5 ms·

I'm certainly not an expert on this, but I'd say the most important number to think about when looking at rover images is the scale. "the little protuberance i

I'm certainly not an expert on this, but I'd say the most important number to think about when looking at rover images is the scale. "the little protuberance is probably about 0.5 cm tall, or even smaller." Five mm is obviously tiny. Keep this in mind before making up hypotheses as to what the thing is. =) We have to wait until better data is available. What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however sceptical, can immediately rule out the possibility that stuff like this is some form of life or even evidence of non-human technology. Of course, such hypotheses have to work extremely hard before they should be accepted. Our standards of evidence for stuff like this must always remain as high as possible, given the emotions and mass misunderstandings involved. But the very fact that we've come this far and still cannot rule out the existence of life on Mars is quite remarkable.

GuiA 14y ago
One of my dearest wishes is that humanity will find solid evidence for other lifeforms in the universe (whether it is through remains or actual contact). This moment, if/when it happens, will be so mindblowing on so many levels and affect us deeply as a society/species/etc. that I just WANT to see it.
- bjoe_lewis 14y ago
  So you just want to see all religions on earth, dead.
  - njharman 14y ago
    Yes, but this (nor anything else) would not do it. Note: religion != belief. Religion is a societal construct used to control, limit, and oppress people.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Not all religious people have gods that they have so narrowly restricted you know. Only those who have assigned an unjustifiable importance to themselves or really love cramming their gods into artificial boxes would find such a discovery disturbing. The realization that those dots moving across the sky are not gods did little to eradicate religion. Nor did the realization that gods did not carve the canyons or raise mountains, or even create the species or the stars. Why should finding some living junk on Mars be the game changer that everything else failed to be?
  - krapp 14y ago
    Religion will survive. It survived learning the sun didn't revolve around the Earth. It survived learning disease wasn't caused by demons and that Zeus wasn't hurling lightning from Olympus. It survived evolution and the Big Bang. People will say the mysteries of God* were just greater than they realized, and their mythologies will start to seem a bit more like Star Wars. * or what have you
    - crusso 14y ago
      You're correct. Religious belief is an evolved memetic/genetic survival mechanism. Those parts of the human brain were never about logic and accurate observation of the material world - so they are safe from new facts and logic for now. Probably at some point (assuming we survie), our own genetic/cybernetic modifications will so increase our intelligence, that religion will fall away completely... but that's beyond the Singularity.
      - krapp 14y ago
        Well, assuming the Singularity itself is not a doctrine of religious faith, sometimes it sounds like one.
- kevinbluer 14y ago
  Couldn't agree more...this would be amazing.
- stevewilhelm 14y ago
  I suspect finding evidence of other lifeforms in the universe, even highly intelligent lifeforms, would briefly be novel, but would have very little long-term effect on most people's daily lives.
  - raldi 14y ago
    Many people's religion has a huge effect on their daily lives, and news like this would have a huge impact on their faith. Also, the information we exchange with them would have a huge impact on everything. What if they have the secret to efficient solar power? Or AI?
    - mixmax 14y ago
      religions have an uncanny ability to either ignore scientific facts or bend their religion to fit with the facts. Remember that originally it was thought that the Earth was in the center of the universe because God had put it there. When the facts changed religion was eventually bent to acomodate the facts. Science changes and religion adapts.
      - wubbfindel 14y ago
        Religious tradition and dogma changes yes, but their "holy" books can't rewrite themselves. Interestingly the bible doesn't make any comment to suggest there is no other life in the universe. In fact it does refer to extra terrestrial life; God sent "angels", literally translated "messengers", to the earth.
        vacri 14y ago
        The holy books aren't like a country's constitution. They're all 'interpreted'. "What this passage means is...".
        joshuacc 14y ago
        To be fair, a country's constitution must also be interpreted. That's why things like Supreme Court rulings are so important. The SC gets to decide, "What this amendment means is..."
- mark_integerdsv 14y ago
  I share this with you... Kind of. Personally, I'd not be that mind-blown, more like vindicated for years of conjecture and lively debate.
baddox 14y ago
How is it any way remarkable that we haven't yet ruled out the possibility of life on Mars, given what you correctly said about the high standard of proof?
mistercow 14y ago
> What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however sceptical, can immediately rule out the possibility that stuff like this is some form of life or even evidence of non-human technology. You can never completely rule out that possibility, regardless of how much evidence you collect, but it's a matter of semantics at that point. Immediately and without collecting anymore data, we can dismiss the hypothesis that this is non-human technology as unworthy of our attention. It's not merely that the hypothesis has an immense burden of evidence to heft, but that it's a waste of time to even consider it. Seeing possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in every unexpected observation is nothing more than a superstition.
- hdivider 14y ago
  "Seeing possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in every unexpected observation is nothing more than a superstition." I agree, and I hope I didn't give the impression that this is what we should be doing. This thing is still just an observation - it's not evidence of anything yet. My point was this: we know of things that would effectively rule out the 'life as we know it on Mars' hypothesis (e.g. absolutely no evidence of any water, liquid or otherwise), but we're not seeing them. It's true that we keep trying to dream up new ways of allowing the possibility of life on Mars to counter existing hurdles (e.g. hypothetical microbial life buried underground to shield from radiation), but if there were some solid evidence that would allow us to say 'yeah, there was almost certainly never any life on Mars, and neither is there any life on it today,' we would accept that filter. We could then put Mars in the same category as the Moon when it comes to the life hypothesis. This is not the case - so I'd say a search for evidence of life on Mars (past or even present) is justified.
  - crusso 14y ago
    If you want to understand the "huh?" reactions you're getting, you might want to wrap your mind around the idea that it's effectively impossible to prove a negative. Take a look at Russell's Teapot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot Follow that with careful study of Occam's Razor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor
bigiain 14y ago
Well, at 5mm it's clearly an antenna in the 112GHz band, from which we can conclude that 1) there'll be other alien antennas in line-of-site of this one, and 2) Martians clearly run very high bandwidth wifi networks.
brianchu 14y ago
Not to nitpick, but the fact that we can't rule out that possibility is nothing special. You cannot rule out the possibility that when you drop a ball it won't fall to the ground. Empirical reasoning does not operate in absolutes. Only inductive reasoning operates that way.
- hdivider 14y ago
  "Empirical reasoning does not operate in absolutes." Precisely, and so 'rule out' shouldn't be taken to imply an absolute ruling out of things. =) Perhaps I should've said effectively ruled out. Life on the Moon has been 'effectively' ruled out (lack of liquid water, no atmosphere, full exposure to radiation and impactors, etc.) - but many years ago it wasn't extremely unreasonable to suppose that life might exist there. Now we know better - we'd have to reach for very convoluted scenarios to argue for the existence of life on the Moon. The same is not true for Mars (although it's not a picnic, obviously), which I would say is remarkable - there aren't many celestial bodies that have passed that test.

GuiA 14y ago

One of my dearest wishes is that humanity will find solid evidence for other lifeforms in the universe (whether it is through remains or actual contact). This moment, if/when it happens, will be so mindblowing on so many levels and affect us deeply as a society/species/etc. that I just WANT to see it.

bjoe_lewis 14y ago
So you just want to see all religions on earth, dead.
- njharman 14y ago
  Yes, but this (nor anything else) would not do it. Note: religion != belief. Religion is a societal construct used to control, limit, and oppress people.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Not all religious people have gods that they have so narrowly restricted you know. Only those who have assigned an unjustifiable importance to themselves or really love cramming their gods into artificial boxes would find such a discovery disturbing. The realization that those dots moving across the sky are not gods did little to eradicate religion. Nor did the realization that gods did not carve the canyons or raise mountains, or even create the species or the stars. Why should finding some living junk on Mars be the game changer that everything else failed to be?
- krapp 14y ago
  Religion will survive. It survived learning the sun didn't revolve around the Earth. It survived learning disease wasn't caused by demons and that Zeus wasn't hurling lightning from Olympus. It survived evolution and the Big Bang. People will say the mysteries of God* were just greater than they realized, and their mythologies will start to seem a bit more like Star Wars. * or what have you
  - crusso 14y ago
    You're correct. Religious belief is an evolved memetic/genetic survival mechanism. Those parts of the human brain were never about logic and accurate observation of the material world - so they are safe from new facts and logic for now. Probably at some point (assuming we survie), our own genetic/cybernetic modifications will so increase our intelligence, that religion will fall away completely... but that's beyond the Singularity.
    - krapp 14y ago
      Well, assuming the Singularity itself is not a doctrine of religious faith, sometimes it sounds like one.
kevinbluer 14y ago
Couldn't agree more...this would be amazing.
stevewilhelm 14y ago
I suspect finding evidence of other lifeforms in the universe, even highly intelligent lifeforms, would briefly be novel, but would have very little long-term effect on most people's daily lives.
- raldi 14y ago
  Many people's religion has a huge effect on their daily lives, and news like this would have a huge impact on their faith. Also, the information we exchange with them would have a huge impact on everything. What if they have the secret to efficient solar power? Or AI?
  - mixmax 14y ago
    religions have an uncanny ability to either ignore scientific facts or bend their religion to fit with the facts. Remember that originally it was thought that the Earth was in the center of the universe because God had put it there. When the facts changed religion was eventually bent to acomodate the facts. Science changes and religion adapts.
    - wubbfindel 14y ago
      Religious tradition and dogma changes yes, but their "holy" books can't rewrite themselves. Interestingly the bible doesn't make any comment to suggest there is no other life in the universe. In fact it does refer to extra terrestrial life; God sent "angels", literally translated "messengers", to the earth.
      - vacri 14y ago
        The holy books aren't like a country's constitution. They're all 'interpreted'. "What this passage means is...".
        joshuacc 14y ago
        To be fair, a country's constitution must also be interpreted. That's why things like Supreme Court rulings are so important. The SC gets to decide, "What this amendment means is..."
mark_integerdsv 14y ago
I share this with you... Kind of. Personally, I'd not be that mind-blown, more like vindicated for years of conjecture and lively debate.

baddox 14y ago

How is it any way remarkable that we haven't yet ruled out the possibility of life on Mars, given what you correctly said about the high standard of proof?

mistercow 14y ago

> What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however sceptical, can immediately rule out the possibility that stuff like this is some form of life or even evidence of non-human technology. You can never completely rule out that possibility, regardless of how much evidence you collect, but it's a matter of semantics at that point. Immediately and without collecting anymore data, we can dismiss the hypothesis that this is non-human technology as unworthy of our attention. It's not merely that the hypothesis has an immense burden of evidence to heft, but that it's a waste of time to even consider it. Seeing possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in every unexpected observation is nothing more than a superstition.

hdivider 14y ago
"Seeing possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in every unexpected observation is nothing more than a superstition." I agree, and I hope I didn't give the impression that this is what we should be doing. This thing is still just an observation - it's not evidence of anything yet. My point was this: we know of things that would effectively rule out the 'life as we know it on Mars' hypothesis (e.g. absolutely no evidence of any water, liquid or otherwise), but we're not seeing them. It's true that we keep trying to dream up new ways of allowing the possibility of life on Mars to counter existing hurdles (e.g. hypothetical microbial life buried underground to shield from radiation), but if there were some solid evidence that would allow us to say 'yeah, there was almost certainly never any life on Mars, and neither is there any life on it today,' we would accept that filter. We could then put Mars in the same category as the Moon when it comes to the life hypothesis. This is not the case - so I'd say a search for evidence of life on Mars (past or even present) is justified.
- crusso 14y ago
  If you want to understand the "huh?" reactions you're getting, you might want to wrap your mind around the idea that it's effectively impossible to prove a negative. Take a look at Russell's Teapot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot Follow that with careful study of Occam's Razor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor

bigiain 14y ago

Well, at 5mm it's clearly an antenna in the 112GHz band, from which we can conclude that 1) there'll be other alien antennas in line-of-site of this one, and 2) Martians clearly run very high bandwidth wifi networks.

brianchu 14y ago

Not to nitpick, but the fact that we can't rule out that possibility is nothing special. You cannot rule out the possibility that when you drop a ball it won't fall to the ground. Empirical reasoning does not operate in absolutes. Only inductive reasoning operates that way.

hdivider 14y ago
"Empirical reasoning does not operate in absolutes." Precisely, and so 'rule out' shouldn't be taken to imply an absolute ruling out of things. =) Perhaps I should've said effectively ruled out. Life on the Moon has been 'effectively' ruled out (lack of liquid water, no atmosphere, full exposure to radiation and impactors, etc.) - but many years ago it wasn't extremely unreasonable to suppose that life might exist there. Now we know better - we'd have to reach for very convoluted scenarios to argue for the existence of life on the Moon. The same is not true for Mars (although it's not a picnic, obviously), which I would say is remarkable - there aren't many celestial bodies that have passed that test.