4 ms·

I agree, big news to most people from mars would be the discovery of non-microbial life or a big ass monolith with strange writing on it. Big news to a scienti

by sixbrx 14y ago

I agree, big news to most people from mars would be the discovery of non-microbial life or a big ass monolith with strange writing on it. Big news to a scientist is that some rock formation shows evidence that there probably was water on the planet in the distant past.

richardjordan 14y ago
Right. By making this fuss on NPR they encourage pseudo-scientific predictions by laypersons of what this big discover is, that are almost always fantastical and far in excess of anything that is really likely to be discovered by such a mission. This mis-setting of expectations then undermines the actual discovery, particularly as the overall level of scientific ignorance in the media is pathetically high.