientific community does.
> >Quite telling, in fact, is that an analysis of GCMS sensitivity shows
> >that it is very gross compared to the LR experiment. GCMS can
> >produce negative results *on soils from Earth known to contain
> >organic molecules, even life*! This is because they are present at
> >low concentrations. LR could detect the fingerprints of these
> >molecules; GCMS could not.
>
> And your point is?
>
> Nobody credible is calling the Viking results conclusive disproof
> of life on the surface.
There's no such thing as "conclusive disproof". But it is certainly
the party line that *because* of GCMS, there must be superoxides
which *must* mean that the LRE results are not caused by life, but
rather by chemistry. They don't deny the possibility of life, but they
do deny that it was detectable/detected by the LRE. I do not think
these people are "credible" but they are certainly viewed so by the
overall community at large.
> Consensus opinion in the field is that the viking results suggest
> that life as we know it is unlikely on the surface, but that's all.
No; consensus opinion in the field is that the Viking results showed
exotic chemistry at work, but not life. Of course, the consensus
opinion is not supported... in truth, the Viking results were positive
for life, but "we don't know" yet if that was caused by actual life or
some peculiar chemistry.
> >This is a falsehood that's repeated *over and over* by the ignorant
> >because it is the "party line" of the scientific community. If you read
> >Levin's papers, you'll see he refutes this quite readily.
>
> No. Levin's post-Viking retroactive recalculations do not count.
Of course they count! If we used your approach, we'd still be looking
for Planet 10 beyond the orbit of Pluto to account for discrepancies in
the orbit of Neptune... discrepancies that *are not there* upon further
recalculation.
> There were clear pre-landing criteria for detecting life;
> the results did not match those criteria.
On the contrary; the results *did* match those criteria.
> Again, that's not a conclusive disproof. That's just a statement
> that the results as recorded do not match the signatures that were
> agreed would mean life was likely detected.
The results did match the signatures that were agreed on for life,
in that they *didn't* match the signatures for no life. Only then
were the new requirements "invented" after the fact.
> Levin believes that he
> can argue coherently that the results can be interpreted as being
> other types of life.
No, he believes they can be the same type of life as found here on
Earth, where such results can be closely replicated with organics
but *not* with exotic chemistry, despite several flawed experiments
that claimed otherwise.
> Nobody has ever argued with the idea that
> Strange Life might show up in unexpected manners in tests.
Yes, some have argued with that idea.
> >Moreover, it only begs the question, as alien life might not behave
> >quite as expected! If you design a test for respiration to determine
> >if an animal is alive or dead, and you test one animal and it breaths
> >at such-n-such rate, and then you test another that breaths at a rate
> >quite unexpected, you don't then leap to the conclusion that it must
> >be dead!
>
> You're missing the point.
You're missing the point.
> Viking didn't prove anything.
Agreed! But the "general consensus" say otherwise, wrongly.
That is the point.
> It disproved that there were easily detectable quantities of
> life as we know it on the surface of Mars.
I'd say that's misleading. It was "easily detectable" by the
LRE, just not by the GCMS.
> It did not rule
> out its existence at all, nor the existence of life not as
> we know it, nor several alternative physical chemical processes.
However, it *did* detect evidence of life, so we do know
there is something going on but we don't know yet if it is life
or if it is exotic chemistry.
> Viking in combination with the ground physical chemistry experiments
> more or less conclusively suggests that Mars has to have peroxides
> in the surface soil and dust.
False.
> That just matches one possible
> interpretation of several for the Viking result ambiguities,
> without additionally ruling out the other hypothesies.
Doubly false. Even with peroxides in the surface soil and dust,
no one has yet been able to replicate the Viking results without
organics. Experiments that have claimed otherwise have been
shown to be flawed.
> It's not that Levin is wrong in the known-to-be sense.
> It's that Levin is not demonstrably right given the
> available data, and is arguing way past what anyone else
> thinks are responsible conclusions based on the level
> of data we do have.
It's not that Levin is right in the known-to-be sense.
It's that *the current consensus about what Viking
discovered and life on Mars* is not demonstrably right
given the available data, and is arguing way past what Levin
and others think are responsible conclusions based on the
level of data we do have.
> >> If it
> >> wasn't life, then *some* sort of highly active surface chemistry has to be
> >> present, and peroxides etc. seemed the most plausible choice.
> >
> >Mostly plausible *only if it wasn't life*, which wasn't established. But
> >yes, it is certainly possible. It is also possible it was life.
>
> The physical chemical experiments done on Earth make a comprehensive
> case for there being peroxides. Their presence is one answer to why
> the results would be as seen.
False. They are neither comprehensive in making the case, nor do they
explain the results even if they do exist.
> Again, not ruling out other possible causes, just providing a
> reasonably clearly known baseline answer.
A baseline answer that is reasonably clearly known to be wrong.
> >> The argument that the GCMS was merely not sensitive enough to find small
> >> amounts of life, on the other hand, has some degree of plausibility. Such
> >> small quantities are difficult to reconcile with the vigorous reactions
> >> seen in the life-detection experiments, but set that aside for the moment.
> >> The problem remains: what happened to the meteorite organics?
> >
> >Regardless, we don't throw out scientific conclusions just because they
> >create new questions that we can't answer yet.
> >
> >> >It doesn't matter a whit whether the consensus of the field "believes"
> >> >anything. We have all found that the consensus view, whatever it may
> >> >be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
> >> >wrong.
> >>
> >> On the contrary: historically, the consensus view is usually right.
> >
> >The argument to authority is not valid logic.
>
> It's perfectly valid science.
No, it isn't. Perfectly valid science allows for the examination of all
science on the merits, not accepting it as truth just because a
Professor says so.
> Gil Levin is not the one magic true always-right god.
All other scientists are not the one magic true always-right gods, either.
> Every argument he's made is refutable with logical
> counterarguments.
And every counterargument has been shown to be faulty.
> Conversely, the planetary science community aren't always right,
> either, and there could be an incorrect consensus.
And every argument they've made is refutable with logical
counterarguments that have *not* shown to be faulty yet.
> The factual basis for determining which hypothesis is
> correct is not well founded. We are dealing with
> judgements and interpretations of value of data
> and conclusions.
True, but right now the data supports either "surface life
detected" or "we don't know" more than it supports the
commonly accepted belief "no surface life detected; just
exotic chemistry".
> They're all smart and extremely well educated people.
As is Levin.
> The fact that there's a large blob of them of population
> N-1 centered on a consensus that the results indicate
> peroxides, and don't tell us anything else useful,
> and an outlier of 1 which is Levin who believes very
> differently,
... is irrelevant to the merits of the argument and have no place
in scientific or logical discourse.
> >And that's directly a result of the spin on the Viking results. If the results
> >were widely known without spin - "We don't know; the Viking experiments
> >created some questions that can only be solved with news experiments." -
> >there is no doubt people would want to fly those follow-up experiments.
> >However, instead the spin was, "There's no life; just some weird stuff we
> >don't understand, but we think we know what it might be so don't worry
> >about it." And so people nodded and went back to other things.
>
> That's Levin's slant, not the communities.
That's the communties' slant, not Levin's.
> Levin believes he's being persecuted by people who are certain
> there isn't life. In reality, they merely reject his level
> of certainty in his hypothesis and argue that the unknowns
> require us to continue assuming the null hypothesis.
False. It is *Levin* who argues that the unknowns
require us to continue assuming the null hypothesis; it
is *those people* who argue the negative hypothesis.
If you have any doubt, consult some modern textbooks
which talk about Viking's results on Mars.
> It's perfectly reasonable to conclude as a working assumption
> that the Viking results plus earth based lab work suggest that
> there are peroxides on Mars;
Unreasonable... it's only reasonable to conclude that there might be
some, but even if there is, it doesn't prevent life nor explain
away LRE as just chemistry.
> that there probably isn't any
> Life As We Know It on the surface;
Also unreasonable.
> that we have no useful
> data on Life Not As We Know It;
Quite unreasonable... we have useful data that shows there
is life as we know it, but we don't know if that data was
caused by life or not.
> and that we have no data
> about subsurface conditions other than having an idea of
> what would show up in the surface experiments and didn't
> being a boundary condition.
For once you got something correct.
> If you conclude that,
But we don't, because what you said was unreasonable.
> When science instrument delivery to Mars is free and
> prompt, this will be a moot point.
Since scinence instrumnet delivery is expensive and slow,
it is even more important that follow-ups to LRE be sent.
> Now, what you're
> getting is the community focusing on what they believe
> in consensus are the most likely unknown results questions.
Perhaps, but irrelevant. I'm not arguing the best approach to
convince an irrational crowd with an irrational belief. I'm
simply arguing what's right; convincing others of that beyond
the logical argument is the realm of politics, not science.
> >> Underground is a whole different ballgame, much more promising, where the
> >> Viking results are simply irrelevant. However, Levin's claim is that
> >> there is life on the *surface*, and most everybody else thinks the weight
> >> of evidence is strongly against him.
> >
> >Depends on what you mean by "surface". Even a few centimeters can make
> >all the difference.
>
> "Surface" would be "as deep as Viking sampled". I.e., the limit of
> the testing done to date.
In that case, "most everybody" is quite wrong, since the evidence
*supports* life.
>
> >> (Note that Beagle 2 *does* have an experiment or two directed at surface
> >> chemistry in general and life in particular. Assuming that Beagle 2 makes
> >> it -- it's rather a high-risk mission -- we can hope for a little bit more
> >> data on the matter. Prediction: no matter what it is, it will not change
> >> Gil Levin's mind.)
> >
> >That's because you're not flying Levin's more definitive chiral experiment.
> >Fly it, and you might change his mind.
>
> If it costs the same to fly 2 instruments,
That's irrelevant to what experiment would change Levin's mind.
> The total number of biology experiments landed on Mars to date is 2.
> The number launched towards Mars was 3, though that's about to
> go to 4, we hope. And that's over nearly 30 years.
And that's way too few over the course of 30 year given the number
of other opportunities there were to send such experiments.
> Answer the "big unknowns" first, then fill in where you think you
> already know the answer. You may be suprised in the latter testing,
> but you *will* be suprised in the former. The former is therefore
> more valuable to do first.
Exactly, and the "big unknown" is what the LRE *did* detect... a
question that is answered by Levin's follow-up experiments, not
experiments that try to test for other things to fill in.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Matthew F Funke" <m...@unh.edu> wrote in message news:afcbki$lhd$1...@tabloid.unh.edu...
> Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >"Christopher M. Jones" <spic...@muso-ken.com> wrote:
> >> I would wager to say that there are few planetary scientists
> >> who would not explode with joy at confirmed evidence of the
> >> existence of extraterrestrial life.
> >
> >I would wager to say that are a few planetary scientists and
> >NASA folks who would do anything to discredit eveidence
> >of extraterristial surface life *on Mars*, because it would mean
> >they fucked up on Viking, and they don't want to admit that.
>
> But they're okay with admitting that they screwed up Mars Polar
> Lander, that Galileo was a partial failure, that Mars Observer was lost
> without a trace, that the Hubble was originally *quite* flawed, that
> Surveyor 2 was a complete failure, ... ?
Generally speaking, those are different people who are dealing with
results that are far harder to discount. You can't really fake additional
data from Galileo!
> Come *on*. NASA has had more than its share of failures,
You're confusing engineering failures with making the wrong scientific
judgement from an experiment.
> Look at the embarassing things NASA *has* admitted to and reassess
> your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone messed up the
> units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the taxpayers?)
Looked at and discounted as irrelevant. My statement stands.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Henry Spencer" <he...@spsystems.net> wrote in message news:GyBIC...@spsystems.net...
> In article <FlaS8.9095$%y6.481...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>,
> Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >> >...We have all found that the consensus view, whatever it may
> >> >be, is almost always incomplete and rather frequently it is simply
> >> >wrong.
> >> On the contrary: historically, the consensus view is usually right.
> >
> >The argument to authority is not valid logic.
>
> I'm not appealing to authority, but to statistics. :-)
Nevertheless, they are classified as the same fallacy.
> Your contention
> (quoted above) about "the consensus view" is simply wrong, currently and
> historically. This is a verifiable fact.
I did not write the contention. Regardless, whether it is usually right or
not is irrelevant to whether or not it is right in a specific case.
> Does this mean anything in a *particular* case? No, and you were foolish
> to imply that it does.
You have me confused with another poster. Apology accepted. :)
> And while it may be emotionally satisfying to root for the underdog and
> the heretic, this does not constitute evidence that they are right.
Of course not. Similarly, while it may be intellectually satisfying to root
for the "consensus view" and the safety of the mob appeal, this does not
constitute evidence that *they* are right. In both cases you need to
evaluate the arguments themselves on their own merits.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Chosp" <ch...@cox.net> wrote in message news:falS8.92096$3R2.3...@news1.west.cox.net...
>
> "Bruce Sterling Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:fnaS8.9096$kw6.48...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
> >
> > "Christopher M. Jones" <spic...@muso-ken.com> wrote in message
> news:PN5S8.149239$R61....@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
> > > I would wager to say that there are few planetary scientists
> > > who would not explode with joy at confirmed evidence of the
> > > existence of extraterrestrial life.
> >
> > I would wager to say that are a few planetary scientists and
> > NASA folks who would do anything to discredit eveidence
> > of extraterristial surface life *on Mars*, because it would mean
> > they fucked up on Viking, and they don't want to admit that.
> >
> > Bruce
>
> Specifically whom?
Irrelevant to the point.
> How much are you willing to wager?
$1. Also irrelevant to the point.
> The assertion is yours.
It's not an assertion; it's a wager.
> The burden of proof is yours.
It can't be proven either way.
> Provide evidence or provide a specific wager naming
> specific people and your specific reasons for accusing
> them.
No need to name specific people or specific reasons to
make the wager.
> Otherwise, you are just pissing into the wind.
Nope, I'm just selling light to those who will not see.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Jan Panteltje" <pant...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:afdfl0$k7s$1...@reader1.tiscali.nl...
Note, I'm not in the best place to judge if Levin's experiment is the best
test or not. But if the goal is to change *Gil Levin's* mind, that would
seem to be the best approach.
Bruce
Chosp
Nope, you are, after all, just pissing into the wind.
Goodbye, troll.
Bill Nelson
> Never mind the politics if multicellular life turns out not to be Jewish.
> Or any other belief for that matter.
> They have to face it, like the bush bush men had their tree gods,
> the religious leaders will HAVE to face that life IS common everywhere.
As far as I know, none of the religious teachings say that life only
exists on the Earth. There ARE extremists in some religions that do
make such claims - but that is a different matter.
--
Bill Nelson (bi...@peak.org)
Matthew F Funke
>> Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> >"Christopher M. Jones" <spic...@muso-ken.com> wrote:
>> >> I would wager to say that there are few planetary scientists
>> >> who would not explode with joy at confirmed evidence of the
>> >> existence of extraterrestrial life.
>> >
>> >I would wager to say that are a few planetary scientists and
>> >NASA folks who would do anything to discredit eveidence
>> >of extraterristial surface life *on Mars*, because it would mean
>> >they fucked up on Viking, and they don't want to admit that.
>>
>> But they're okay with admitting that they screwed up Mars Polar
>> Lander, that Galileo was a partial failure, that Mars Observer was lost
>> without a trace, that the Hubble was originally *quite* flawed, that
>> Surveyor 2 was a complete failure, ... ?
>
>Generally speaking, those are different people who are dealing with
>results that are far harder to discount. You can't really fake additional
>data from Galileo!
No. But there have been conclusions drawn before that NASA et al.
were happy to reject in the light of new data. For example, the first
Mariner close-up pictures of Mars, when they were resolved (by people
coloring in numbvered strips with colored pencils, no less), showed a
cratered and marred strip which we now know to be quite common in the
southern hemisphere of that planet. The impression at the time was that
Mars would prove to be as lifeless, unchanging, and dead as the Moon; they
seemed, on the surface of it, to be similar. (Clayton R. Koppes describes
this misinformed conclusion and how it diminished the impulse to send
further probes to Mars in his book, "JPL and the American Space Program: A
History of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory".)
We've since analyzed Mars in greater detail, and have rethought that
conclusion; Mars has proven to be much more interesting than all that, and
I've heard of no planetary scientist whose ego was bruised in the process.
>> Come *on*. NASA has had more than its share of failures,
>
>You're confusing engineering failures with making the wrong scientific
>judgement from an experiment.
But as my Mariner example points out, "planetary scientists and NASA
folks" have drawn incorrect conclusions based on probe information before,
in a specific instance when things appeared dormant and were later found
to be more vibrant. There was no attempt to hide the results because
previous conclusions were found to be incorrect, and no one was threatened
with embarrassment.
>> Look at the embarrassing things NASA *has* admitted to and
>> reassess your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone
>> messed up the units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the
>> taxpayers?)
>
>Looked at and discounted as irrelevant. My statement stands.
Unfortunately, not looked at very deeply, huh? (You knew that things
have been wrong at NASA more than the engineering failures I listed,
right?)
Besides, your statement was that they wouldn't want to discover
surface life on Mars "because it would mean they fucked up on Viking, and
they don't want to admit that". That kind of phrasing *strongly* implies
poor engineering design rather than interpretation of data. If you
wanted to argue about fucking up interpretation from the beginning, that's
quite a different matter, but it's subtly different from fucking up on the
probe itself.
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Chosp" <ch...@cox.net> wrote in message news:VdxS8.94593$3R2.3...@news1.west.cox.net...
Nope, you are, after all, just a blind idiot.
Goodbye, ass.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Matthew F Funke" <m...@hypatia.unh.edu> wrote in message news:afeutt$ke9$1...@tabloid.unh.edu...
Yep. And, of course, they were wrong. Another example that supports
my argument.
> We've since analyzed Mars in greater detail, and have rethought that
> conclusion; Mars has proven to be much more interesting than all that, and
> I've heard of no planetary scientist whose ego was bruised in the process.
I've heard of at least one, although I don't have a name. In any case,
these were conclusions that came *20-30 years* later... commiserate,
you will find, with shifting consensus towards a more geologically
active and less dry Mars. "No life" is the final misconception from the
earlier Mars probes that still remains to fall, but it will come.
But the point was not that it would never happen. The point was that it
has taken this long, longer than it needed to be, precisely because of
the earlier misconceptions and misconclusions. It's not the result of a
step-by-step investigation, but rather a reluctant re-examination followed
by minimal experimentation until the conclusion can no longer be denied.
> >> Come *on*. NASA has had more than its share of failures,
> >
> >You're confusing engineering failures with making the wrong scientific
> >judgement from an experiment.
>
> But as my Mariner example points out, "planetary scientists and NASA
> folks" have drawn incorrect conclusions based on probe information before,
Yes, this is a new example.
> in a specific instance when things appeared dormant and were later found
> to be more vibrant. There was no attempt to hide the results because
> previous conclusions were found to be incorrect,
I never claimed anyone attempted to "hide the results" of this or other
experiments.
> and no one was threatened
> with embarrassment.
But there were some people threatened one way or another by it, and
that is why it took so long for it to happen. As well, some of those
people continue to argue against the "leading edge" today, discounting
evidence of recent geological activity, etc.
> >> Look at the embarrassing things NASA *has* admitted to and
> >> reassess your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone
> >> messed up the units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the
> >> taxpayers?)
> >
> >Looked at and discounted as irrelevant. My statement stands.
>
> Unfortunately, not looked at very deeply, huh?
Looked, even deeper than you ever will, fortunately.
> (You knew that things
> have been wrong at NASA more than the engineering failures I listed,
> right?)
Yep, but you were talking about engineering failures before. If you
switch horses in mid-stream, you shouldn't be surprised when you
get confused as to your direction; it's a pretty amateur tactic to try
to pawn your mistake off on me.
> Besides, your statement was that they wouldn't want to discover
> surface life on Mars "because it would mean they fucked up on Viking, and
> they don't want to admit that". That kind of phrasing *strongly* implies
> poor engineering design rather than interpretation of data.
I'm sorry if you misunderstood. That was not my implication.
> If you
> wanted to argue about fucking up interpretation from the beginning, that's
> quite a different matter, but it's subtly different from fucking up on the
> probe itself.
"Fucked up on Viking (science)" is just as valid interpretation as "fucked
up on Viking (engineering)", so I can see where you got confused. I meant
the former and not the latter, which is pretty clear from the rest of my
posts if you read them clearly.
Bruce
Matthew F Funke
The fact that they were wrong neither confirms nor denies that
"planetary scientists and NASA folks" would be unwilling to fess up to
earlier mistakes -- or, more particularly, whether they would be willing
to attempt to discredit evidence that contradicted their conclusions. The
fact that they admitted that they were wrong denies it.
>> We've since analyzed Mars in greater detail, and have rethought that
>> conclusion; Mars has proven to be much more interesting than all that, and
>> I've heard of no planetary scientist whose ego was bruised in the process.
>
>I've heard of at least one, although I don't have a name. In any case,
>these were conclusions that came *20-30 years* later... commiserate,
>you will find, with shifting consensus towards a more geologically
>active and less dry Mars. "No life" is the final misconception from the
>earlier Mars probes that still remains to fall, but it will come.
It's been 36 years since the Vikings landed. If those who would be
embarrassed by conclusions derived from Mariner data were not a factor
during Viking (a separation of only *eleven* years, from Mariner 4 -- the
first spacecraft to send back pictures of Mars in 1965 -- to the Vikings
in 1976 -- and that doesn't even account for rethinking done from probes
returning data before Viking!), why would those embarrassed by false
conclusions drawn from Viking data be a factor with a temporal separation
more than three times as great?
I admit that the discovery of life remains a much more significant
discovery than a more active Mars. But if that life were to be discovered
tomorrow, I honestly don't think that any of the NASA ilk would have a
problem saying that they misinterpreted the Viking data, even if they use
a qualifier (e.g., "We didn't know where to look", "We didn't have the
proper tools", etc.).
>But the point was not that it would never happen. The point was that it
>has taken this long, longer than it needed to be, precisely because of
>the earlier misconceptions and misconclusions. It's not the result of a
>step-by-step investigation, but rather a reluctant re-examination followed
>by minimal experimentation until the conclusion can no longer be denied.
I'm not sure that the delay has been because of that one cause. I
find it easier to believe that money has been a big factor, for example.
I think that many scientists would be eager to put as many experiments and
instruments on a probe as the engineers could design for, were money not
an obstacle. I don't think the fact that there *aren't* that many
experiments is due to reluctance.
>> >> Come *on*. NASA has had more than its share of failures,
>> >
>> >You're confusing engineering failures with making the wrong scientific
>> >judgement from an experiment.
>>
>> But as my Mariner example points out, "planetary scientists and NASA
>> folks" have drawn incorrect conclusions based on probe information before,
>
>Yes, this is a new example.
>
>> in a specific instance when things appeared dormant and were later found
>> to be more vibrant. There was no attempt to hide the results because
>> previous conclusions were found to be incorrect,
>
>I never claimed anyone attempted to "hide the results" of this or other
>experiments.
Perhaps "hide the results" was too glib. But "discrediting evidence"
(your words) was not done either, to the best of my knowledge.
>> and no one was threatened
>> with embarrassment.
>
>But there were some people threatened one way or another by it, and
>that is why it took so long for it to happen. As well, some of those
>people continue to argue against the "leading edge" today, discounting
>evidence of recent geological activity, etc.
If, by "it", you mean a rethinking of the activity of Mars as a
planet, then your "so long to happen" comment seems confusing. Mariners
6 and 7 went to Mars less than two years after Mariner 4, despite the
opinion of some that nothing of interest would be found there. This
poo-pooing did little to slow down attempts to find out more. They used
the very next available launch opportunity. And they revolutionized our
ideas of Mars with their evidence of dust in the atmosphere, clouds of
water and carbon dioxide ice, and so on.
Perhaps, as per your words, there would be "a few" who would feel
that discrediting evidence would allow them to save face... but if they
would be overwhelmed by those willing to point to new evidence (as was
the case with the Mariner series, provided there were, in fact, these
people who wanted to discredit the results on Mariner), why bother to
mention them?
>> >> Look at the embarrassing things NASA *has* admitted to and
>> >> reassess your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone
>> >> messed up the units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the
>> >> taxpayers?)
>> >
>> >Looked at and discounted as irrelevant. My statement stands.
>>
>> Unfortunately, not looked at very deeply, huh?
>
>Looked, even deeper than you ever will, fortunately.
I question that. You've not given names, dates, or anything else;
just wagers and suppositions. It's entirely possible that your knowledge
dwarfs mine on the subject, but I've seen no evidence yet.
>> (You knew that things
>> have been wrong at NASA more than the engineering failures I listed,
>> right?)
>
>Yep, but you were talking about engineering failures before. If you
>switch horses in mid-stream, you shouldn't be surprised when you
>get confused as to your direction; it's a pretty amateur tactic to try
>to pawn your mistake off on me.
Right. It was my misunderstanding, not yours. But my point with
*that* sentence was that NASA et al. have been wrong more times than what
I've listed; if you were interested in failures of interpretation rather
than failures of engineering, it only required a little digging. (I'll
admit that I didn't make that clear.) I've already cited an incident with
Mariner; there's also Voyager 2 between the years of 1986 and 1989. That
probe found a lopsided magnetic field at Uranus in 1986, and several
scientists concluded that we *just happened* to hit Uranus at a time when
its magnetic poles were shifting. Then, in 1989, a similarly lopsided
magnetic field was found at Neptune. I didn't hear any attempts to
discredit the measurements, but I *did* hear a few planetary scientists
admit that this would probably require some new theories about how Uranus
and Neptune might be generating their magnetic fields.
>> Besides, your statement was that they wouldn't want to discover
>> surface life on Mars "because it would mean they fucked up on Viking, and
>> they don't want to admit that". That kind of phrasing *strongly* implies
>> poor engineering design rather than interpretation of data.
>
>I'm sorry if you misunderstood. That was not my implication.
I'll grant you that it was not your intent.
>> If you
>> wanted to argue about fucking up interpretation from the beginning, that's
>> quite a different matter, but it's subtly different from fucking up on the
>> probe itself.
>
>"Fucked up on Viking (science)" is just as valid interpretation as "fucked
>up on Viking (engineering)", so I can see where you got confused. I meant
>the former and not the latter, which is pretty clear from the rest of my
>posts if you read them clearly.
Fair enough. I apologize for the misunderstanding, but still don't
think that any planetary scientists and NASA employees who attempt to
discredit good evidence of Martian life will be significant, or possibly
even heard; those eager to mention the results to any and all who will
listen in an effort to raise support (emotional and financial) for space
exploration would likely be deafening.
Jan Panteltje
Woodcock" <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
<OltS8.9618$oU4.50...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com>:
Hey, now I am wondering if I did read this right.....
IMO there is SO much other evidence for life on mars...
Spectra shows absorption as of plants,
lots of water present.
Would you not love to walk around there in a spacesuit, and look at the small footprints
or fossils ;-)?
Bit optimistic perhaps, but if you see where life exists on earth, in difficult
circumstances, ..Oh, and I forgot the coloring of rocks, the color changes with the
mars seasons.
I have had that picture on the wall here (from Levin's site) for more then a year !
So, it is not just 'his experiment can also be explained in a different (non life way)',
there is simply TOO much OTHER circumstantial evidence.
Oh, now you got me going!
George William Herbert
>> Nobody credible is calling the Viking results conclusive disproof
>> of life on the surface.
>
>There's no such thing as "conclusive disproof". But it is certainly
>the party line that *because* of GCMS, there must be superoxides
>which *must* mean that the LRE results are not caused by life, but
>rather by chemistry. They don't deny the possibility of life, but they
>do deny that it was detectable/detected by the LRE. I do not think
>these people are "credible" but they are certainly viewed so by the
>overall community at large.
No, the party line is that the LRE results were wierd and
unlike what was expected prior to landing, period. One possible
solution that was put forth was superoxides. That was tested
by setting up lab boxes with soil and rocks at 6 millibars
CO2 atmosphere and mars-surface-matching light flux spectra.
Superoxides were created. The conclusion then is that there
are almost certainly superoxides on Mars, and thus those
superoxides are a credible complete explanation for the
LRE results.
Stop believing Levin's explanation of his opponents position,
and read some of the papers by others in the field who are
arguing with him on the point. You obviously, blatantly obviously
have not read those responses, or did not understand them.
You are grossly misstating the planetary science and astrobiology
communities positions, either out of malice or ignorance.
We keep telling you that, and asking you to do the research,
and you keep coming back with the same responses.
After a while, that ceases being ignorance and
becomes malice.
Do your homework. Don't take Levin's word for what his
opponents are saying; he's not lying about them, but he
does slant it, and his own opinions of what's going on
make him an unreliable source for understanding and
judging the reasonableness of his opponents / the rest
of the community.
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
BFelix
> The debate on life on Mars has largely centered on microbial life
> existing at or below the surface of the Red Planet. However, there are
> some possibilities of more complex life forms existing on Mars. Barry
> Digregorio in his book _Mars: the Living Planet_,
> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1883319587/ , describes certain lichen
> that get their water from water vapor in the air; that is,
> *environmental* liquid water is not required. He also describes a
> species of desert rat that never actually drinks liquid water. They
> obtain their liquid water requirements from the water contained in the
> plants they eat.
> This may be relevant to the life on Mars question because of a
> remarkable plant species that exists in the Namibian desert,
> Welwitschia mirabilis:
>
> Welwitschia mirabilis Hooker 1863.
> "Dioecious perennial plant with short stem and taproot. Beyond that,
> the plant is often described as 'bizarre', 'weird', or (more
> explicitly) 'unlike any known plant on earth'. Its short, woody,
> unbranched stem is surmounted by two strap-shaped leaves that grow
> from a basal meristem throughout the life of the plant, becoming
> twisted and frayed with the passing centuries."
> http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/we/welwitschiaceae.htm
>
> Welwitschia Mirabilis.
> http://www.namibweb.com/welwitschia.htm
>
> THE NAMIB DESERT
> http://hentiesbay.com/desert.htm
>
> Welwitschia mirabilis: a plant from Tatooine?
> http://biology.fullerton.edu/facilities/greenhouse/stories_out_of_school/welwitschia_mirabilis__ap.html
>
> This plant has the ability to survive on the liquid water existing in
> fogs alone.
>
> In the Namibian desert was also found a species of beetle that gets
> its liquid water from fog:
>
> Water wings aid desert survival.
> "A desert beetle turns fog into drinking water with its wings, new
> research reveals. Materials mimicking the insect could help humans
> survive harsh environments."
> Nature Science Update, 1 November 2001.
> http://www.nature.com/nsu/011101/011101-14.html
>
> Multicellular life such as Welwitschia and this beetle might be able
> to survive on Mars because there are known to be low lying fogs on
> Mars at low altitude locations:
>
> Clouds in Noctis Labyrinthis.
> http://planetscapes.com/solar/cap/mars/noctis.htm
>
> In my opinion, these low elevation, low latitude fogs almost
> certainly consist all or in part of supercooled liquid water droplets:
>
> Winter Rainbows And Supercooled Water.
> "In fact, as Bohren points out, liquid water can exist at temperatures
> as low as -40 degrees C (or F), at which point the molecules become so
> sluggish that there is a high probability that enough of them will get
> together for a sufficiently long time to form a nucleus even in the
> total absence of foreign matter. Lacking any outside influence, pure
> water can nucleate itself even at the relatively high temperatures of
> a refrigerator freezing compartment. But, says Bohren, the chances of
> this happening are about the same as for all the air molecules in a
> room suddenly rushing into one corner."
> http://www.aspirations.com/Alaska_Science_Forum/Water_Snow_Ice/winter_rainbows.htm
>
>
> However, even if animals could get liquid water from plants, there
> would be the problem of oxygen. All advanced animal life on Earth need
> *environmental* oxygen as O2 in order to survive. Even fish for
> example do not get oxygen from chemically separating oxygen from H2O
> but from the O2 that suffuses through the water from the atmosphere.
> The amount of oxygen in water is low, perhaps 0.5% by volume. Fish
> are able to get their required oxygen by having the large surface area
> of their gills to draw water in through which the oxygen will diffuse.
> Could something analogous work on Mars? The oxygen levels in the
> Martian atmosphere is even less than that in the oceans on Earth. Only
> 0.13% of Mars atmosphere is O2, and that is in an atmosphere that is
> less than 1% as dense as Earth's.
> Most fish can't even breathe on land in any case, but according to
> this web site that is because their gills collapse. The Walking
> Catfish is a type of fish that can breathe through its gills in air:
>
> How Do Fish Breathe?
> http://www.geocities.com/aquarium_fish/how_fish_breathe.htm
>
> Question: how large would "gills" have to be to draw in an equivalent
> amount of oxygen in Mars atmosphere as they do in Earth's oceans?
>
> Another possibility might be a creature that is part plant, part
> animal, in a type of symbiotic relationship. The plant part would take
> CO2 from the atmosphere and supply O2 to the animal part.
>
>
>
> Bob Clark
"Another possibility might be a creature that is part plant, part
> animal, in a type of symbiotic relationship. The plant part would take
> CO2 from the atmosphere and supply O2 to the animal part."
Hmmm.
Now that we have pretty much settled the fact that -- for now -- NASA
is not inclined to support or fund or fly to Mars any
experiments that can confirm or refute the many hypotheses which have
been developed since 1976 regarding the presence or
absence of biology on Mars, let's deal with Robert Clark's question
about what kind of multi-cellular life might be found there.
Despite the opinions to the contrary (such as the notion that the
surface is "self sterilizing"), there is probably no ultimate barrier
on Mars to the presence of simple or multi-cellular biology. Whether
it exists on the surface or below it is something we will --
probably -- not find out for several decades, perhaps on the hundredth
anniversary of the Viking landing (!).
But what kind of multi-cellular life could exist? Could there be, for
example, a form of plant-life adapted to Martian surface
conditions, such as lichen? More likely in my view is the presence on
Mars of multi-cellular biology which we wouldn't
necessarily be familiar with or be able to find a terrestrial analog
for.
Nick Hoffman, among others, argues that Mars has "always been" a cold
planet, and as such is unlikely to have developed
advanced forms of biology, because (among other things) the energy for
that development has never been present. He further
argues that most of the signs of water-flooding and channeling on Mars
are deceptions. These features, he says, were caused by
the explosive outgassing of carbon dioxide held under pressure beneath
the surface until released by surface instabilities,
marsquake or impact. He further argues that there may or may not be
fluid water participation in these events, but if there is, it is
a relatively minor constituent of the essentially "gassy" and
explosive floods. And as far as he is concerned, whatever water
Mars has ever had is still as it has most probably always been, frozen
solid. On the other hand, Hoffman has argued that
reservoirs of *liquid* carbon dioxide exist underground, while
generally denying that reservoirs of *liquid* water could exist
underground.
While I agree with Hoffman's notion that the surface of Mars has
"always been cold" -- at least in a relative sense -- I do not
agree with his contention that *therefore* there is not and never has
been any significant amount of liquid water anywhere on or
in Mars and that features which look like water-caused erosion are all
deceptions actually caused by carbon dioxide outgassing.
Basically, Hoffman denies that Mars has ever had significant levels of
interior heat, despite an absolute abundance of evidence
of wide-spread volcanism. On the other hand the extensive volcanic
evidence indicates to me that Mars has had and probably
still has a relatively warm interior which can and probably does heat
water in the interior of the planet sufficiently to allow
extensive underground reservoirs and flow.
If that is so and has been the case for a significant length of time,
then it is likely that if there has ever been life on Mars, it is
still
present and has adapted and evolved to take advantage of whatever
conditions it has found. Among those conditions: impact
events occurring with some regularity; extensive volcanic episodes
throughout Martian history; relatively cold and hostile surface
conditions at all times -- indeed previous surface conditions may have
been more hostile than at present, rather than more
clement as is often argued; changing interior conditions at all times.
I tend to see the northern plains of Mars as what they largely appear
to be: an ocean bed. But I also tend to believe that it was
almost always a frozen ocean at the surface, and that only its lower
depths were ever fluid -- and then not everywhere. Thus any
development of biology on Mars would have to most likely occur in
darkness, in warm liquid reservoirs deep within a frozen
sea. From time to time, impact and volcanism disrupted this generally
chilly regime, events which could -- and most likely did --
provide temporary conditions suitable for the presence and flow of
liquid water at the surface of Mars. How extensive and
temporary these conditions were is unknown. Vast areas of the surface
show signs of volcanic events similar to those which
formed the lunar maria, and some of these events may have been
relatively recent. Other areas show signs of having been
molten and bubbling with gasses relatively recently. Cracks are found
extensively on the surface (surprisingly "canal-like") and
their bottoms are frequently found to be extensively pitted while
upper surfaces are relatively crater free, indicating the cracks
likely exposed a once-molten realm. Impact appears to be relatively
constant, though large impacts are relatively rare at present
-- I interpret the Lyot crater north of Arabia as the most recent
large impact, though precisely when it occurred is impossible to
discern.
My impression is that Mars has been (and possibly still is) a more
catastrophically violent world than the Earth. Any life
developing there would have to adapt to these continuing catastrophic
conditions. Relatively complex biology may have
developed many times on Mars only to go extinct with the coming of the
next catastrophe. These conditions could tend to inhibit
the development of individuated complexity -- such as we see on Earth
-- but they may be ideal for the development of
individuated "simplicity" which links into overall complexity. We see
on Earth vast agglomerations of "simple" biology into
enormous organisms like slime molds. Something similar could occur on
Mars. The result could be very simple, single-cell
biology in its constituent parts which could link into relatively
large and complex organisms. If this occurs, it may be impossible
for us to immediately recognize the kind and extent of organisms that
may exist on Mars, or that they even exist at all.
Mars is a planet of deception. So whatever kinds of life we speculate
might be there, we should anticipate that it will not be
what it appears to be!
Cheers, B R Felix
Henry Spencer
Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> Does this mean anything in a *particular* case? No, and you were foolish
>> to imply that it does.
>
>You have me confused with another poster. Apology accepted. :)
Wups, my apologies. Whatever other foolishness you've fallen prey to,
it didn't include this. :-)
Kristopher
>
> "BFelix" wrote:
>> Indeed. If there are subsurface liquid water reservoirs or
>> seas on Mars, or in it, and sources of energy in them, why
>> *shouldn't* there be fully adapted multi-cellular life? I
>> think it would be stranger if there weren't any. Why shouldn't
>> there be similar life on/in Europa? Ganymede? Callisto?
>> Why not, even, Triton? If conditions are right for the
>> presence of complex life anywhere, explaining its absence --
>> if none is found -- ought to be the difficult problem.
>
> Personally I thonk that complex life needs more energy than
> simple life. And the sun is a pretty big energy source, much
> bigger and covering a much larger area than some underwater
> vulcans. So, IMHO the should be nothing more complex than
> say, something like the volvox algae.
>
> Of course, I'll eat my words most happily if our next
> ice-penetrating ganymede probe gets eaten by some big
> multicellar organism. :-)
I have a counter-example closer to home...deep-water life
based on chemosynthetic microbes. There's some fairly
complex stuff down there, and plenty of energy to be had
at those vents.
--
Kristopher
"I'd like to trade in this shovel for what's behind Door #2.
Oh, look, a backhoe."
Henry Spencer
Kristopher <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
>I have a counter-example closer to home...deep-water life
>based on chemosynthetic microbes. There's some fairly
>complex stuff down there, and plenty of energy to be had
>at those vents.
Unfortunately, *only* the microbes live off the chemosynthetic reactions.
Everything else needs, in addition to microbes to nibble on, dissolved
oxygen to react with them. I.e., no, the more complex life is not
independent of the rest of the biosphere -- it relies on photosynthetic
plants to supply oxygen.
Kristopher
>
> Kristopher wrote:
>
>> I have a counter-example closer to home...deep-water life
>> based on chemosynthetic microbes. There's some fairly
>> complex stuff down there, and plenty of energy to be had
>> at those vents.
>
> Unfortunately, *only* the microbes live off the chemosynthetic
> reactions. Everything else needs, in addition to microbes to
> nibble on, dissolved oxygen to react with them. I.e., no, the
> more complex life is not independent of the rest of the
> biosphere -- it relies on photosynthetic plants to supply
> oxygen.
The part you snipped includes what I was responding to -- the
assertion that complex life needs more energy than
chemosynthesis would provide. The oxygen is another issue.
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"Matthew F Funke" <m...@hypatia.unh.edu> wrote in message news:aff6tj$mpd$1...@tabloid.unh.edu...
Yes, it does, because it "diminished the impulse to send further probes
to Mars" as you admit.
> or, more particularly, whether they would be willing
> to attempt to discredit evidence that contradicted their conclusions.
But they did discredit any alternative interpretations that would
warrant sending further probes to Mars to test what they thought
they already knew.
> The
> fact that they admitted that they were wrong denies it.
The fact that it took them *so long* to admit it supports it.
> >I've heard of at least one, although I don't have a name. In any case,
> >these were conclusions that came *20-30 years* later... commiserate,
> >you will find, with shifting consensus towards a more geologically
> >active and less dry Mars. "No life" is the final misconception from the
> >earlier Mars probes that still remains to fall, but it will come.
>
> It's been 36 years since the Vikings landed.
Yes, but the shifting attitudes came 20-30 years after they were
established. You are attempting to make yourself look better by
quoting the exact number of years since the Vikings landed, as if
I did not know it. But I do know it, and it has little to do with the
statement I made. The attitudes did not come into existance the
day the Vikings landed nor did they not start to disappear only
today.
> If those who would be
> embarrassed by conclusions derived from Mariner data were not a factor
> during Viking (a separation of only *eleven* years, from Mariner 4 -- the
> first spacecraft to send back pictures of Mars in 1965 -- to the Vikings
> in 1976 -- and that doesn't even account for rethinking done from probes
> returning data before Viking!),
They would not be embarassed because the experiments on Viking were
not a prior really in conflict with any Mariner conclusions.
> why would those embarrassed by false
> conclusions drawn from Viking data be a factor with a temporal separation
> more than three times as great?
Because the new experiments *would* be in conflict with their Viking
conclusions.
> I admit that the discovery of life remains a much more significant
> discovery than a more active Mars. But if that life were to be discovered
> tomorrow, I honestly don't think that any of the NASA ilk would have a
> problem saying that they misinterpreted the Viking data, even if they use
> a qualifier (e.g., "We didn't know where to look", "We didn't have the
> proper tools", etc.).
I will bet you $100 than when the day comes, some of the "NASA ilk"
will still be claiming the Viking data wasn't misinterpreted, and whatever
it found was not the "life" that is found by later experiments.
> >But the point was not that it would never happen. The point was that it
> >has taken this long, longer than it needed to be, precisely because of
> >the earlier misconceptions and misconclusions. It's not the result of a
> >step-by-step investigation, but rather a reluctant re-examination followed
> >by minimal experimentation until the conclusion can no longer be denied.
>
> I'm not sure that the delay has been because of that one cause.
Few things rarely have one cause. Nevertheless, it is a contributing
factor, most signifigantly in experimental selection. To try to avoid
the issue by saying, "Well, there are other causes" is a cheap debating
trick.
> I
> find it easier to believe that money has been a big factor, for example.
> I think that many scientists would be eager to put as many experiments and
> instruments on a probe as the engineers could design for, were money not
> an obstacle. I don't think the fact that there *aren't* that many
> experiments is due to reluctance.
But other landing probes have been sent with various experiments. If the
scientific community was truly "neutral" on the question of life on Mars,
surely life experiments would warrant a couple of slots; they did on Viking.
*Clearly* it is because of Viking that most have believed that follow-up
experiments are best focused on other things.
> >I never claimed anyone attempted to "hide the results" of this or other
> >experiments.
>
> Perhaps "hide the results" was too glib. But "discrediting evidence"
> (your words) was not done either, to the best of my knowledge.
I would certainly argue there *was* and in some cases still *is* some
discrediting evidence going on on these fronts. Every paper that gets
published suggesting more recent activity, recent water, etc. gets a
counter-paper arguing alternative explanations. Such things are the
nature of science, of course, but certainly early on talking about a more
active Mars was quite *controversial*, and poo-pooed by those
familiar with the more static model. Only as more and more evidence
accumulated on a variety of active processes were all of them more
generally accepted, but even today the debate is not settled.
> >But there were some people threatened one way or another by it, and
> >that is why it took so long for it to happen. As well, some of those
> >people continue to argue against the "leading edge" today, discounting
> >evidence of recent geological activity, etc.
>
> If, by "it", you mean a rethinking of the activity of Mars as a
> planet, then your "so long to happen" comment seems confusing.
Sorry if you got confused; I'll try to clarify.
> Mariners
> 6 and 7 went to Mars less than two years after Mariner 4, despite the
> opinion of some that nothing of interest would be found there.
I do not believe that was the general opinion of the time. You're
arguing about the differences between Mariners 4, 6, and 7; I'm
arguing about the differences between those and Viking, between
Viking and later probes, etc.
> This
> poo-pooing did little to slow down attempts to find out more. They used
> the very next available launch opportunity. And they revolutionized our
> ideas of Mars with their evidence of dust in the atmosphere, clouds of
> water and carbon dioxide ice, and so on.
I do not believe these were of the same type of discovery early on since
so little was known about Mars even *with* Mariner 4. I don't think we
will agree on this, though. Suffice it to say that if we go by your classifcation
of events, I would call Mariner 4 the exceptional case compared to the
others.
> Perhaps, as per your words, there would be "a few" who would feel
> that discrediting evidence would allow them to save face... but if they
> would be overwhelmed by those willing to point to new evidence (as was
> the case with the Mariner series, provided there were, in fact, these
> people who wanted to discredit the results on Mariner), why bother to
> mention them?
Why bother to mention 'them' what? Sorry this paragraph is vague.
> >> >> Look at the embarrassing things NASA *has* admitted to and
> >> >> reassess your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone
> >> >> messed up the units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the
> >> >> taxpayers?)
> >> >
> >> >Looked at and discounted as irrelevant. My statement stands.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, not looked at very deeply, huh?
> >
> >Looked, even deeper than you ever will, fortunately.
>
> I question that. You've not given names, dates, or anything else;
> just wagers and suppositions.
That's because the names and dates are not relevant. They are simply a
way for you to shift the subject away from the argument and towards who
has more names, dates, and such in their reference book, thereby trying
to claim some sort of argumentative high ground.
> It's entirely possible that your knowledge
> dwarfs mine on the subject, but I've seen no evidence yet.
My knowledge of names and dates is not at issue. My knowledge of the
argument, and the factual basis for it, and how deeply I've looked at your
red herring argument about engineering failures, are.
> >> (You knew that things
> >> have been wrong at NASA more than the engineering failures I listed,
> >> right?)
> >
> >Yep, but you were talking about engineering failures before. If you
> >switch horses in mid-stream, you shouldn't be surprised when you
> >get confused as to your direction; it's a pretty amateur tactic to try
> >to pawn your mistake off on me.
>
> Right. It was my misunderstanding, not yours.
Glad we could clear that up.
> But my point with
> *that* sentence was that NASA et al. have been wrong more times than what
> I've listed; if you were interested in failures of interpretation rather
> than failures of engineering, it only required a little digging. (I'll
> admit that I didn't make that clear.) I've already cited an incident with
> Mariner; there's also Voyager 2 between the years of 1986 and 1989. That
> probe found a lopsided magnetic field at Uranus in 1986, and several
> scientists concluded that we *just happened* to hit Uranus at a time when
> its magnetic poles were shifting. Then, in 1989, a similarly lopsided
> magnetic field was found at Neptune. I didn't hear any attempts to
> discredit the measurements, but I *did* hear a few planetary scientists
> admit that this would probably require some new theories about how Uranus
> and Neptune might be generating their magnetic fields.
Er, no, I think that example proves my point. They drew an early conclusion
from Uranus data that later, under weight of other evidence, turned out to
be probably wrong. The fact that Voyager 2 just happened to be going on
the Neptune as part of the tour wasn't something they could do anything
about at that point.
> >"Fucked up on Viking (science)" is just as valid interpretation as "fucked
> >up on Viking (engineering)", so I can see where you got confused. I meant
> >the former and not the latter, which is pretty clear from the rest of my
> >posts if you read them clearly.
>
> Fair enough. I apologize for the misunderstanding, but still don't
> think that any planetary scientists and NASA employees who attempt to
> discredit good evidence of Martian life will be significant, or possibly
> even heard; those eager to mention the results to any and all who will
> listen in an effort to raise support (emotional and financial) for space
> exploration would likely be deafening.
You're using weasel words here by saying "good evidence". Naturally
any evidence that does have significant discreditation you can always
claim is not "good evidence". And I would claim we already *have*
"good evidence" for Martian life from the Viking data. Conclusive?
No. Worth a follow-up long before now? Yes. Not being given a
follow-up because there is a consensus belief that there is no life
on the surface and that Viking only found exotic chemistry? Yes.
Bruce
Bruce Sterling Woodcock
"George William Herbert" <gher...@gw.retro.com> wrote in message news:afg7s5$b9s$1...@gw.retro.com...
> Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >> Nobody credible is calling the Viking results conclusive disproof
> >> of life on the surface.
> >
> >There's no such thing as "conclusive disproof". But it is certainly
> >the party line that *because* of GCMS, there must be superoxides
> >which *must* mean that the LRE results are not caused by life, but
> >rather by chemistry. They don't deny the possibility of life, but they
> >do deny that it was detectable/detected by the LRE. I do not think
> >these people are "credible" but they are certainly viewed so by the
> >overall community at large.
>
> No, the party line is that the LRE results were wierd and
> unlike what was expected prior to landing, period.
No, the party line is as I described previously.
> One possible
> solution that was put forth was superoxides. That was tested
> by setting up lab boxes with soil and rocks at 6 millibars
> CO2 atmosphere and mars-surface-matching light flux spectra.
> Superoxides were created. The conclusion then is that there
> are almost certainly superoxides on Mars, and thus those
> superoxides are a credible complete explanation for the
> LRE results.
Unfortunately, that solution was shown to be faulty in follow-up
papers, and in no case were such soils able to accurately
reproduce the LRE results. The Mariner 9 IRIS didn't find
any peroxide. Neither did Kitt Peak. There are numerous
other issues. Bottom line remains that even if they are there,
they have yet to accurately account for the LRE results. (Some
have produced similar yet flawed results.)
> Stop believing Levin's explanation of his opponents position,
> and read some of the papers by others in the field who are
> arguing with him on the point. You obviously, blatantly obviously
> have not read those responses, or did not understand them.
> You are grossly misstating the planetary science and astrobiology
> communities positions, either out of malice or ignorance.
> We keep telling you that, and asking you to do the research,
> and you keep coming back with the same responses.
> After a while, that ceases being ignorance and
> becomes malice.
Stop believing the opponent's explanations of Levin's position,
and read some of the papers by Levin in the field who is
arguing with them on the point. You obviously, blatantly obviously
have not read those responses, or did not understand them.
You are grossly misstating the planetary science and astrobiology
communities evidence, either out of malice or ignorance.
I keep telling you that, and asking you to do the research,
and you keep coming back with the same responses.
After a while, that ceases being ignorance and
becomes malice.
> Do your homework. Don't take Levin's word for what his
> opponents are saying; he's not lying about them, but he
> does slant it, and his own opinions of what's going on
> make him an unreliable source for understanding and
> judging the reasonableness of his opponents / the rest
> of the community.
Do your homework. Don't take Levin's opponents word
for what Levin is saying; they're not lying about him, but
they do slant it, and their own opinions of what's going on
make them an unreliable source for understanding and
judging the reasonableness of Levin.
Bruce
George William Herbert
>> [...]
>> >the party line that *because* of GCMS, there must be superoxides
>> >which *must* mean that the LRE results are not caused by life, but
>> >rather by chemistry. They don't deny the possibility of life, but they
>> >do deny that it was detectable/detected by the LRE. I do not think
>> >these people are "credible" but they are certainly viewed so by the
>> >overall community at large.
>>
>> No, the party line is that the LRE results were wierd and
>> unlike what was expected prior to landing, period.
>
>No, the party line is as I described previously.
How many planetary science journals have you read?
How many published, actively practicing planetary scientists
have you met and talked to about this? How many conferences
have you attended on planetary science subjects?
The "party line" you are describing is a myth.
It in no way accurately describes anyone I've met who
is working in the field, or any of the work.
>> One possible
>> solution that was put forth was superoxides. That was tested
>> by setting up lab boxes with soil and rocks at 6 millibars
>> CO2 atmosphere and mars-surface-matching light flux spectra.
>> Superoxides were created. The conclusion then is that there
>> are almost certainly superoxides on Mars, and thus those
>> superoxides are a credible complete explanation for the
>> LRE results.
>
>Unfortunately, that solution was shown to be faulty in follow-up
>papers, and in no case were such soils able to accurately
>reproduce the LRE results. The Mariner 9 IRIS didn't find
>any peroxide. Neither did Kitt Peak. There are numerous
>other issues. Bottom line remains that even if they are there,
>they have yet to accurately account for the LRE results. (Some
>have produced similar yet flawed results.)
Bruce, lots of things aren't easily detectable at a distance.
Particularly at the concentrations which are likely there,
assuming the Mars-box experiment was representative.
The LRE experiment combined with GCMS experiment results
are not exactly matched by any of the hypothesis put forwards
other than the rather vague "life not as we know it" which
could in fact explain *any* set of results from the experiments
which have landed so far, and is therefore somewhat moot.
The peroxides theory is reasonably a best match to the results,
and is judged from the Mars-box experiment to be almost
certainly actually physically there. That we do not entirely
understand how it works is relatively obvious; there simply
isn't enough data, period. But it's an acceptable match.
>> Stop believing Levin's explanation of his opponents position,
>> and read some of the papers by others in the field who are
>> arguing with him on the point. You obviously, blatantly obviously
>> have not read those responses, or did not understand them.
>> You are grossly misstating the planetary science and astrobiology
>> communities positions, either out of malice or ignorance.
>> We keep telling you that, and asking you to do the research,
>> and you keep coming back with the same responses.
>> After a while, that ceases being ignorance and
>> becomes malice.
>
>Stop believing the opponent's explanations of Levin's position,
>and read some of the papers by Levin in the field who is
>arguing with them on the point. You obviously, blatantly obviously
>have not read those responses, or did not understand them.
>You are grossly misstating the planetary science and astrobiology
>communities evidence, either out of malice or ignorance.
>I keep telling you that, and asking you to do the research,
>and you keep coming back with the same responses.
>After a while, that ceases being ignorance and
>becomes malice.
I first read one of Levin's papers on this back in the early 1980s
if I recall correctly, though I don't have a copy of the first one
I read to be sure, and have read much, though not all, of what has
come since.
I, personally, am unconvinced by any of his arguments,
as intriguing as they are. My qualifications are significantly
less than those of properly trained planetary scientists, but I
have enough background to follow the papers and work the math
myself in most but not all planetary science journal publications
and textbooks.
I'm sorry to dissapoint you with an extensive background in
the subject, but I'm not ignorant, I just disagree with Levin.
Lots of other people who are much less ignorant than I am
also disagree with Levin.
That does not a priori make me right, or course.
I called you on your apparent ignorance of the community's
position because you're misrepresenting it. You are more
or less accurately representing Levin's main arguments.
Your representation of the planetary science community
more or less resembles the worst of Levin's mischaracterizations
about it, thereby indicating that you probably aren't
reading their actual primary source papers and such,
merely Levin's claims about them. That's not a reasonable
way for you to educate yourself or form a conclusion,
in my opinion. And is a particularly bad way for you
to argue the case here in public. If you have studied
the rest of the communities papers in the debate then
you are misrepresenting them. If you haven't, you should
be up front about that fact.
I don't care which way it is, but I'd like you to be honest with
yourself and the other readers as to how much you really have
read and studied on the subject. Do you even own a copy of
Kieffer et al's "_Mars_"? Have you stopped in at any AGU
conferences? One of the two annual ones is in San Francisco
each year, by the way, and I think I recall you live in this area.
Read Icarus in libraries?
-george william herbert
gher...@retro.com
Matthew F Funke
>"Matthew F Funke" <m...@hypatia.unh.edu> wrote:
>> Bruce Sterling Woodcock <sirb...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> No. But there have been conclusions drawn before that NASA et al.
>> >> were happy to reject in the light of new data. For example, the first
>> >> Mariner close-up pictures of Mars, when they were resolved (by people
>> >> coloring in numbvered strips with colored pencils, no less), showed a
>> >> cratered and marred strip which we now know to be quite common in the
>> >> southern hemisphere of that planet. The impression at the time was that
>> >> Mars would prove to be as lifeless, unchanging, and dead as the Moon; they
>> >> seemed, on the surface of it, to be similar. (Clayton R. Koppes describes
>> >> this misinformed conclusion and how it diminished the impulse to send
>> >> further probes to Mars in his book, "JPL and the American Space Program: A
>> >> History of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory".)
>> >
>> >Yep. And, of course, they were wrong. Another example that supports
>> >my argument.
>>
>> The fact that they were wrong neither confirms nor denies that
>> "planetary scientists and NASA folks" would be unwilling to fess up to
>> earlier mistakes --
>
>Yes, it does, because it "diminished the impulse to send further probes
>to Mars" as you admit.
But it didn't *prevent them* from trying to bring out new evidence on
Mars, or from taking the *very next launch opportunity* to send things
that would test the conclusions they had drawn. *That* was my point.
They were disappointed, sure, which only shows what they had thought about
their conclusions. It doesn't say anything about whether or not they were
willing to *test* those conclusions, and that was my only point here.
>> or, more particularly, whether they would be willing
>> to attempt to discredit evidence that contradicted their conclusions.
>
>But they did discredit any alternative interpretations that would
>warrant sending further probes to Mars to test what they thought
>they already knew.
My contention is that they didn't. Mariners 6 and 7 discredited what
they thought they already knew. Were they fully convinced of their
earlier conclusions, they might have tried a little harder to discredit
the findings of Mariners 6 and 7. If they *did* attempt to discredit,
please cite.
>> The
>> fact that they admitted that they were wrong denies it.
>
>The fact that it took them *so long* to admit it supports it.
Again, my contention is that it didn't take them that long.
>> >I've heard of at least one, although I don't have a name. In any case,
>> >these were conclusions that came *20-30 years* later... commiserate,
>> >you will find, with shifting consensus towards a more geologically
>> >active and less dry Mars. "No life" is the final misconception from the
>> >earlier Mars probes that still remains to fall, but it will come.
>>
>> It's been 36 years since the Vikings landed.
>
>Yes, but the shifting attitudes came 20-30 years after they were
>established. You are attempting to make yourself look better by
>quoting the exact number of years since the Vikings landed, as if
>I did not know it. But I do know it, and it has little to do with the
>statement I made. The attitudes did not come into existance the
>day the Vikings landed nor did they not start to disappear only
>today.
No. I'm attempting to show that the time since the "dry Mars" model
to its reversal is not analogous to the time from the "dead" Mars model
and its possible soon reversal, as you claimed. The time from "dry Mars"
to "possibly wet Mars" took only a few years; even if life were to be
discovered tomorrow walking around on Mars, the time between "dead Mars"
and "living Mars" would be a few *decades*. There's no commensurability
there, it would seem; they're separated by an order of magnitude.
With all the vitriol you've been sending my way about putting words
in you mouth, it seems we both need to be careful about communicating
intent.
>> If those who would be
>> embarrassed by conclusions derived from Mariner data were not a factor
>> during Viking (a separation of only *eleven* years, from Mariner 4 -- the
>> first spacecraft to send back pictures of Mars in 1965 -- to the Vikings
>> in 1976 -- and that doesn't even account for rethinking done from probes
>> returning data before Viking!),
>
>They would not be embarassed because the experiments on Viking were
>not a prior really in conflict with any Mariner conclusions.
Viking conducted the best in-depth study of Mars up to that point by
a long shot, and easily destroyed any last vestige of a "dry Mars" model.
But it had been refuted long before then.
Perhaps, in all this, the conclusion we're debating has become
muddled. Simply, I didn't see any attempt to discredit evidence of an
"active Mars" model once the data started trickling in. Viking showed
that Mars wasn't as dead as had been thought pretty conclusively. But
data had been trickling in before then that perhaps conclusions drawn from
Mariner 4 were incorrect; and even then, I didn't hear any attempt to
discredit those little pieces of information.
Simply, the question is this: Why weren't there attempts to discredit
findings after Mariner 4? If my memory is faulty, and there were such
attempts, what attempts were there? And why do the ones who sought to
discredit new evidence matter?
>> why would those embarrassed by false
>> conclusions drawn from Viking data be a factor with a temporal separation
>> more than three times as great?
>
>Because the new experiments *would* be in conflict with their Viking
>conclusions.
Yes. But a "possibly wet" Mars would be in conflict with Mariner 4
conclusions. I only mean to say that evidence which contradicts a
person's conslusions (based on earlier and more limited evidence) is not
necessarily a cause for embarrassment.
>> I admit that the discovery of life remains a much more significant
>> discovery than a more active Mars. But if that life were to be discovered
>> tomorrow, I honestly don't think that any of the NASA ilk would have a
>> problem saying that they misinterpreted the Viking data, even if they use
>> a qualifier (e.g., "We didn't know where to look", "We didn't have the
>> proper tools", etc.).
>
>I will bet you $100 than when the day comes, some of the "NASA ilk"
>will still be claiming the Viking data wasn't misinterpreted, and whatever
>it found was not the "life" that is found by later experiments.
And what if it wasn't? What if the life found uses completely
different metabolic processes from those possibly "discovered" by Viking?
Who wins the bet?
You're occluding several middles here, but this is possibly the
largest.
>> >But the point was not that it would never happen. The point was that it
>> >has taken this long, longer than it needed to be, precisely because of
>> >the earlier misconceptions and misconclusions. It's not the result of a
>> >step-by-step investigation, but rather a reluctant re-examination followed
>> >by minimal experimentation until the conclusion can no longer be denied.
>>
>> I'm not sure that the delay has been because of that one cause.
>
>Few things rarely have one cause. Nevertheless, it is a contributing
>factor, most signifigantly in experimental selection. To try to avoid
>the issue by saying, "Well, there are other causes" is a cheap debating
>trick.
As is trying to avoid the issue by saying that it was (your words)
"*precisely because* of the earlier misconceptions and misconclusions"
[emphasis mine]. Have you looked at the costs for further proposed
experiments for life on Mars? Exceedingly expensive experiments can be
bumped. And that's all I mean to say here.
>> I
>> find it easier to believe that money has been a big factor, for example.
>> I think that many scientists would be eager to put as many experiments and
>> instruments on a probe as the engineers could design for, were money not
>> an obstacle. I don't think the fact that there *aren't* that many
>> experiments is due to reluctance.
>
>But other landing probes have been sent with various experiments. If the
>scientific community was truly "neutral" on the question of life on Mars,
>surely life experiments would warrant a couple of slots; they did on Viking.
>*Clearly* it is because of Viking that most have believed that follow-up
>experiments are best focused on other things.
In addition to other things, as has been discussed.
>> >I never claimed anyone attempted to "hide the results" of this or other
>> >experiments.
>>
>> Perhaps "hide the results" was too glib. But "discrediting evidence"
>> (your words) was not done either, to the best of my knowledge.
>
>I would certainly argue there *was* and in some cases still *is* some
>discrediting evidence going on on these fronts. Every paper that gets
>published suggesting more recent activity, recent water, etc. gets a
>counter-paper arguing alternative explanations. Such things are the
>nature of science, of course, but certainly early on talking about a more
>active Mars was quite *controversial*, and poo-pooed by those
>familiar with the more static model. Only as more and more evidence
>accumulated on a variety of active processes were all of them more
>generally accepted, but even today the debate is not settled.
But I don't think that any are holding to the idea that Mars is as
inactive as the Moon, which was the idea originally held after Mariner 4.
These debates seem to rage largely over *how much* activity goes on
presently (and how much has been due to past action), not *whether or not*
it goes on.
>> This
>> poo-pooing did little to slow down attempts to find out more. They used
>> the very next available launch opportunity. And they revolutionized our
>> ideas of Mars with their evidence of dust in the atmosphere, clouds of
>> water and carbon dioxide ice, and so on.
>
>I do not believe these were of the same type of discovery early on since
>so little was known about Mars even *with* Mariner 4. I don't think we
>will agree on this, though. Suffice it to say that if we go by your classifcation
>of events, I would call Mariner 4 the exceptional case compared to the
>others.
>
>> Perhaps, as per your words, there would be "a few" who would feel
>> that discrediting evidence would allow them to save face... but if they
>> would be overwhelmed by those willing to point to new evidence (as was
>> the case with the Mariner series, provided there were, in fact, these
>> people who wanted to discredit the results on Mariner), why bother to
>> mention them?
>
>Why bother to mention 'them' what? Sorry this paragraph is vague.
"Them" refers to those who would discredit evidence.
>> >> >> Look at the embarrassing things NASA *has* admitted to and
>> >> >> reassess your statement. (Losing an expensive probe because someone
>> >> >> messed up the units of measure? Would *you* want to admit that to the
>> >> >> taxpayers?)
>> >> >
>> >> >Looked at and discounted as irrelevant. My statement stands.
>> >>
>> >> Unfortunately, not looked at very deeply, huh?
>> >
>> >Looked, even deeper than you ever will, fortunately.
>>
>> I question that. You've not given names, dates, or anything else;
>> just wagers and suppositions.
>
>That's because the names and dates are not relevant. They are simply a
>way for you to shift the subject away from the argument and towards who
>has more names, dates, and such in their reference book, thereby trying
>to claim some sort of argumentative high ground.
-=sigh=- By that comment, I didn't mean to say that I want to see
names and dates *specifically*, but I *do* want to see some *specifics*.
A lot of this debate has seemed to revolve around nebulous opinions,
impressions, and ideas. I've tried to provide some specific examples to
(possibly) lend support to what I'm trying to say. The "something else"
part of my complaint above was a desire to see some examples that lend
support to what *you're* trying to say. (For example, "People thought
that there might be Z out there, and so launched Pioneer X to find out.
The results from Pioneer X were ambiguous, but people interpreted those
results to mean that there was no Z. Therefore, even though it was
perfectly reasonable and affordable to do so, they put no device to test
for Z onboard Voyager 1 or 2.")
I'm sorry if my request for evidence sounded as if it needed to be as
specific as one might find in a reference book's index. I know you've
said that some people refuted evidence that conctradicted conclusions
drawn from Mariner 4's data, but I haven't seen evidence of that; all I
may need is someething to jog my memory.
>> It's entirely possible that your knowledge
>> dwarfs mine on the subject, but I've seen no evidence yet.
>
>My knowledge of names and dates is not at issue. My knowledge of the
>argument, and the factual basis for it, and how deeply I've looked at your
>red herring argument about engineering failures, are.
Yes... but my point is that I haven't seen any events that support
your claims. I'm not all that interested in how many bibliographic
citations you can pull out, either. I just want an event that can support
the claim that started this debate.
If you have a factual basis for making the claim that there will be
those who will attempt to discredit hard evidence, I need to see this
factual basis. All I've seen up to now is naysaying.
>> But my point with
>> *that* sentence was that NASA et al. have been wrong more times than what
>> I've listed; if you were interested in failures of interpretation rather
>> than failures of engineering, it only required a little digging. (I'll
>> admit that I didn't make that clear.) I've already cited an incident with
>> Mariner; there's also Voyager 2 between the years of 1986 and 1989. That
>> probe found a lopsided magnetic field at Uranus in 1986, and several
>> scientists concluded that we *just happened* to hit Uranus at a time when
>> its magnetic poles were shifting. Then, in 1989, a similarly lopsided
>> magnetic field was found at Neptune. I didn't hear any attempts to
>> discredit the measurements, but I *did* hear a few planetary scientists
>> admit that this would probably require some new theories about how Uranus
>> and Neptune might be generating their magnetic fields.
>
>Er, no, I think that example proves my point. They drew an early conclusion
>from Uranus data that later, under weight of other evidence, turned out to
>be probably wrong. The fact that Voyager 2 just happened to be going on
>the Neptune as part of the tour wasn't something they could do anything
>about at that point.
Your point was about NASA folks and planetary scientists wanting to
discredit evidence that contradicts conclusions they had reached with
earlier data.
This was supposed to be an example of NASA folks and planetary
scientists discrediting their earlier conclusion rather than the evidence
that contradicted it.
The fact that Voyager 2 was en route to Neptune and could perform the
same experiment at Neptune as at Uranus is largely irrelevant. You have
argued that NASA folks and planetary scientists would discredit *new
evidence that contradicts earlier conclusions* -- why does its source
matter?
>> >"Fucked up on Viking (science)" is just as valid interpretation as "fucked
>> >up on Viking (engineering)", so I can see where you got confused. I meant
>> >the former and not the latter, which is pretty clear from the rest of my
>> >posts if you read them clearly.
>>
>> Fair enough. I apologize for the misunderstanding, but still don't
>> think that any planetary scientists and NASA employees who attempt to
>> discredit good evidence of Martian life will be significant, or possibly
>> even heard; those eager to mention the results to any and all who will
>> listen in an effort to raise support (emotional and financial) for space
>> exploration would likely be deafening.
>
>You're using weasel words here by saying "good evidence". Naturally
>any evidence that does have significant discreditation you can always
>claim is not "good evidence". And I would claim we already *have*
>"good evidence" for Martian life from the Viking data. Conclusive?
>No. Worth a follow-up long before now? Yes. Not being given a
>follow-up because there is a consensus belief that there is no life
>on the surface and that Viking only found exotic chemistry? Yes.
Interesting point. I would also argue that Viking's data is more
inconclusive than the spin that was put on it. Perhaps our disagreement
has, at its root, a disagreement that depends on what NASA folks and
planetary scientists will discredit, what would constitute evidence of
life, and what sort of evidence they would find.
Geoffrey A. Landis
>
> The part you snipped includes what I was responding to -- the
> assertion that complex life needs more energy than
> chemosynthesis would provide. The oxygen is another issue.
No, it's not another issue at all; oxygen is what provides more energy.
Oxygen is a far more powerful oxidizing agent than sulfur.
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
Mycroft Holmes
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Mike Dworetsky
The fault is at your news server, which is why I cannot read the message I
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--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)
"Mycroft Holmes" <hmycro...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
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Chosp
"Mycroft Holmes" <hmycro...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
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> My messages do not appear.
This is a pretty distinctive non-appearance.
>Why is that?
Hard to say.
Maybe because they do?