[meteorite-list] re Hoagland etc

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From: STUARTATK_at_aol.com <STUARTATK_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:02:26 2004
Message-ID: <34.23d62260.29b9ab56_at_aol.com>

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Hi all,

Speaking personally, as a science Outreach educator who works in schools, the
famous Hoagland-fave "Face on Mars" has been an absolute *godsend*! :-)
Showing a slide of it to a class never fails to generate a mass exclamation
of "wow!"s or "cool!"s... which lets me tell the kids that yes, it *looks*
like a face true enough, but it's not **really** a face, just a mesa under
unusual lighting conditions... cue mass exclamations of "owwwww!"... then I
can continue: but actually kids, there *is* a face on Mars, a natural one,
and show them a slide of the crater Galle on the edge of the Argyre basin,
down in the southern hemisphere, and you'll see it has two central peaks
above a curved mountain range which, together, really do make it look like a
cosmic-scale "smiley face". My young audiences get a *huge* kick out of that,
actually a bigger kick than the thought that there's a face on Mars carved by
either ancient martians or, theory #2, space-travelling Egyptians who decided
to replicate the Sphinx on Cydonia... ;-)

I know Mr Hoagland has gone way beyond sensible speculation in this, and that
makes me sad, because I can't help thinking that if he turned his
considerable intellect towards practical Martian exploration he'd be a real
asset to the program. But he's chosen his path, so so be it. And yes, there's
now a whole "Mars Conspiracy" clique out there, who won't be told otherwise,
but that's okay, you know? In my day to day life, at work and after
(sometimes during!) the talks I give I still come up against people who
believe and insist that the Apollo landings were faked (CAPRICORN 1 has a
*lot* to answer for! ;-) ) and that we've never been further than low Earth
orbit... it's fun to argue the facts with them, I don't get worked-up about
it anymore. I look up at the Moon and *know* that people have been there, and
have looked back at Earth too, just as I know that one day we'll go to Mars
and the men and women of the first expedition will gaze up into a
dust-stained dusk sky and see Earth twinkling above the slopes of Olympus
Mons like a sapphire... and will instinctively reach for each others' hands
as they watch Earth *set*, and realise for the first time that they really
are a long, *long* way from home. It's a faith thing.

And in 100 years time, you just know that there'll be a museum and visitor
centre out there on the Cydonia plain, close to where the "Face" is, and
settlers will be able to show their native-born kids displays and models of
the so-called "Monuments of Mars", and they'll all laugh and wonder how
anyone could have imagined such a thing... while secretly wishing it had been
true.

As for what the public "want", I know what they want - they want "space" to
be exciting and interesting, they want some mysteries and puzzles. That's why
they so love seeing and holding the meteorites all of us collect. ("Real
rocks from space? wow! But how do we know huh?") I'm a science-type, most of
us on this List are, but I still wouldn't want to live in a world without
blurred pictures of "Bigfoot" or "Nessie", or faked photos of Roswell aliens,
or huge sculpted faces on Mars. To me they just make the "real stuff" even
more exciting and awesome... and there are many, many people out there who
have been drawn into "real science" after having their imagination fired
initially by fake stories and mistakes. A good number of the people who build
or even *fly* the shuttle were inspired by STAR TREK in their youth, and
no-one can claim that its green-skinned women or furry tribbles were good
science. :-)

To answer some recent points tho...

>>Having said that, as I understand it Mr Hoagland was one of the first people
>>to openly suggest that there may be primitive lifeforms beneath the ice on
>>Europa,

>As I understand it, there is no evidence that this statement is true.

Okay, this ***suggestion*** of mine has been countered by people much more
knowledgeable than myself. I just remembered reading it somewhere. Grovelling
apologies. ;-)

>>an idea which is almost universally accepted by exo-biologists now,

>An idea "universally accepted" by a group of scientists when there isn't a
shred of evidence to support it? Unlikely.

Please see the word *almost* in my statement - and okay, maybe being a little
optimistic, but it *is* a very popular and widely-supported theory now.

>>It's all good for debate and
>>increasing public interest in Mars, which is what we really need if we've to
>>have any hope of staging a manned mission anytime soon.

>It's all good for perpetuating long-standing conspiracy theories, outright
>lies, superstitions, and crank publications at the expense of real science
>content which is what the public _really_ wants but too often cannot get
>thanks to the nutcases setting the public agenda.

Well, people will believe what they want to believe, and we have to be
honest, there's a market for good science *and* a market for crud - as many
people went to see the appalling MISSION TO MARS (which boasted in advance
that it would be "accurate"... haha) and RED PLANET as went to see the
brilliant CONTACT (if not more... sigh...) Yes, a lot of the public want real
science content, and planetaris/museums/Discovery Channel et al cater for
them. But others just want to be entertained, couldn't give a monkey's about
how real the science behind the movie is, and the challenge facing people
like me, as an Outreach educator, and *us*, as a science-oriented net
community, is to combine entertainment with real science and bring them out
of the X-Files conventions and into their local planetarium, or the foyer of
JPL when there's a Mars mission in progress.

In schools I face kids who are obsessed by laser-toting aliens and really
believe in the existence of maraiding ET hordes. They're not "nutters" or
"Conspiracy theorists", they're just people - albeit little people! - who
don't know any better. Yet. My job is to show them the truth, and hope they
find it even more exciting than the latest episode of ANDROMEDA (which
wouldn't be hard, I know!). If I win-over half of them, I'm happy. But I
wouldn't ever want to snuff out their initial excitement just so I'd have won
a victory for "good science". The real world will come crashing down around
them soon enough.

Hoagland serves a purpose - he fires interest. He's not dangeous, not really.
The Truth really *is* out there, and being photographed by Mars Global
Surveyor in staggering detail.. so *much* detail that when it throws up
enigma like the "glass tubes" we struggle to explain it. But that's all part
of the fun and excitement and *process* of discovery. We'll get there in the
end. Until then let's not forget to smile, okay?

At the end of the day it's a big solar system, in a huge Universe. Plenty of
room for eccentrics and scientists alike I think. :-)

Stu

Stu

(articles at: www.newmars.com )

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<HTML>Hi all,
 
 Speaking personally, as a science Outreach educator who works in schools, the famous Hoagland-fave "Face on Mars" has been an absolute *godsend*! :-) Showing a slide of it to a class never fails to generate a mass exclamation of "wow!"s or "cool!"s... which lets me tell the kids that yes, it *looks* like a face true enough, but it's not **really** a face, just a mesa under unusual lighting conditions... cue mass exclamations of "owwwww!"... then I can continue: but actually kids, there *is* a face on Mars, a natural one, and show them a slide of the crater Galle on the edge of the Argyre basin, down in the southern hemisphere, and you'll see it has two central peaks above a curved mountain range which, together, really do make it look like a cosmic-scale "smiley face". My young audiences get a *huge* kick out of that, actually a bigger kick than the thought that there's a face on Mars carved by either ancient martians or, theory #2, space-travelling Egyptians who decided to replicate the Sphinx on Cydoni
a... ;-)
 
 I know Mr Hoagland has gone way beyond sensible speculation in this, and that makes me sad, because I can't help thinking that if he turned his considerable intellect towards practical Martian exploration he'd be a real asset to the program. But he's chosen his path, so so be it. And yes, there's now a whole "Mars Conspiracy" clique out there, who won't be told otherwise, but that's okay, you know? In my day to day life, at work and after (sometimes during!) the talks I give I still come up against people who believe and insist that the Apollo landings were faked (CAPRICORN 1 has a *lot* to answer for! ;-) ) and that we've never been further than low Earth orbit... it's fun to argue the facts with them, I don't get worked-up about it anymore. I look up at the Moon and *know* that people have been there, and have looked back at Earth too, just as I know that one day we'll go to Mars and the men and women of the first expedition will gaze up into a dust-stained dusk sky and see Earth twinkling above the sl
opes of Olympus Mons like a sapphire... and will instinctively reach for each others' hands as they watch Earth *set*, and realise for the first time that they really are a long, *long* way from home. It's a faith thing.
 
 And in 100 years time, you just know that there'll be a museum and visitor centre out there on the Cydonia plain, close to where the "Face" is, and settlers will be able to show their native-born kids displays and models of the so-called "Monuments of Mars", and they'll all laugh and wonder how anyone could have imagined such a thing... while secretly wishing it had been true.
 
 As for what the public "want", I know what they want - they want "space" to be exciting and interesting, they want some mysteries and puzzles. That's why they so love seeing and holding the meteorites all of us collect. ("Real rocks from space? wow! But how do we know huh?") I'm a science-type, most of us on this List are, but I still wouldn't want to live in a world without blurred pictures of "Bigfoot" or "Nessie", or faked photos of Roswell aliens, or huge sculpted faces on Mars. To me they just make the "real stuff" even more exciting and awesome... and there are many, many people out there who have been drawn into "real science" after having their imagination fired initially by fake stories and mistakes. A good number of the people who build or even *fly* the shuttle were inspired by STAR TREK in their youth, and no-one can claim that its green-skinned women or furry tribbles were good science. :-)
 
 To answer some recent points tho...
 
 >>Having said that, as I understand it Mr Hoagland was one of the first people
 >>to openly suggest that there may be primitive lifeforms beneath the ice on
 >>Europa,
 
 >As I understand it, there is no evidence that this statement is true.
 
 Okay, this ***suggestion*** of mine has been countered by people much more knowledgeable than myself. I just remembered reading it somewhere. Grovelling apologies. ;-)
 
 >>an idea which is almost universally accepted by exo-biologists now,
 
 >An idea "universally accepted" by a group of scientists when there isn't a
 shred of evidence to support it?  Unlikely.
 
 Please see the word *almost* in my statement - and okay, maybe being a little optimistic, but it *is* a very popular and widely-supported theory now.
 
 >>It's all good for debate and
 >>increasing public interest in Mars, which is what we really need if we've to
 >>have any hope of staging a manned mission anytime soon.
 
 >It's all good for perpetuating long-standing conspiracy theories, outright
 >lies, superstitions, and crank publications at the expense of real science
 >content which is what the public _really_ wants but too often cannot get
 >thanks to the nutcases setting the public agenda.
 
 Well, people will believe what they want to believe, and we have to be honest, there's a market for good science *and* a market for crud - as many people went to see the appalling MISSION TO MARS (which boasted in advance that it would be "accurate"... haha) and RED PLANET as went to see the brilliant CONTACT (if not more... sigh...) Yes, a lot of the public want real science content, and planetaris/museums/Discovery Channel et al cater for them. But others just want to be entertained, couldn't give a monkey's about how real the science behind the movie is, and the challenge facing people like me, as an Outreach educator, and *us*, as a science-oriented net community, is to combine entertainment with real science and bring them out of the X-Files conventions and into their local planetarium, or the foyer of JPL when there's a Mars mission in progress.
 
 In schools I face kids who are obsessed by laser-toting aliens and really believe in the existence of maraiding ET hordes. They're not "nutters" or "Conspiracy theorists", they're just people - albeit little people! - who don't know any better. Yet. My job is to show them the truth, and hope they find it even more exciting than the latest episode of ANDROMEDA (which wouldn't be hard, I know!). If I win-over half of them, I'm happy. But I wouldn't ever want to snuff out their initial excitement just so I'd have won a victory for "good science". The real world will come crashing down around them soon enough.
 
 Hoagland serves a purpose - he fires interest. He's not dangeous, not really. The Truth really *is* out there, and being photographed by Mars Global Surveyor in staggering detail.. so *much* detail that when it throws up enigma like the "glass tubes" we struggle to explain it. But that's all part of the fun and excitement and *process* of discovery. We'll get there in the end. Until then let's not forget to smile, okay?
 
 At the end of the day it's a big solar system, in a huge Universe. Plenty of room for eccentrics and scientists alike I think. :-)
 
 Stu
 
 
 
 
 Stu
 
 (articles at: www.newmars.com )
 
 </HTML>

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Received on Fri 08 Mar 2002 12:51:18 AM PST

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