There’s a nice story about new photographic evidence from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for water having flowed on Mars. It is not really as dramatic as the photographs of late last year, but it is still an important piece of the puzzle overall (so do read about it), if harder to sell to the public as a “stop-the-press!” type of story. So here’s how three different news agencies tried to bring you in:
-
The BBC: Rocks reveal Mars’ watery past
Not bad. The layering and colour gradations seen are is not direct evidence of water, of course. It could have been some other fluid flow, but…ok.
Next, we have:
- Associated Press: More evidence found for water on Mars
Same comment. Cautious…. Not bad overall, I suppose.
But here’s the one that’s unashamedly pulling out the stops to bring you in:
-
Space.com: Underground Plumbing System Discovered on Mars.
I don’t know what to say, really. Approve? Disapprove? It’s not really untrue, but it’s clearly bringing you in for not quite the right reasons… Plumbing sort of implies a system that had been designed…. Martians…. and so forth…. Clever, if naughty. Pity they did not include a sensational exclamation mark as well.
It’ll be interesting to see what other headline choices are made for this story.
-cvj
Intelligently Designed plumbing on Mars. What will they think of next?
Bee: What is reality?
Turtles All The Way Down
You know that is not an easy question?:)
>If your reputation is gone, you’re free. I’m still trying to be free.
Maybe the better question is freedom from what? Kieslowski made a whole film on the concept of the psychological state of freedom, and if one can ever be truly ‘free’. It is called Blue.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1D7153CF931A25753C1A965958260
In some sense, I’ve adopted that film as the film of my “soul” (for lack of a better term).
If for one moment you seen something that did not fit reality
What is reality?
Bee What’s your opinion?
Hmmmm……I’d have to think about this some more.
If for one moment you seen something that did not fit reality, and you know you have your wits about you as a scientist. Then how would you process that anomaly? You might not be able to “repeat it” yet you know your not delusional.
So you forever remain the skeptic and this sits in the back of your mind. You know the world is much different then all the laws you are investigating. Do you deny it?
Or, would that spur you on to understand something which you have accepted as the laws of physics, to find out what you had missed?
*oohm* just noticed that the above sentence doesn’t make sense, it should have read
[…] this influence is totally negligible and doesn’t affect the outcome of what I do or think.
(i.e. if there’s any influence, it’s negligible compared to more dominant processes that take place)
Hi Plato,
That’s a tough question. If you want to hear my opinion on the ‘far reaching’ communication let me put it like this. I think there’s no doubt that our brains detect much more input than we are consciously aware of. Some people know how to deal with that and have a natural talent for getting on ‘somebody else’s wavelength’. That’s got nothing to do with being psychic.
I’d even go so far to say that in a certain way, everything I do and think is influenced by everything everybody else does and thinks. But I am quite convinced for almost all people and events in this world, this influence is totally negligible and doesn’t influence anything of what I do or think. It’s kind of a macroscopic version of the cluster decomposition principle.
Now if you ask me if mind reading or seeing into the future can be performed by a single human brain, I’d put all my bets on no. The information that would have to be processed for that is too incomplete, too weak, and too complex to be reliably evaluated by our neural synapses.
What’s your opinion?
Best,
B.
PS: Kind of funny that you mention it, friends have warned me repeatedly not to commit ‘political suicide’. But it seems it’s not so easy to do. As my mum used to say: Ist der Ruf erst ruiniert, lebt man gänzlich ungeniert which means roughly: If your reputation is gone, you’re free. I’m still trying to be free.
Populating other worlds? Psychics? What kind of tabloid is this?;)
Maybe you two as scientists could give your opinion about that subject on psychics in particular, from a scientists perspective, or would that be political suicide?
Surely many scientists joke, but sometimes I wonder “why and if” still holding to the values of science there can be anything said, while the brain communicates from it’s neural synapses. 🙂 How “far reaching” is such communication?
Anyway, fiction is always a good way to protect yourself with pen names. If you “feel” or “think” that such a strain could exist.
Don’t kid yourself Clifford, people are reading. 🙂
It’s ok. Nobody’s reading.
-cvj
P.S. I knew you’d type that. 😉
I am, but don’t tell anybody 😉
Now that *is* weird. A few minutes ago I decided to pop over to Backreaction to see if you’d replied to a comment of mine (you had, thanks). I looked around for a bit, and then returned here, only to find that you’d visited Asymptotia at the same time, leaving a post saying I’m “psychic or something”. You must be psychic or something. 🙂
-cvj
*lol* Clifford, I begin to believe you’re psychic or something, we also had a Marsian post yesterday:
Maps of Mars
Best,
B.
NYT: Photos Reveal Mars Had Water Underground