Insects on Mars?


The DI didn't raise the idea of there being insects on Mars. That was the entomologist, William Romoser, and his speculation was duly reported by the DI as having been immediately cast doubt on by people like the biologist, David Maddison, who dismissed it as a pareidolic interpretation.

The DI states that "intelligent design is neutral on aliens, and not guilty of the inconsistent expectations that *McGrath alleges" [*McGrath is a new testament scholar, by the way]. I searched for, but did not find a statement containing 'consistent with "evidence"'). The nearest thing I found was this:

Such a broad scientific research program is consistent with the existence, or the non-existence, of aliens. If technology-bearing aliens exist, and if they are within our contact horizon, then one day we might detect their efforts to communicate with us. Although such alien contact is extremely unlikely, it is a potential example of detecting intelligent (alien) design. But the scientific integrity of intelligent design research would not be significantly affected by discovering (or repudiating) aliens.

In fact, the whole force of the article seems to be contra your disdainful dismissal, and in my view, this shows that:

a) You can't be bothered to read and digest information (maybe not even to read it properly in the first place),

b) You're constitutionally biased against the DI, and

c) People should consider ignoring your comment, and maybe other things, that you say.
 
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A strong argument for steering clear of eccentric outliers, and backing the rump consensus.
Well if mankind had followed your advice, we would still be in the stone age.

In the past it seems to me science was a bit more flexible. Claims like this would be recorded and mentioned from time to time without being immediately endorsed as fact or dismissed one way or another. That way, there was more chance for people to put two and two together where possible, but to let other things just go into obscurity.

David
 
A strong argument for steering clear of eccentric outliers, and backing the rump consensus.

Not at all. It isn't a question of deciding between only one of two things, viz. either to accept or reject based on consensus views. One can hold judgement in abeyance and consider the point, for the moment, moot or undecided, pending more evidence or testing.

Quite a lot of major breakthroughs in science and invention came about when a single or at most a few people weren't concerned either way with consensus: they just looked at a phenomenon and said to themselves: "If such-and-such were true (or false) what would the implication be?".

Like Ignaz Semmelweis, who asked himself: "what if disease can be spread by something on the hands that is invisible to the human eye?" He thought about it and enacted his hand-washing regime to test it, and, as we now know and have known for a long time, he was right. That "something", we now know, was the bacterium for puerperal fever.

He might have turned out to be wrong, which is why he tested it. It takes a very special kind of bigotry to reject something out of hand, and continue rejecting it, even when one is, like Semmelweiss, achieving results. The consensus, immediately formed at the time of his conjecture, was wrong. But would physicians admit it? Would they bloody hell, even in the face of evidence. Why? Because surgeons in particular sniffed their noses at the idea that lofty personages like themselves should need to wash their hands between handling cadavers and dealing with pregnant mothers.

It's quite possible that consensus opinion has been wrong at least as often as it has been right. That's not the problem: what is, is when people won't even listen to countervailing arguments, opinions, even supporting evidence based mainly on their fear of what colleagues might think. Might as well talk to a brick wall.

What I'm reiterating is that whenever one hears scientists say: "that can't be right and we'll oppose it", one needs to spend a little time personally examining any evidence to the contrary rather than automatically agreeing with them.

Resorting to consensus is the laziest defence against new and/or different ideas. It absolves one from the inclination to keep an open mind merely because other people say something is so. One has the crowd to back one up, and can feel safe without actually having to do the work finding and evaluating contrary evidence. If, as a result, one reaches a conclusion either in agreement or disagreement with consensus, one has at least done one's due diligence.

That is the problem with the current scientific atmosphere. Scientists have become lazy and want to save themselves from effort, and besides, why buck the trend when it can lead to opprobrium and possible censure, even dismissal from one's job? Why not just take the grant money and run?

I find it dismaying that we live in times where much dissent is automatically equated with error. It's almost as if science is viewed as unchangeable and immutable truth, and in such a milieu, it's likely to stagnate.

I've done my due diligence in a number of different areas. Sometimes I tend to agree with consensus, sometimes not, and sometimes remain neutral pending further evidence. Does one do one's due diligence? Or does one take the easy route and automatically agree with consensus? To those who routinely do the latter, I say Shame on you.
 
Not at all. It isn't a question of deciding between only one of two things, viz. either to accept or reject based on consensus views. One can hold judgement in abeyance and consider the point, for the moment, moot or undecided, pending more evidence or testing.

Quite a lot of major breakthroughs in science and invention came about when a single or at most a few people weren't concerned either way with consensus: they just looked at a phenomenon and said to themselves: "If such-and-such were true (or false) what would the implication be?".

Like Ignaz Semmelweis, who asked himself: "what if disease can be spread by something on the hands that is invisible to the human eye?" He thought about it and enacted his hand-washing regime to test it, and, as we now know and have known for a long time, he was right. That "something", we now know, was the bacterium for puerperal fever.

He might have turned out to be wrong, which is why he tested it. It takes a very special kind of bigotry to reject something out of hand, and continue rejecting it, even when one is, like Semmelweiss, achieving results. The consensus, immediately formed at the time of his conjecture, was wrong. But would physicians admit it? Would they bloody hell, even in the face of evidence. Why? Because surgeons in particular sniffed their noses at the idea that lofty personages like themselves should need to wash their hands between handling cadavers and dealing with pregnant mothers.

It's quite possible that consensus opinion has been wrong at least as often as it has been right. That's not the problem: what is, is when people won't even listen to countervailing arguments, opinions, even supporting evidence based mainly on their fear of what colleagues might think. Might as well talk to a brick wall.

What I'm reiterating is that whenever one hears scientists say: "that can't be right and we'll oppose it", one needs to spend a little time personally examining any evidence to the contrary rather than automatically agreeing with them.

Resorting to consensus is the laziest defence against new and/or different ideas. It absolves one from the inclination to keep an open mind merely because other people say something is so. One has the crowd to back one up, and can feel safe without actually having to do the work finding and evaluating contrary evidence. If, as a result, one reaches a conclusion either in agreement or disagreement with consensus, one has at least done one's due diligence.

That is the problem with the current scientific atmosphere. Scientists have become lazy and want to save themselves from effort, and besides, why buck the trend when it can lead to opprobrium and possible censure, even dismissal from one's job? Why not just take the grant money and run?

I find it dismaying that we live in times where much dissent is automatically equated with error. It's almost as if science is viewed as unchangeable and immutable truth, and in such a milieu, it's likely to stagnate.

I've done my due diligence in a number of different areas. Sometimes I tend to agree with consensus, sometimes not, and sometimes remain neutral pending further evidence. Does one do one's due diligence? Or does one take the easy route and automatically agree with consensus? To those who routinely do the latter, I say Shame on you.

Mr Larkin, what you have written should be etched into so many minds as a catechism. In all cultures there is a consensus that is formed, and to which conformity is expected as a matter of course. Failure to conform is seen as madness or a threat. The tyranny of the normal is a terrible thing for anybody who dares to imagine something different. We shoot messengers routinely because we are defending something special - a shared sense of the real - which is, by implication, true.

That sense of the real is a consensus of thought and emotion fused into a discourse that becomes the articulation of the normal. In religious life it is deep meditation and mystical experience that violate the emotional norms. In intellectual life it is inspired or deeply reasoned thought that disrupts the normal conception of the real.

The question as to whether we do due diligence on our opinions has a great deal to do with what our intent is. Is it truth seeking in that fearless way of daring to become an enemy of the consensual? Or do we function within accepted norms and imagine ‘truth’ is just a cleverer extension of what is accepted - a mere form of social art?

It didn’t take a century for quantum science to be accepted because thousands of scientists were beavering away attempting to confirm pesky theories that eluded confirmation. There was a cultural opposition to a vision of reality that could not fit with what is normal. In the same manner post materialist thought does massive damage to the comfort zone of materialism - so denial seems like a good thing, a mercy.

Human history is littered with the pain wracked and dead bodies of radicals with sharp metaphysical and intellectual pins taken to be enemies of the collective consensual bubble. We are not good at dealing with people who prick us. The dominant religion of course culture is centred on the glyph of a man tortured for being a pain. You don’t have to be a Christian or a believer to acknowledge the psychology of the symbolism of the cross. I do not invoke that image as a believer, but as an observer. When the symbolism and dogma is stripped away what we have is a whistleblower punished for saying what we thing is real and true and good is not as we imagine, trust and believe.

Whether we do our ‘due diligence’ or not we are not accounting to the consensual community of the norm, but to something much deeper, more fundamental.
 
i am an "electric universe" advocate and believe that Mars was once in a different orbit and had a flourishing civilization. Mars is a catastrophically ruined world. Rubble everywhere. The wreckage of a forgotten world. Insects .... yes...
 
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