"Which is worse: NASA making hyper-exaggerated claims about life on Mars over the decades, or so many media reporters falling for it each time?
Sorry to disappoint you, reader, but there is no life on Mars. What NASA found is not life—not even close. And there are good reasons for doubting life will ever be found there, unless earthlings send it on intelligently-designed spacecraft.
blocks of life” in the soil. It must be funding time at NASA again. They embargoed a story till Thursday June 7 to get the press watering at the mouth. The big announcement was: organic molecules have been found on Mars! It didn’t seem to matter that the carbon-containing molecules have absolutely nothing to do with cells, especially methane (CH4, the simplest hydrocarbon). Reporters were primed to go nuts, and on cue, they did.
NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars (JPL News)
Nasa: Building blocks of life on Mars found (BBC News).
NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars (Astrobiology Magazine).
Curiosity Rover Finds Ancient ‘Building Blocks for Life’ on Mars (Mike Wall at Space.com)
Rover detects ancient organic material on Mars – and it could be trace of past life (Monica Grady at The Conversation)
Life on Mars? Rover’s Latest Discovery Puts It ‘On the Table’ (New York Times)
Nasa Mars discovery: ‘Ingredients for life’ on red planet bring us closer than ever to finding extra-terrestrials, scientists say (The Independent)
Massive Mars discovery: Organic molecules ‘fundamental to our search for life’ found by NASA rover (Fox News) Et tu, Fox News?
Fortunately, a few reporters showed at least some epistemic modesty this time. All but the last in the following list still believes in Mars life; they just agree NASA didn’t prove it.
the fake news! Stop the titillation! Stick to the facts! This is not just bad science; it is anti-science. Belief that mindless molecules will organize themselves into machines and functioning beings is the stuff of comic books, not of a respectable scientific institution." CEH
For without are...whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Revelation 22:15
Sorry to disappoint you, reader, but there is no life on Mars. What NASA found is not life—not even close. And there are good reasons for doubting life will ever be found there, unless earthlings send it on intelligently-designed spacecraft.
- The soil has high levels of toxic perchlorates
- The dust is electrically charged, making the dry atmosphere zinging with static
- Temperatures are well below the freezing point of water most of the time
- Mars orbits outside the habitable zone
- Percival Lowell was proved wrong when NASA spacecraft failed to see his hoped-for canals
NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars (JPL News)
Fortunately, a few reporters showed at least some epistemic modesty this time. All but the last in the following list still believes in Mars life; they just agree NASA didn’t prove it.
- There May Be Life on Mars, But This NASA Report Doesn’t Prove It (Rafi Letzer at Live Science).
- These are exciting findings, published as twin papers in the journal Science today (June 7). But they aren’t proof of life on Mars, or even necessarily strong evidence that there’s anything living, or anything that used to be alive, out there. The organic compounds aren’t even the first molecules of their kind found on Mars, though they are the oldest.“We can explain both of these things with geological processes,” said Inge Loes ten Kate, an astrobiologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands who wrote a commentary for Science accompanying the two papers.
- Curiosity Didn’t Find Life on Mars — But These 2 Future Rovers Might (Mike Wall at Space.com). Perhaps Wall was having second thoughts about his other headline.
- Much Ado About Martian Organics (Evolution News).
For without are...whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Revelation 22:15
