3 ms·

I don't know anything about this author, and I don't care. Can we discuss the merits of his claims instead?

• Herodotus38 6y ago
  Ideally that would be best but I wasted my time reading the entire paper because I took the initial upvotes it got as a signal that it was worth reading. I gave two examples above where the authors’ claims are very weak and explained by something that myself and others with an initial reading seems more plausible. If you want to discuss the merits further that is fine but in my opinion it is a waste of time. I think you should post your opinions on the merits of the paper as well, I think, but I'm not certain and I could be wrong, that you'll wish you hadn't read the paper or taken the author seriously because we all have limited time and competing things that we find interesting.
• papito 6y ago
  It's like saying, "The National Enquirer posted pictures of lizard people - we should inspect the evidence instead of jumping to conclusions based on the publication's schlock reputation". It's safe to take this shortcut. The burden of *overwhelming" proof is on the author.
  • ALittleLight 5y ago
    The pictures are posted by NASA and analyzed by this paper. Are you suggesting the photos are fake or altered? I'm also confused as to what evidence you would accept for proof of the claim that there are fungus-like things on Mars, if you don't accept pictures of them.
• panda-giddiness 5y ago
  Trustworthiness is a prerequisite to doing science. If you can't trust the scientist, you can't trust the science – that's why academic careers end when scientists are discovered falsifying results. Further, scientific claims should be evaluated by scientists, not laymen. Since this person isn't even a scientist, actual scientists needn't deign to evaluate these claims.