originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: wildespace
See, you're more concerned with being right or wrong, like it's an ego kind of thing.
...You seem to think that science people are some kind of androids, devoid of human deficiencies. That they can't go wrong. The minute somebody posts
something that contradicts the general concensus, "science" comes with the "DATA" to claim you stupid and gullible.
Now I don't mind data...what I mind is your religious belief in it, and hence...a human interpretation of it...which in the end...so often turns out
wrong.
Mainstream science knows that scientists can be wrong. In fact, for every scientist who postulates a hypothesis or theory, there are a multitude of
other scientists out there who try to poke holes in that hypothesis or theory, or try to find problems with the data or data collection methods.
That's why I said science is perpetually self-correcting (or at the very least it is self-scrutinizing). The scientific method encourages scientists
to scrutinize the theories put forth by another scientist.
Science also understands that the available data on a given subject may be incomplete. However, they do try to gain an understanding of a system
based on the data that the DO have. For example, they may not have all of the data regarding the possibilities of life on mars, but they can make the
statement that "There is no evidence of life on Mars" based on the fact that they do not have any definitive evidence of life on Mars...
...But please be aware that the statement "There is no evidence of life on Mars" is
not the same as saying "There is no life on Mars".
Those are two statements with different specific meanings.
Mainstream science well understands that it does not have all of the data to make a definitive statment about life on Mars. Therefore, mainstream
science would not say "there is no possibility of life on Mars". In fact, it is mainstream science that is coming up with hypotheses for possible
life on mars that is yet undetected. Mainstream science has hypotheses about life that may live beneath the surface of Mars.
Scientists find evidence Mars subsurface could hold life
According to the research authors, discovery of minerals formed through interaction with water in rocks excavated by meteorite impact at the
McLaughlin site provides "strongest evidence yet" that the subsurface of the planet may have supported simple micro-organisms in the past and that the
Martian subsurface could still contain life.
Here is an example of a group of mainstream scientists from the University of Hawaii working under the NASA Astrobiology Institute who have proposed a
hypothesis that their could be a biosphere related to lava tubes, and it wants to investigate the possibility that Mars' lava tubes may be a place
where microbial life could exist (by studying the microbiology of analogous lave tubes on Earth).
Lava Tube Microbiology
The extreme nature of the surface environments on Mars appear to exclude extant biological habitation. However, the recent discovery of a
subsurface biosphere on Earth has focused attention on the possibility that life on Mars may have retreated to subsurface “oases” when surface
conditions became unfavorable..,
... Lava tubes form during differential cooling of flow during volcanic activity. Clear photographic evidence exists of lava tubes on Mars, e.g. on
Ceraunius Tholus. Analogues are common on earth and in particular in Hawaii, where over 20 lava tubes exist. ...
So mainstream science is fully aware that they do not have a complete enough amount of data from Mars to say for a certainty that there is no life.
Mainstream science has a lot of hypotheses about finding places where life does in fact exist (or at the very least, once existed) on Mars. Heck,
it's mainstream science (NASA researchers included) that is pushing the idea of potential life on Europa, Titan, and Enceladus. Most of the the
commonly known ideas about the potential for life on those moons comes from mainstream science, many from NASA-funded research.
However, the data that they do have so far for Mars does not support the idea that life definitely does exist on Mars. They have hypotheses, but
beyond presenting hypotheses, science is NOT in the business of unsupported speculation.
Hypotheses are the scientific process' version of speculation. however, a hypotheses will go no further without being able to be tested. And to be
able to support those hypotheses by testing them, data is required, and much of that data is incomplete. So do we need better and more complete data
to help us find life on Mars and elsewhere? Sure we do. But science should not state that life on Mars is a fact, just because some circumstantial
data may suggest the possibility. Any mainstream scientist who tries to prove a theory with circumstantial evidence may not hold up to the scrutiny
of the scientific process...
...And that's a good thing that the process is so rigorous. Grand speculation (through hypotheses) is still being done by mainstream science, so the
scientific process can be
progressive in thought through the process of speculative hypotheses, but the theories that get published need to
hold up under scrutiny.
edit on 12/11/2014 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)