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Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

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Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#91

Post by rsheridan6 »

gbog wrote: post #40
rsheridan6 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. If aliens exist and are able to travel to our vicinity, we're probably screwed as a species.

What is nice with alien is that we really don't know. So the sentence above tells much more about your pessimism than about aliens.

Any alien lifeform that can reproduce would be subject to Darwinian natural selection. It would tend to grow exponentially, if the resources were available, and if you do the math, the universe ain't big enough for more than one exponentially reproducing species.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#92

Post by Fargren »

kzrdude wrote: post #65
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love (sarcasm) how a supposedly technologically superior and enlightened species of non-earth intelligent beings would only be out to destroy or punish us, according to science fiction and a lot of people.

Do you remember what happened when the europeans travelled around the world? 90% of populations died from new illnesses. They basically saw nothing ill in settling and displacing the remaining population.

Well, alien illness probably won't kill us. Without a common ancestry, it's highly unlikely that anything that uses an alien as a host can live in our bodies.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#93

Post by petercooper »

Bjartr wrote: post #21
writtles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You're implying that this is an antenna from an Earth spacecraft?

Well, it's a more reasonable explanation than aliens at least.

I dunno. We did find that WW2 bomber on the moon once.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/62440303@N04/5683785190/

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#94

Post by crusso »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

I find these things fun, of course some folks want to find alien technology, but I remind people that we've lost roughly 2/3rds of all the probes and ships that we've sent to Mars [1]. Since there isn't a lot of stuff covering them up, eventually we may find a bit of antenna from the Mars Observer sticking up where the spacecraft attempted to fly through the planet. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mar…

Why those things?

My first thought is that it's a vein of metal that is exposed.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#95

Post by crusso »

hdivider wrote: post #24
mistercow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however sceptical, can immediately rule out the possibility that stuff like this is some form of life or even evidence of non-human technology. You can never completely rule out that possibility, regardless of how much evidence you collect, but it's a matter of semantics at that point. Immediately and without collecting anymore data, we can dismiss the hypothes…

"Seeing possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in every unexpected observation is nothing more than a superstition." I agree, and I hope I didn't give the impression that this is what we should be doing. This thing is still just an observation - it's not evidence of anything yet. My point was this: we know of things that would effectively rule out the 'life as we know it on Mars' hypothesis (e.g. absolutely no ev…

If you want to understand the "huh?" reactions you're getting, you might want to wrap your mind around the idea that it's effectively impossible to prove a negative.

Take a look at Russell's Teapot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russells_teapot

Follow that with careful study of Occam's Razor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#96

Post by crusso »

Bjartr wrote: post #21
writtles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You're implying that this is an antenna from an Earth spacecraft?

Well, it's a more reasonable explanation than aliens at least.

So those are the ONLY choices for the source of something metallic-looking on a roughly earth-like planet in our Solar System?

A. Aliens

B. Piece of one of our own spacecrafts

I choose C. None of the above.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#97

Post by raldi »

mixmax wrote: post #47
raldi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people's religion has a huge effect on their daily lives, and news like this would have a huge impact on their faith. Also, the information we exchange with them would have a huge impact on everything. What if they have the secret to efficient solar power? Or AI?

religions have an uncanny ability to either ignore scientific facts or bend their religion to fit with the facts. Remember that originally it was thought that the Earth was in the center of the universe because God had put it there. When the facts changed religion was eventually bent to acomodate the facts. Science changes and religion adapts.

Right. Note my comment didn't say religion would be destroyed.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#98

Post by crusso »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #63
rsheridan6 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. If aliens exist and are able to travel to our vicinity, we're probably screwed as a species.

I love (sarcasm) how a supposedly technologically superior and enlightened species of non-earth intelligent beings would only be out to destroy or punish us, according to science fiction and a lot of people.

enlightened species

Name the occurrence in the history of our planet where the much-more advanced/capable species did not displace and diminish the indiginent one. In many cases, the more advanced or aggressive species completely wiped out the existing one.

There's a lot more that's extremely unlikely in the Star Trek universe besides just transporter beams and faster-than-light travel.

A sufficiently advanced species might not feel any more compunction about eradicating the human race than I would feel about eradicating mosquitoes.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#99

Post by mistercow »

mistercow wrote: post #17
hdivider wrote: post #6

I'm certainly not an expert on this, but I'd say the most important number to think about when looking at rover images is the scale . "the little protuberance is probably about 0.5 cm tall, or even smaller." Five mm is obviously tiny. Keep this in mind before making up hypotheses as to what the thing is. =) We have to wait until better data is available. What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however…

> What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however sceptical, can immediately rule out the possibility that stuff like this is some form of life or even evidence of non-human technology. You can never completely rule out that possibility, regardless of how much evidence you collect, but it's a matter of semantics at that point. Immediately and without collecting anymore data, we can dismiss the hypothes…

There's a [dead] reply taking me to task on my use of the word "superstition" because apparently Wikipedia thinks that superstitions have to be beliefs in the supernatural. Like all semantic arguments, this is boring and dumb, but in point of fact, the first definition in every dictionary I can find supports my usage.

Here's Random House:

a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.

Re: Curiosity images strange metallic-looking object on Mars

#100

Post by mistercow »

hdivider wrote: post #24
mistercow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's fascinating in itself though is that no person, however sceptical, can immediately rule out the possibility that stuff like this is some form of life or even evidence of non-human technology. You can never completely rule out that possibility, regardless of how much evidence you collect, but it's a matter of semantics at that point. Immediately and without collecting anymore data, we can dismiss the hypothes…

"Seeing possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in every unexpected observation is nothing more than a superstition." I agree, and I hope I didn't give the impression that this is what we should be doing. This thing is still just an observation - it's not evidence of anything yet. My point was this: we know of things that would effectively rule out the 'life as we know it on Mars' hypothesis (e.g. absolutely no ev…

>We could then put Mars in the same category as the Moon when it comes to the life hypothesis. This is not the case - so I'd say a search for evidence of life on Mars (past or even present) is justified.

Of course searching for evidence of current or past life on Mars is justified. But there is a huge difference between searching for evidence, and declaring every anomalous discovery to be potential evidence. In addition, the hypothesis "a technological civilization has lived on/visited/probed Mars" is a minuscule subset of the hypothesis "there is, or has been, some form of life on Mars".

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