[meteorite-list] re Hoagland etc

From: webbth_at_appstate.edu <webbth_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:02:26 2004
Message-ID: <Pine.PMDF.4.21L.0203080859090.697225864-100000_at_appstate.edu>

Stu,
As one educator to another, "well spoken"!
Thomas


On Fri, 8 Mar 2002 STUARTATK_at_aol.com wrote:

> 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 )
>
>
>
Received on Fri 08 Mar 2002 08:01:04 AM PST