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Science is Drokking Fantastic Because...

Started by The Legendary Shark, 21 July, 2011, 11:05:57 PM

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The Legendary Shark

#930
Then stop giving me something to get over and debate the topic "Life on Mars?" instead of all this bickering. Or start another topic. Or *something*.  There are all these fantastic images to look at and we're arguing about which way up to hold the photograph.
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I don't know the scale. Have a look on the NASA website, they usually display scale and resolution quite clearly. See for yourself so you know I'm not feeding you a false image of my own creation or something.
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The formations look like "giant worms" and have been called "glass tubes" by others.
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ZenArcade

If ever there was a siege and I wanted a Lieutenant to hold it at all hazards you'd be the man I'd choose Shark. You aren't stupid and I don't think anyone has said you are. You are however very stubborn, and have defended your opinions to the last. Z
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Richmond Clements


CrazyFoxMachine


JPMaybe

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 21 December, 2014, 08:18:43 AM
Okay, so let's assume you're all right and that I'm a f*cking stupid idiot who believes everything he hears and is no better than a racist.
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Explain to me why it's impossible for there to be ruins on Mars or elsewhere in the Solar System.

Nobody said it's flat-out impossible.  It's just exceedingly unlikely, an extraordinary claim for which you've not even provided ordinary evidence.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 21 December, 2014, 08:18:43 AM
As to the why it might be covered up, well I don't really know, do I? Maybe it was because all the exploration started in the paranoid era of the First Cold War and certain interests didn't want the Russians to know. At what point do they "come clean" without stirring up the irrational anger that's been seen on this thread lately? To admit to that initial lie now would damage NASA's credibility and funding - even though the majority of NASA employees would know nothing about it.

And again, this is why people are rubbishing this stuff.  You can think of silly, convoluted reasons why NASA might cover this up til the cows come home, but until you've shown that they are it's utterly pointless.  And you haven't, at all- you just take it as a given and spin increasingly complex narratives from there.  And again, how big is this minority that are actively covering this up?  Do you see why this doesn't belong in a science thread?

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 21 December, 2014, 08:18:43 AM
Maybe some of the Apollo missions brought back samples of life or ancient technology - why give that to the world when it could be studied in secret to gain a pharmaceutical or technological edge?

Yeah and maybe they found it actually was made of green cheese.  Or that it actually is a cosmic egg.  You see how easy it is to generate infinite possibilities and demand that somebody else disprove them, rather than actually adducing positive evidence for them in the first place? 

And again, this requires that literally thousands of people- from the Apollo astronauts themselves, and their families, to mission control, to the NASA scientists- be filthy liars, for no conceivable gain to themselves and which none of them has ever broken ranks over. 

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 21 December, 2014, 08:18:43 AM
Maybe it's simple human psychology in action. There's no sound scientific foundation upon which to state with any certainty that there was some kind of local interplanetary civilisation that predates us by maybe millions of years and so the default view of anything that might look odd is "it's strange but it's definitely natural." Given the reception that I, a completely unqualified layman, have been given here for even suggesting the possibility of such a thing, I can only imagine that the attitude within NASA is equally vitriolic. Under those conditions, which one of them would want to be the first to say, "actually, I think that might well be an artificial thing"? That person would be crucified, as I have been here but to a much greater degree.

Oh, stop playing the wounded ingĂ©nue.  I assume you wanted to converse with adults, wouldn't you prefer people to tell you they think you're speaking bollocks?   I would.  And a NASA scientist who produced positive evidence for any of this stuff would win the Nobel prize and guarantee trillions of dollars of funding for a new space race.  And you've not been "crucified" for "even suggesting the possibility of such a thing", your arguments and sources have been criticised for being shoddy, pseudoscientific, evidence-free, and relying on enormously powerful cabals.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 21 December, 2014, 08:18:43 AM
Maybe it's a combination of the above or something else. Or maybe I'm flat out wrong,  or only half right, who knows?

You're wrong.  With the same certainty that I reject astrology and the existence of fairies.  It's trivially possible that you might not be, but I'm not holding my breath.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 21 December, 2014, 08:18:43 AM
But I will post one link, in the hopes of dragging this back in the direction I intended. It's a link to an image of Mars.
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Those formations to the bottom left, what could they be? The remains of some ancient alien 'Crystal Palace' buried in mud after the event that killed this world slowly being revealed through erosion? Is it a trick of the light? An ancient collapsed lava tube? Is it an indication of current life, in much the same way as a termite mound as life clusters around and follows a submartian water flow? (Mars appears to be a very dry world but perhaps not bone dry. There has been some hints that water might be able to exist in its liquid state on the surface for a short time before almost instantly boiling off into the atmosphere. The water cycle on wet Earth is very obvious but on Mars it may be way more subtle, just vapours and frost condensing out of the atmosphere and into the soil practically molecules at a time but still seeking the lowest level. Where water is so scarce any rivers would most likely be nothing more than damp streamers of soil with only the whisper of a flow. Life, if life there is, would likely stick close to and even follow these flows, just as plants follow rivers on Earth but in a vastly lower-energy environment.) Or is it just geology? What is it?

Dunno.  Have you asked a geologist?
Quote from: Butch on 17 January, 2015, 04:47:33 PM
Judge Death is a serial killer who got turned into a zombie when he met two witches in the woods one day...Judge Death is his real name.
-Butch on Judge Death's powers of helmet generation

The Legendary Shark

No, Rich, I don't think that's what they are at all. I don't think it's likely that anyone actually does. The comparison to a worm is simply descriptive, as I thought I made clear. I would be amazed to discover that those things are actually giant living worm things, or the skeletons of them. Of all the possible descriptions of this feature I think that is one of the most unlikely.
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JPMaybe

#936
Oh, and whaddayaknow, a reverse Google image search on that photo revealed as the first result sourced Wikipedia article on Martian lava tubes, then one of Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy pages on the subject.  And Richard Hoagland's fucking vomitous site, but hey, Google's not perfect.

Weird, people do know what they are, they do have an entirely naturalistic explanation, and we're not required to posit the existence of a conspiracy of underpants gnomes Illuminati bureaucrats/scientists that are simultaneously big and powerful enough to cover this up, but incompetent and stupid enough to allow evidence for the subject of their cover up to slip through, so that a random Brit on an internet comic forum can expose them.
Quote from: Butch on 17 January, 2015, 04:47:33 PM
Judge Death is a serial killer who got turned into a zombie when he met two witches in the woods one day...Judge Death is his real name.
-Butch on Judge Death's powers of helmet generation

TordelBack

I'm certainly not on the side of the spaceworms here, and Russell's Teapot (or even Aldrin's Fist) does of course apply to all this, but I also think there is an element of unpleasantness in the way this argument is being conducted.  Science, for all that it's the closest thing to a belief system that I enjoy, is always an imperfect tool because it is socially constituted, and by default operated by people. Granted it's the best tool, and probably the only tool for the job, but asking questions about vested interests and the conservative power of paradigms is a legitimate activity.  I would ask that Shark presents some solid evidence to inform his concerns, but I don't see that expressing those concerns should invite the kind of derision I'm seeing here - if for no other reason than that highhanded pronouncements have a tendency to alienate and aggravate rather than inform and convince.  On both sides.

Richmond Clements

QuoteI would ask that Shark presents some solid evidence to inform his concerns, but I don't see that expressing those concerns should invite the kind of derision I'm seeing here

No so much derision, but repeated frustration at the constant inability to produce evidence for outrageous claims. I see no reason at all to treat ludicrous ideas with any kind of respect. 

ZenArcade

Ah but we're not getting anywhere with the discussion. Any other notable scientific news, bar the space spanner (not spinner). Z
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Y'know what this reminds me of? Just after the History channel threw credibility out the window and started airing shows about Ancient Aliens, South Park addressed it. The jist of the episode was the pseudoscientists making more and more outrageous claims, offering no evidence and then claiming "you can't disprove me so I'm right!". All the while, Stan and Kyle get increasingly frustrated about having to explain the notion of burden of proof.

Look Shark, I'm not saying there's no possibility of life elsewhere, in fact I'm pretty sure there is, but your arguments are virtually baseless. If I were trying to convince someone there was life on other planets, I would start by referring to extremophiles and finish with the first line of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

IN CURRENT (actual) SCIENCE NEWS:
Did anyone read about the fish they found much deeper than they thought fish lived. 27,000 feet down in the Marianus Trench. The depths of the ocean is another frontier that has barely been explored, who knows what we might find next?
Please don't suggest Mermaids or Atlantis.
You may quote me on that.

ZenArcade

Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: King Pops on 21 December, 2014, 11:27:16 AM
Did anyone read about the fish they found much deeper than they thought fish lived.

Fake. What are they REALLY finding down there? Eh? Eh?!

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

JamesC

Maybe Gerry Anderson was on to something. First we had Stingray which showed an ancient civilisation beneath the sea and then Captain Scarlett showed us why it's a bad idea to go poking around on Mars.

The Legendary Shark

My only claim is that life on Mars, past or present, is a possibility that I, personally, like to explore. If I had proof I'd show it to you - honest I would. If scientists at NASA had it, they'd show it to us as well.
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Science is a conservative thing, I get that, it doesn't accept anything without incontrivertable proof. As far as science is concerned, given current understanding, Mars is a sterile rock and it will continue to be regarded as such until unassailable evidence to the contrary is found. There's nothing wrong with that approach - when you pick a rock up it's just a rock until you examine it closely and start to look for things, ask questions about it, analyse it, look at it. And then, the more you find out about it, the less it becomes just a rock and the more it becomes a complex, fascinating and even surprising thing in its own right.
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The surveyors on and around Mars, while technological marvels, are quite limited. Mars is a big place and the instruments we've sent can only image small fractions of it at a time and for many of the interesting and unusual features a second, third or fourth look would be helpful. But it's not as simple as that, you can't just tell an orbiter to slide over to Cydonia and take a snapshot. You have to wait until the orbiter passes close enough again, and in the correct lighting conditions, and using the correct camera and settings, and get the orientation correct and everything. So deciding what deserves a closer look is an important part of the mission.
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There are some things on Mars that demand a closer look and should be (in my opinion) prioritised for the next available pass and I think that Rich's Giant Space Worm is one of them.
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The process of understanding Mars is undoubtedly going to be a long and frustrating one and the instruments we have there are tiny - the equivalent of a handful of microbes trying to map an orange.
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And as I keep saying, I'm not trying to convince anybody that there's life on Mars because I don't know. But I fail to see how it offends you all so much to speculate and explore the concept using certain images like the one I posted a link to if need be.
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Now, if you think that it's impossible to believe in the possibility of life on Mars without also believing in pixies, mermaids and fairy dust then that's your own affair. I was mistaken to rise to that simplistic "conspiracy theory" hypothesis you all seem to think you understand so well as this is not the thread for that. JPM is the only one who even tried to address what he thinks I think, and did a thorough and interesting job of it, but I don't want to argue about that on this thread.
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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.  Jim then suggests something equally infantile instead of engaging with the argument about the possibility of extraterrestial life, past or present.
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