Science is Drokking Fantastic Because...

[Professor Bear]

Gerry Anderson's shows were deliberate misinformation and those involved were merely... ugh... puppets.

I agree with Sharky's broad point that at a certain level some of science is merely our best guess using the information we have available and how we can understand that information in our own limited way.  Boffins are in it to make a pound note and you can't fault them for wanting to eat - and they're at least offering answers and not just saying Allah did it to keep us on our toes, so there's that.

[Jim_Campbell]

Jim then suggests something equally infantile instead of engaging with the argument about the possibility of extraterrestial life, past or present.

I have expounded on the subject of extraterrestrial life at some length and am on record as saying I would be unsurprised if life was found on Mars.

Jim

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

King Pops himself points out a new discovery that expands our understanding of the expanding limits of life and then veers off into some deluded claptrap about mermaids instead of, oh, I don't know, wondering if that new discovery of fish where there was previously thought to be none might shine a light on the possibility of life elsewhere.
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Except I kind of did. I said my arguments for life elsewhere would begin with extremophiles. Either you didn't read that part or I need to apologise for not explaining what extremophiles are. They're forms of life that have been discovered on Earth in environments which were previously thought uninhabitable. Like inside volcanoes or beside those black smokers at the bottom of the sea where the water is supposed superheated, or even inside the antarctic permafrost, just deep enough so the suns rays don't tear them apart, but not so deep they don't receive any energy from it. These are the things astrobiologists study when considering the possibility of life beyond the stars.  But it still comes back to the same problem: we don't really know how life develops on planets because we only have a sample group of one to study and we don't even fully understand it. Finding life on another planet (and I'm just talking simple shit, not exocivilizations) would greatly expand our understanding of life.

[M.I.K.]

This thread is far too dismissive of mermaids for my liking.

[The Legendary Shark]

Excellent, now we're getting somewhere, thank you. I myself mentioned tardigrades earlier as a possible model for some form of Martian, or even lunar life and I know what an extremophile is. At the moment I don't think we've got the correct instruments on Mars to answer this question definitively yet.
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I'm sure I'm not alone on this thread on wanting to see people go to Mars. There's no better information gathering device to have on site than the MKI Human Eyeball.
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We have to look at the images available as dispassionately as possible and consider all the options, even if only to dismiss them as unlikely or even impossible.
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Looking at some of the Spirit and Opportunity images, sometimes I am struck by the rough similarity between a lot of rocks in certain areas which, even though of different sizes, share a kind of fat "dolphin fin" kind of shape. One explanation is that the prevailing winds have eroded these rocks into similar shapes over the years. Someone else might claim they were manufactured objects of some kind. I hypothesise that they might be the shells of rather large, snail-like animals that might not move very much.
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The most obvious explanation is, to me, the first one. My second choice would be the third but until a rover actually goes over and pokes one, or they change position over two or three images, then the first and simplest explanation has to suffice. That doesn't mean it's pointless looking through the images for supporting data to put into the Possible Circumstantial Evidence file - apart from anything else, looking through the images on NASA's website is enormously engrossing.

[Mikey]

Dunno.  Have you asked a geologist?

Adjusts glasses, thumbs lapels

Well, seeing as you ask...

First of all I'll lay out my cards; I describe myself as a geologist/Earth scientist though do not currently work in that area (any offers greatly recieved). My geological knowledge is general, but sedimentary rocks tickle my fancy as palaeoenvironmental records, I also like a bit of deformation and who doesn't love volcanoes and stuff? My 'specialism' is using geochemistry to provenance glacial sediment (dunno why the job offers aren't flying in!  )

[Mikey]

What?! I wrote a long and likely quite boring post about how I'd interpret that fuckin image - where's it gone? Balls.

There's a lesson there somewhere.

The above post looks really stupid and pointless now so could the mods remove it please?

M.

[The Legendary Shark]

Jim, I followed the link to your earlier post in which you talk about the same things we've talking about here. It's an interesting, informed, reasonable and enjoyable post of the type I enjoy reading. The fact that it didn't contain a single link is neither here nor there, is it?

[The Legendary Shark]

I for one would like to know what you think, Mikey. The opinion of a trained mind is always interesting.

[Mikey]

After a lot of geological, fluvial and glacial gubbins I went for Giant Space Worm skeletons.

M.

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh, I went for partially collapsed lava tubes with bright organics (mosses or lichens maybe) growing in the moisture trapped by the exposed and eroded expansion cracks.
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It's a funny old world, innit?

[Jim_Campbell]

The fact that it didn't contain a single link is neither here nor there, is it?

You understand that there's a difference between me saying "Here's a well-known philosophical observation [The Fermi Paradox] and a bunch of relatively non-controversial facts [the estimated age of the universe; the age of the planet; the broad divisions of geological time] and from the latter, I infer what I presume to be a logical answer to the former" and you saying "I postulate a massive fucking conspiracy theory on which basis I will reject or cast doubt on basic scientific reporting without so much as a sniff of evidence beyond 'some bloke in a chat room told me a few years ago'" ...?

Because, if you don't understand the difference between those two scenarios, then I will have to re-evaluate my previous statements about not thinking you're stupid, and if you do then that post was a blatant troll with the sole intention of aggravating me.

Jim

[ZenArcade]

The Fermi paradox has fascinated me for years. The simplicity is beautiful. Z

[The Legendary Shark]

I was commenting on my engaging with your points in no way being diminished by the lack of links. If there was something you said that I disagreed with or wanted to learn more about I'd have rooted about on the web for myself.
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And I'm not talking about conspiracies, you are. The fact that I suspect something's going on is neither here nor there on this thread. The fact that you disagree is also neither here nor there on this thread. I've already said it was a mistake for me to rise to that aspect of the debate and tried to talk about just the same topics you discussed in that first link.
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But no, for some reason you just won't let it drop, will you? You don't believe some of the things I do, I get that, honestly I do - but I don't bang on at you for being wrong.
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But as you seem determined to take offence at almost everything I say, I suppose none of that matters.

[Jim_Campbell]

And I'm not talking about conspiracies, you are.

I would invite any rational human being to read your last few posts to this thread and try to work out how you kept a straight face when you typed that.

Beyond that, you're right: whether the aggravation is instigated, intentionally or otherwise, by you or whether it is a deficiency in my reading of your posts is immaterial. The net result is ill-feeling and further derailment of this thread, for which I will apologise to the Hive Mind and shut my gob.

Jim