BS: Seashells found on Mars

Subject: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:31 PM

My brother - Mudcatter Ironmule - sent me a link to this site. I thought y'all might want to take a look at this and decide for yourselves. It sure would be nice to send some humans up that way. Or bring some of these objects back for a closer examination.


Seashells on Mars

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:38 PM

Consider the source

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:48 PM

*shrug*...when NASA issues an opinion that these images are shells, call me.....on 2nd thought, never mind; it'll be on the front page.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: dianavan
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 01:57 PM

Maybe, maybe not.

I did hear some exciting news the other day.

Apparently scientist now have new areas to explore when looking for signs of life in outer space. I didn't catch the whole explanation but the conclusion is that what appears to be lifeless balls of fire or gas or cold, rocky stars or planets may be only crusts that emcompass a complete world INSIDE.

I will try to find more about this as it has certainly opened my mind to a countless number of possibilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:13 PM

"...crusts that emcompass a complete world INSIDE."

I have a science fiction novel with that precise theme regarding a comet.. It is **wild, creative speculation**.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: bobad
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:27 PM

"when NASA issues an opinion that these images are shells, call me"

Don't you know that there's a massive cover up happening, the government doesn't want it to be known that there is a large supply of seafood available on Mars.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:43 PM

Actually there was a series of books by the author of Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs - about a world called Pellucidar inside of the earth. I read them all when I was 10 or 12.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 03:59 PM

ahhh...massive cover-up! Sure, I get it...like the one where they have trained parapsychologists working in secret, but won't admit it because we'd all be nervous about having our minds probed.

"Martian lobster? Sure, $2 each....but the shipping is $178,000,000!"

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: RangerSteve
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 04:13 PM

Well, lobster is plentiful here in NJ, and, to tell the truth, I can take it or leave it. But do they have Martian scallops? Even with the shipping, they might be cheaper than the local ones. And what about oysters? I haven't seen fresh ones in the stores for ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 04:35 PM

How do we know that someone just didn't drop in from another planet and had the Martian equivalent of a clambake? I'm surprised there are not a few beer cans littering the area as well.

Thanks for the link.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 04:36 PM

No ship wrecks yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: r.padgett
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 05:09 PM

Shells in Mars Bars send for the health and safety people!!
Mars bars UK delicacy which if given to horses they will fail doping procedures


Apparently the space agency have also misplaced video footage of landing on the Moon, which dispels the rumour that it was all shot in a film studio!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 05:10 PM

"there is a large supply of seafood available on Mars."

If theye got crabs there, I ain't goin'!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 05:31 PM

"consider the source" Yeah...LOL! That's what I do whenever I see a post under the name: Clinton Hammond. They're generally best just ignored, unless you're doing a study on the ill effects of extreme cynicism and are in need of some good case examples.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 06:02 PM

So it's official - Molly Malone was not Irish (or sired by a Scottish father) but she was a Martian - well whoooooda thought it?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: mack/misophist
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 06:53 PM

Terrestrial sea shells are quite fragile - calcium carbonate. If there were ever any of them on Mars, they're long gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: LilyFestre
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 07:15 PM

It sure would be nice to send some humans up that way

Oh boy...you aren't kidding!!!!!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 09:40 PM

Consider the Sauce... Yum!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:02 PM

Another loon. If this person and his believers used common sense they would have to ask themselves why NASA would release pictues with "evidence" of seashells on Mars? If there were any legitimate reason to think that they were shells, don't you think NASA would jump all over it - or if there were some nefarious reason to hide the "truth", wouldn't they supress the release of these pictures?

I am sure there is life out there somewhere, but lets not see things that aren't there.

Hey wait a minute, the third picture, isn't that the face of Jesus in the rock???? Holy crap!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:10 PM

it's obvious, someone has hacked the satellites from a base in Spain...just reading this is making me scratch my head excessively.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:13 PM

ROFLMAO...

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:38 PM

These photos strike me as the same sort of thing as the famous (or infamous) "face" on Mars, which was nothing more than a trick of light. Mars rotates a hair in its normal day, changing the angle that the sun hits the bloody big rock, and the face disappears. Given a photograph of random geological debris scattered about (I'm not sure that "geological" is the appropriate word when talking about other planets) and if someone looks hard enough and uses their imagination a lot, I'm quite sure he could perceive a recipe for shrimp filé gumbo etched in the terrain (or a love note from Dejah Thoris).

As to the idea of hollow planets enclosing mysterious civilizations, the civilization would have to be very highly advanced to manage a feat of engineering like that. The reason that a celestial body large enough to qualify as a planet is in the shape of a globe (rather than, say, a cube) is that the gravity of anything over a certain critical size (mass) is going to crush it into a globe. The "hollow earth" stuff back in the Thirties (early days of pulp science fiction) that guys like Richard Shaver tried to pass off as real (but kept secret by the government, à la alleged UFO conspiracies) were simple physically, astronomically impossible.

Sorry.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: John O'L
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 10:56 PM

I suppose next they'll be finding Mars bars in the Seychelles...

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 11:18 PM

Good one, John!

Hollow planets, ha! Someone has too much TV-watching time on their hands. Star Trek (I) addressed aspects of that theory in several episodes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 12:35 AM

Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!

I hasten to add that I have no solid opinion whatsoever as to whether or not there are seashells on Mars, though I find it interesting to consider the possibility that there might be....

I'm not in a position to have a definite opinion about it, and neither are any of you pompous asses who are sounding off on this thread here as though you KNEW for certain sure about it. You don't. Matter of fact, you know nothing about it. You're just mouths that like to hear themselves yammer on.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 01:08 AM

Limpets rule!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: dianavan
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 02:30 AM

I didn't say anything about civilizations or suggest that planets might be hollow. I did say that scientists are exploring the idea of life inside a planet or a star.

I'm not enough a scientist to explain thoroughly but it has something to do with dust clouds being vented to the Earth's crust from carbon deposits deep inside the Earth. It is thought that this may have been the beginning of life on Earth as we know it. If it happens here, it can also happen in space. In other words, we are exploring the surface of planets when the life forms may, in fact, be deep within.

I'm still searching for a transcript of the story I heard on CBC radio about a week ago.

btw - I don't read science fiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Paul Burke
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 04:09 AM

The photographs look remarkably like an Earth beach, complete with wave ripple marks and seashells. So much so, and so unlike the rest of the terrain shown by the Mars rovers, that I suspect a little joke by someone at Nasa, or perhaps more likely a test of the camera before they launched it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Slag
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 04:36 AM

I wonder if they got abalone? Do you suppose there's a limit on 'em? Any charters headed out that way? Looks like a really nice spacious beach. Shells are kinda hard to come by on our beaches. Wow. I wonder if Martian shell whorl clockwise or counter-clockwise? Just amazing the questions these new scientific finds bring up.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 05:24 AM

She sells Mars-shells, on the Mars-shore
The Mars-shells that she sells
Are Mars-shells I'm sure...



Anyone seen my tinfoil hat? I seem to have mislaid it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Grab
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 07:56 AM

Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!

Indeed - that was rather what I thought when I saw that website. The presumptuousness of those people's egos in thinking they've spotted this, when the NASA teams who are going over the photos centimetre by centimetre every day haven't done so. Either that, or the presumptuousness of them thinking that they're the only ones to have spotted the massive government conspiracy to conceal the truth from the world.

The presumption that they're seashells requires three major suppositions:-

1) There were once large bodies of liquid water on Mars.

2) Life evolved to a sufficiently high level within those bodies of water as to have produced fair-sized predators, because that's the reason these things have evolved shells on Earth.

3) There is no alternative source which would produce objects this shape.

Now the first one is a fairly well-known hypothesis, although short on evidence. The second is pure conjecture, unsupported by any evidence. These photos are *not* evidence, as they are so blurred and lacking in resolution that they could be anything at all (hence point three). And the third presumption is clearly wrong, because there are many things that they could be instead. The "wafer thinness" is completely consistent with a bubble in volcanic rock. The "whelk shell" could easily be two separate rocks close together, one rounded and one straight. And the third "shell" doesn't look anything like a shell to me.

The problem is that humans have a built-in need to find patterns in things, even when those patterns are merely a random element that just happens to have formed a particular shape. Saying "that cloud looks like a crocodile" is fine. Suggesting that it actually *is* an airborne crocodile may be taking things a bit too far...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 08:54 AM

Just because something is millions of miles away does NOT mean we know nothing about it. The rules of physics work the same everywhere in the universe, and have worked the same everywhere throughout the history of the universe. We know this is true because of the remarkable constancy of the spectral absorption lines for hydrogen and helium for the sun, other stars, and quasars at all distances from us.

Not saying that there isn't life out there (nor that it can't be, or have been, on Mars). Just pointing out that we can and do know a great deal about places that are unimaginably far from us.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: MarkS
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:18 AM

Slag, no need to wonder. They gottalottabaloney.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 09:38 AM

"Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!"

There is nothing amazing about using common sense and basic understanding of scientific principles. The "evidence" in this case was very specific and the reasons that many of us stated that debunk this loon has nothing to do with our egos but simply the fact that we can think logically.

The only thing "presumptuous" about the human ego is that it tries to create illogical explanations for items it cannot immediately comprehend. That ego then becomes steadfast in its belief and won't accept logic or fact when it is presented. Then that ego evolves into a pompous ass that yammers on about far fetched nonsense and attacks the individual delivering the contrary information, not the arguement or the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:11 AM

While it is true that actual seashells would have crumbled away fairly quickly, what we might be viewing are fossilized seashells hundreds of milions years old. Of course it's unlikely that these images are authentic images taken by a Mars Rover.

Still, it's fun to ponder on. I'm reminded of when I was leading a group of geology students up a dry river valley cutting into the escarpment towering over Dira Dawa in Ethiopia in 1964. We came across gigantic fossilized sea mollusks in the riverbed, some of their spiral shells over two feet in diameter. It was kind of neat to think we were walking along some ancient sea bed. A more recent sea bed was in evidence in the outcrops on the plains at the foot of the escarpment. There you could see wave cut cliffs, the remains of coral reefs, from when the Red Sea extended into the Danakil Depression only a few thousand years ago. My photographs of that landscape would have been much more convincing than the ones posted above. Maybe I'll dig them up!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:16 AM

Little Hawk's recipe for success:

Poke a stick in the middle of a discussion and give it a good stir. . .

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:52 AM

yep, SRS... I think you may be onto something there!

"Amazing how people can decide in an instant about something a few million miles away on a distant planet that they essentially know nothing about! My, the presumptuousness of the human ego!"?

but definitive statements about the essential nature of the Universe and 'spiritual forces' uniting all forms of existence are fair game, hmmm? *grin*

That quote may come back to haunt you, Little Hawk...(metaphorically, of course)

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 10:52 PM

An obvious plant by the Bush administration for the profit of his buds in the space equipment biz.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 11:26 PM

Guys...I said I have NO definite opinion one way or the other about it. What amazes me is how many of you do, and I bet it didn't take more than a millisecond for you to form it. LOL! Boy, we have a whole bunch of interstellar planetary experts right here on Mudcat Cafe who KNOW that there can't be any seashells on Mars. That's really something.

It's more amazing than finding seashells on Mars would be, if you ask me. National Geographic ought to do a cover story on all the geniuses and great minds we have here on our humble little Internet forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:31 AM

Slow down!. I'm still tryin' to define folk music from a thread four years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:19 AM

WHERE?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:21 AM

Considerably more than a millesecond, Little Hawk, and I do know quite a bit about cosmology, astronomy, and planetology, not to mention more than you might think about astrobiology.

Who is it who's leaping to conclusions?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Pauline L
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:24 AM

WFDU - Ron Olesko said Hey wait a minute, the third picture, isn't that the face of Jesus in the rock???? Holy crap!!!. No, Ron. It's Mohammed.

The only scientifically valid way to tell for sure whether those things are sea shells is to hold one up to your ear and see whether you can hear the ocean.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 02:28 AM

It wouldn't surprise me at all if there are seashells on Mars. I hope there are.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Carl Sagan

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Carl Sagan

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Slag
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 03:08 AM

Actually, LittleHawk neuro-chemical impulses travel at about 250 MPH through the human body. Given the distances between the average synapses, we all spent a few hours to a couple of days figuring out our opinions. Leastwise I know I did. I also figured out that them little martian critters must have made their shells out of titanian alloy.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bert
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 03:45 AM

Well that's not quite true Hawkiemate. I studied those blurred images quite carefully.

There was one rock that at first glance looked a little like a winkle or a whelk, but on closer examination the lines were straight and weren't really like a conical spiral (Or helix for those pedants out there).

I must admit that it would have been nice if it was a sea shell but that one wasn't. Maybe next time.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stu
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 04:45 AM

Nobondy knows for sure, but it is possible to make an educated guess.

Geologists often apply the principles of Uniformitarianism when studying rocks on earth. The principle states that the laws of nature - the processes of physics and chemistry - operate in a consistent manner throoughout time, and by studying rocks forming today which appear similar to ancient rocks we can deduce how they were formed.

From looking at the images on the NASA website (which are the same as Slag's link) I suspect that we're looking at simulacra - something that occurs naturally looking like something else.

In the wider picture you can clearly see many of the rocks in the frame are full of vesicles - small holes that once housed pockets of gas. As the rocks being examined are in a relatively recent impact crater I would suggest that these rocks are either: a) Volcaninc in origin like pumice, or b) melted on impact and were ejected from the crater, with gas in the rock expanding uner the heat and pressure to form vesicules or having the martian air whipped into it (like a merangue).

The seashells are simply shapes created by the weathering of the rocks that look organic,but in my opinion (and you did ask) are not.

But I could be wrong, and probably am.

stigWeard

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 08:47 AM

One other thing to ponder....

The 'seashells' were on a supposed beach with ripple marks. On a hill-side. Ripple marks only form on a level surface, and I've never heard any suggestions of the tectonic actities needed to tilt strata like that occuring on Mars.

Don't beleive me? Then go to a beach, find a ripple mark on a slope, explain it, and claim your Nobel prize....

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 10:00 AM

"I said I have NO definite opinion one way or the other about it. What amazes me is how many of you do, and I bet it didn't take more than a millisecond for you to form it. LOL! Boy, we have a whole bunch of interstellar planetary experts right here on Mudcat Cafe who KNOW that there can't be any seashells on Mars"

If YOU took the time to read some of the posts, you would see why we came to our conclusions so fast.

NO ONE said that there CAN'T be any seashells on Mars - what we said is that these pictures do not appear to represent seashells. Why is is that this one loon with a website is the only person reporting this? Why is that NASA, who released these pictures, never even said that there was a chance that these pictures could show seas shells?

Before you start calling us names, take a look at how we came to our conclusions. Common sense my friend.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 01:36 PM

Ron is absolutely right. Seashells would be an incontrovertible indication that life existed on Mars. "LIFE FOUND ON MARS!" would a be a banner headline in every newspaper and the lead story on radio and television news. That would be an incredible success for NASA and all of the space sciences, not only in terms of science itself, but a huge boost in prestige and a powerful lever for future funding. The idea that "one loon with a website," as Ron so aptly puts it, made the "discovery" when xeno- and astrobiologists studying such data, and NASA itself (who issued the pictures) missed it, verges on the silly. After all, searching for signs of life, past or present, is one of the primary purposes of this latest mission.

I have eagerly followed this sort of thing ever since I first started reading the "Buck Rogers" comic strip when I was six years old. No one would be more ecstatic than I would be if signs of life, no matter how primitive, were found on another planet. This would indicate the possibility of more complex life-forms developing, even the possibility of intelligent life-forms. I look forward with eager anticipation to such a discovery.

BUT—I run anything like this "seashells on Mars" thing through a filter of rational skepticism. Although I'm only an "armchair scientist," from reading spurred by a lifelong interest, I venture to say that I'm considerably more knowledgeable about planetology and astrobiology than most.

I'm quite convinced that there is life out there. There is plenty of evidence for the existence of organic chemicals and compounds out yonder, but so far, no Martians, no Vulcans, no Klingons (there is even some doubt as to the existence of William Shatner), and fortunately, no Vogons. Not even a Martian oyster announcing "I'm right here, but you'll have to bring your own tartar sauce."

It's good to keep an open mind about things like this. But one's mind should not be so open that one's brain drops out.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 08:57 PM

hehehe

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 09:05 PM

'03-29-04 Spirals in Mars Snow Caps Unraveled (CNN News)

"Odd spiraling gorges etched deep into the polar ice caps of Mars have stumped scientists for decades. The huge arcing troughs radiate outward like arms of a pinwheel, creating an overall shape that visually and mathematically resembles hurricanes, spiral galaxies and even some seashells."'


Wonder if this is where it started?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 09:14 PM

I too would be delighted if signs of life were found on other planets. Regarding those pictures, I thought..."Hmmm...well, that's interesting..." and beyond that, I formed no particular opinion about it.

I just thought it was kind of interesting. I think there are many people, the majority in fact, whose standard and automatic reaction to anything unusual is to quickly debunk it, as if they knew for certain about it, which in fact they do not. They derive pleasure from debunking unusual things. I felt that some of the posters on this thread were doing that, in which case they were just indulging in an emotional habit that makes them feel smarter than "those people", whoever "those people" may be.

Looking at those images...yeah...they could be seashells...or they might be something else. But what could possibly make anyone 100% sure that they are not seashells?

I've seen fossilized seashells in rocks on this planet that are probably hundreds of thousands or millions of years old. If there were once oceans on Mars, which there may well have been, then there may well have been marine life in those oceans. If so, there would undoubtedly be fossil remains of such life.

So, it's an interesting possibility. Rather than examining me, why not examine your own tendency to deny things that don't fit your already established views?

Without curiosity, where we be? And what would we ever achieve?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 10:30 PM

Little Hawk - you are confusing curiosity with common sense. There should be a place for both. Please do not put words in our mouths or twist what we say.

The "curious" side of me looked at the pictures, but the "common sense" side made me realize that I was not looking at Martian sea shells.

As to why many of us can be 100% sure that we were not looking at shells, take a look again at the evidence we presented to you.

"100% sure" is a cliche, and as you very well know there is no such thing. As in the courts, there is "beyond a reasonable doubt". This is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Examining you? I don't think I would do that if you did not speak out first with your examination of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:06 PM

http://www.nationalufocenter.com/artman/uploads/32seashellsmarsrover.jpg


The thingy that is in the center seems to be a really screwed up ping pong ball.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:09 PM

Anyway, seashells or not, I KNOW Jack Carter was there. And Dejas Thoris and the thoats. So I really don't need proof from NASA.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: bobad
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:10 PM

If you look straight at the images and kinda cross your eyes until a third image comes into focus in the middle of the two, it looks like simply a play of light and shadow.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:12 PM

OK. Did that. NOW, how do I get my eyes uncrossed?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:14 PM

Yes, Ron, I follow you. But how can you be certain, absolutely certain, that there are no seashells on Mars? And how can you be certain that the images in the picture are not, indeed, seashells (fossilized or otherwise)?

Whence cometh thy certainty on the matter? ;-) You say "common sense". I say "knee jerk assumption".

You note that I am neither assuming that they are seashells or that they are not. I don't believe I'm in a position to make such assumptions, and I don't believe you are either.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:32 PM

I never, ever said that they are absolutely no seashells on Mars. It would be great to find something like that. What I said was, these pictures do not appear to be seashells, and I am certain that they are not.

First, the objects in the photos do not look like seashells, but you are right - I am not in a position to be certain based on that.

My big reasons - no one else has discussed this, and NASA has released the photos.

There have been hundreds of experts whose job it is to study these pictures that have examined them.   The evidence they are pulling from this project is not relying only on photographic evidence. IF these objects could POSSIBLY be seashells, the word would have leaked.   If they were not sure, the pictures would not have been released.   Of that, I am certain BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.

You can define it as a "knee jerk reaction" if that makes you feel comfortable, but I think most people do understand logic and common sense. You are in a position to make a decision based on the evidence given to you. You don't have to, it is your perogative.   Knocking those of us who thought this through does not make you right.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:36 PM

Seashells are not the question. Oceans are the question.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 11:43 PM

I've never had any trouble understanding logic and common sense either, Ron. They're very easy to understand. What I find more intriguing is human nature. The average human has a whole set of assumptions that he/she takes for granted and is usually quite resistant to new information that lies outside those assumptons, unless it comes from an official source.

You say: "IF these objects could POSSIBLY be seashells, the word would have leaked."

Well, maybe it just has leaked. If so, you can be sure the first leak will be strenuously resisted by most people. That's normal.

I understand that it's your opinion those aren't seashells in the photos. Fine. It's my opinion that I don't know what they are...they do kind of look like seashells to me, but that doesn't mean they are. It means only that they might be.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:22 AM

You make "official source" sound almost criminal. Yes, I do rely on experts who have greater knowledge of the subject for information. Yes, I do rely on my common sense to form opinions.

There are plenty of questions that cannot be answered. Scientific achievements probe for answers. Based on everything that has been discovered, those are not seashells in the pictures.

Little Hawk, I've never seen anyone flap their arms and fly. I can make an assumption that you cannot fly by doing that. Can I be certain? No. I am convinced that you cannot do it, but I cannot be certain. If you would like to prove me wrong, be my guest.

Not everything is black and white in this world, but people need to be able to make decisions about evidence presented to them and move forward.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Grab
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:24 AM

LH, since we're talking assumptions, you (and the website author) are making a bad one. The problem is that you're assuming that seashells can appear in isolation, and that just isn't logical.

OK, they could be blurry pictures of seashells. Fine - the pictures are so bad, you couldn't tell for sure.

But seashells don't come into being out of nowhere. You won't find some Martian whelk magically appearing out of nowhere. They need to evolve, which means they need an environment to evolve in. Thick exoskeletons (of whelk size) *require* a liquid environment to precipitate stuff out. A thick exoskeleton prevents you getting around fast and costs you energy, so evolution of a thick exoskeleton *requires* that there are predators which would cause other creatures to evolve thick exoskeletons (the cost of a shell is less than the cost of being something's dinner).

So saying "they might be seashells" is *exactly* the same as saying "there once was a marine ecology on Mars". The two are 100% synonymous. If there wasn't a marine ecology, then by definition they couldn't be seashells. So we have a whole new test for whether they're seashells or not - could Mars have supported oceans, and could it have done so for long enough that a marine ecology would evolve?

I guess there is another alternative though - the seashells have been collected elsewhere (possibly even from Earth) and dropped there by someone, like kids drop their shells and shiny stones after a holiday. Which postulates non-human interplanetary travel, *and* those non-humans having a reason to drop these seashells on Mars.

To say you have no opinion on it requires that you think there is a roughly equal chance of either of these being true or not being true. Well I guess it's not impossible, but regular reading of science-related media gives a reasonable kind of idea of what's currently known or hypothesised, and that gives a basis for judgement. As a sceptic, I'd have to quote the line of extraordinary claims and extraordinary evidence, and we ain't got that evidence.

That's the problem with this guy's website. If he says "this looks somewhat similar to a seashell", I'd take him seriously. If he says "this is definitely a seashell", he's talking complete crap.

If so, you can be sure the first leak will be strenuously resisted by most people. That's normal.

The first "leak" will be resisted by all rational people, saying "give us proof". Yes, that's normal - that's how we avoid getting conned by charlatans or nutjobs. But it doesn't mean this guy's right - there's a *reason* we ask for proof, and that's because the tiny number of people who make genuinely new discoveries are vastly outnumbered by the charlatans and nutjobs.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:34 AM

Well, people do fall in love with their own theories, Grab, and I suspect that's what happened to the "seashell guy" in this case. People are always very enthusiastic about something that is their own idea, aren't they? ;-)

I don't know that I'm assuming seashells can appear "in isolation". No, not particularly. I'm thinking there's a fairly good possibility that Mars may have had oceans at one time. If so, there's a possibility that Mars may have had marine life also. If so, there may still be some seashells...or some fossils of ancient seashells...lying about here and there on Mars.

When I'm saying I have no final opinion on it, I am not saying it's equally probably one way or the other...I don't KNOW how probable it is one way or the other. I just don't know, period. And I doubt that anyone else on this forum does either.

I have a feeling that biological life is more widespread in the Universe than many people would think it is...but that's just a sort of personal gut feeling of mine. It's not based on any evidence, pro or con. Mars and Earth are both incredibly ancient, and what we know about them now is rather limited, specially in the case of Mars. You've got a lot of time there in which complex life may have evolved and flourished on Mars (when conditions were very different from now), but later died out. There are any number of possibilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Paul Burke
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:38 AM

I really hope life IS found on Mars or somewhere else... I would be even more pleased if it turned out to be based on a different chemistry, not DNA/RNA. Perhaps even with the opposite handedness.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:45 AM

Me too. It would be wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:48 AM

"I'm thinking there's a fairly good possibility that Mars may have had oceans at one time. If so, there's a possibility that Mars may have had marine life also. If so, there may still be some seashells...or some fossils of ancient seashells...lying about here and there on Mars."

I don't think any of us disagree with you on those points. The evidence so far has not found it, but it is a relatively big planet.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:54 AM

If it were really convincing that these were indeed seashells, I would expect that real scientists would have got excited by now, given all the research and excitement over possible fossil microscopic life found on Mars. So why is there only anything on paranormal websites and lay discussion sites like this? Makes me think that someone who actually knows something about the subject has seen the pics and laughed his head off because it is really obvious to someone who has real expertise in the area that these are not as they appear.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Stu
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 02:26 PM

Why do they have to be seashells?

This would mean that Phylum Mollusca, Class Gastropoda would have had to evolve twice on two separate planets billions of years apart (unless there were some comet-hitching super space whelks out there once).

The chances of that happening are, at best incredibly slim (but I would have to concede it could occur, however unlikely). If you apply Occam's Razor (all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one), the conclusion you would have to say is the correct one is that these objects are the product of the weathering and erosion of rocks.

This is a geology rather than a palaeontology question - and that's where I think the answer lies.

I hope they do find evidence of life on Mars or any other body in the solar system, but if they do you and it's multicellular can bet it won't look like anything on earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 03:12 PM

"Not everything is black and white in this world, but people need to be able to make decisions about evidence presented to them and move forward."

Or move backwards.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 03:34 PM

Don't look back, the past might be gaining on you. - Satchel Paige.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 03:37 PM

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Albert Einstein

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 03:41 PM

Paige's quote looks better on a t-shirt. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 03:57 PM

Yeah, but not as snazzy as Einstein's tattooed on one's chest . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:08 PM

At one time, Carl Sagan referred to himself as a "xenobiologist," and commented that this was a field in which there were no subjects (so far) to study. The field has become more sophisticated since he made this remark, and has been renamed "astrobiology."

This is a pretty good article HERE.

I have a friend in the astrobiology department at the University of Washington. Good web site

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:08 PM

now that is a scary thought! Ultimate geekdom!!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:10 PM

Well, not quite as geeky as having William Shatner tattooed on your chest. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:14 PM

that really is a scary thought!!

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Grab
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 05:27 PM

OK, that's fair enough, LH - none of us know categorically. Saying you don't think you have enough evidence to judge is a good statement. I guess the rest of us just differ in that whilst we know we don't know categorically that this bloke is wrong, what evidence we do have (or think we have :-) lets us make a "balance-of-probability" type judgement. We can't say it's 90% or 75% probable or anything like that, but we can say that we think it's more likely he's wrong than that he's right.

Which is a shame, in a way. Most of us would probably love it to be true - I know I would!

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 07:57 PM

I can't recall if was Nova or something on the Discovery Channel, but some months back I watched a most interesting program about the possible forms that alien physiology might take. One of the first things they zeroed in on was the depictions of aliens in science fiction movies, and particularly the stock UFO-traveling alien as depicted on the cover of Whitney Strieber's potboiler Communion some years ago and has since manifested itself all over the place, including a face on guitar picks.

Most of these depictions reveal a certain lack of imagination. They all pretty much follow a familiar pattern: two large, dark eyes more-or-less horizontally centered in the face, a nose slightly below and between the eyes, and a mouth below the nose, with ears on each side of the head. This is subject to many variations in detail, but—what gives us the idea that an intelligent (or otherwise) alien will evolve along this same pattern?

The internal organs of the dolphin are very similar to those of humans, or so I have read. The lungs are practically indistinguishable from those of human lungs, and the brain is a bit eerie: about the same size, and with the same kind of convolutions as that of a human brain. There are those who suspect that dolphins are far more intelligent than most people think, and our ideas of intelligence are prejudiced by our own predilections—and limitations. Dolphins may be highly intelligent, perhaps even more intelligent than we are (Douglas Adams had a nice riff on this in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), but they are just not technological. They are well-suited to their environment and don't really need to be technological. They are social, and they do communicate with each other. Perhaps they are poets.

Anyway, as closely related as humans and dolphins are, and as similar as we are internally, there are many differences by which they are well-adapted for living in a marine environment. Instead of breathing through a nose as we do, they breath through a "blow-hole" at the tops of their heads. If we want to share their environment, we have to go to a sporting-goods store and buy a snorkel. They're born with one.

The octopus, to which we hardly seem related at all, has shown signs of a pretty high level of intelligence, and I know of at least one occasion where a captive octopus, kept in a tank in a laboratory for study, regularly managed to outwit his keepers, get out of his tank, and go walkabout in search of a midnight snack. The scientists first began to suspect this when they notice that the number of specimens in other tanks began to diminish. And that's not all that these bizarre creatures seem to be able to be able to surprise us with.

So if we can't seem to determine the intelligence level of many of the creatures we share a planet with, if we come face to face . . . or whatever . . . with something really alien, how are we going to know if it's intelligent or not? I doubt that it will step up, shake our hand with one of its tentacles, and say, "Hi, there! My name's Bqrftzxck, and I'm form what you folks would call Arcturus Five. What's your name?"

The physiology of any living entity is going to take a shape dictated by what is necessary to survive and thrive in the environment in which it evolved. And whether it develops intelligence or not will depend a great deal on the kinds of challenges it meets as it evolves.

Here's a thought:   in the movie "Alien" and it's sequels, the alien seems to be some sort of insect cum reptile analog. We know that the alien creatures have a reproductive biology much different from ours (more like that of asp-wasp), are endowed with a great deal of animal cunning, and are extremely dangerous. But we never learn if it's intelligent or not. Contrary to many science fictions movies, this particular alien is pretty alien, and is fairly well realized. Not just someone from central casting endowed with a lot of sponge rubber and nose-putty.

There may be life all over the Cosmos. My guess is that intelligent life may very well be out there, but it will not be all that common. For example, the shark was perfectly adapted to its environment millions of years ago. There isn't much around that could challenge it, so it didn't evolved much in all that time. It's still pretty primitive. Humanoids were weak and vulnerable compared to the other predators in their environment, so the only way they (we) managed to survive was to get smarter than those other predators, and learn to work cooperatively.   [By the way, we're still not real great at that yet.]

Can somebody give me a good reason why a Martian sea creature would evolve a shell that looks like the shell of an earth sea creature? That, just by itself, should raise questions. .

Astrobiology is absolutely fascinating.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:03 PM

I don't know about this Don, and certainly I defer to your knowledge in this area. However, I recall reading that seashells form the way they do because that's the way they have to form. (I am not making myself clear--that's my memory, not my mind.) Fractal shapes, helices that get smaller at one end (as though formed around a cone), seem to follow predictable patterns. Maybe that's why seashells would have great similarities from one world to the next. What do you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:36 PM

Fractal shapes. That sounds reasonable.

In fact, instead of hurling oneself at a conclusion because we would like it to be true, that's the kind of fine-tuned, reasonable speculation that is called for. It doesn't answer the question, but it opens up a possibly productive line of investigation.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 08:58 PM

I would love it if it was determined that life had (or does) exist on Mars. I would really like to know before I die, and I don't think I have all that many years left. You science guys better get on the stick here.

Of course, as LH mentioned, 'life' can and maybe does means lots of things. For all I know there are forms of life in 'dead' things--steel, salt, atoms. I really don't know how people go about defining what life is or how one can determine if something meets that definition. It was pretty cut and dried when I was in Grade 9 Biology. I think then that 'life' had to meet ten criteria. But that seems to change with time. I suppose that if we met other intelligent life one of the difficulties would be communication.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:17 PM

The Rule of 48
All Scientists Are Blind

... some years before [Peter Leavitt] had formulated the Rule of 48. The Rule of 48 was intended as a humorous reminder to scientists, and referred to the massive literature collected in the late 1940s and the 1950s concerning the human chromosome number.
For years it was stated that men had forty-eight chromosomes in their cells; there were pictures to prove it, and any number of careful studies. In 1953, a group of American researchers announced to the world that the human chromosome number was forty-six. Once more, there were pictures to prove it, and studies to confirm it. But these researchers also went back to reexamine the old pictures, and the old studies--and found only forty-six chromosomes not forty-eight.

That is from a neat site HERE.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 09:20 PM

" The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him down a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots,
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen--
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us they must be so....
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about!"

Neat poem from that site.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 05:12 PM

I have the JPL photos from rover that show brachnia like sea plant fossils. Also I have mars photos that show a gigantic fractal growths from central points that could possibly be something akin to a fungus/lichen forest. The largest living organism on Earth happens to reside in Michigan. It is a single fungus that has spread over 26 sq. miles.



PS
For those who expect any kind of validation here for sharing the discoveries made by their wondering minds... don't hold your breath.

There are very few fully actualized enlightened people with access to information and imagination to fully appreciate your efforts to point out the new and the obvious.

To find a few, even here, should be encouraging but not necessary for you to open doors of perception and understanding that may only be available to you at this moment in time.

Enjoy the best and bugger the rest.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 05:14 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 05:21 PM

Firth,

One need not have to have a familiar or unimaginable life form to have consciousness.

Consciousness at an extremely rapid pace may be considered to be highly intelligent to us, but intelligent consciousness can exist in space time geometry at time scales we can not fathom.

Self aware information is consciousness and should be added to our pardigm of life whether it has a perceivable form or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 06:30 PM

Interesting comments, Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 08:21 PM

Fully aware of that, Donuel.

I think that a careful reading of what I wrote above will reveal my contention that, for various reasons, we may very well not recognized extraterestrial intelligence when and if we encounter it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 09:11 PM

Kinda like talking to a tree. Hell, it may be answering, but so slowly we can't hear it. We say "Hi" and the tree responds

"H

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 09:18 PM

And we may be talking so fast that the tree has trouble hearing us too...so to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 09:19 PM

o

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 09:41 PM

You can't just talk to trees, you hafta hug 'em first.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 09:41 PM

w

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 10:25 PM

There is a huge, old tree in the Hoh rain forest over on the Olympic Peninsula, just off one of the paths and not far from the parking lot. If I spend a bit of time just sitting at the base of that tree, I get a definite feeling of a Presence. Very old, very wise. To it, I'm probably as ephemeral as one of the birds that lights on one of its brances for a few moments, then flitters off.

I find that spending some time near that tree is a very calming, centering experience.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 10:29 PM

z

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 12:22 AM

I'm right with you on that one, Don. There are plenty of trees on this property that I know darned well are going to outlive me, and it's a strange feeling sometimes to look at them and feel that. They endure quietly, while we rush around doing all the strange things humans do.

Subject: RE: BS: Seashells found on Mars
From: Peace
Date: 19 Aug 06 - 12:22 AM

i