They're telling secrets.
"You see, Jimmy, when a echinoderm really loves another echinoderm..." Of course, the three way situation spices things up a bit, but this is Mars after all.

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Lyford Rome
"Zis is not nuts, zis is super-nuts!"
Mathematician Richard Courant on viewing an Orion test

I mean it's not like don't know what a real Martian looks like...

But there's some really bad astronomy in that picture! :wink:

Yep. There's no laces on those shoes and the shawdows don't align, even when compensating for curvature.

He didn't. A completely made up honour granted by someone without authority to do so. The explanation is a mixture of wishful thinking and wilful misinterpretation.

I have a question. well maybe more but this one is one i would want to have answered ....
know that I see what I see and that I know what a
urchin looks like and a sand dollar and sharks teeth and a sea shell
even fossil ones. Why would anyone say that I am wrong ?
if then that is the case and none of what I see is
really what I do see then, my question is this, How can the courts use
images then....if Phil Plaits thoughts are correct or is it only in regards
to anyone seeing things that are from NASA only? a question I would like
to hear Phil Plaits answer too.

food for thought : the "lies will stop when we stop
listening to them." Power is given only when we as individuals listen.
when a child cries wolf to many times what happens? they are ignored.

[/quote]

__________________
....who know what evil lurks in the heart of man......... the Shadow knows............

contempt prior to investigation..........hmmmmmmmm......... food for thought.

Well, not to speak for the BA but have you read this?

Especially look at this site.

What you "see" isn't always what "is".

edited once for spelling

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

And Shadow, welcome to the BABB!

__________________
Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.
These days, every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he knows what a photon is, but he is wrong. - Albert Einstein

Welcome Shadow.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure a photo of something alone would be taken as proof, and when it is, there usually has to be documentation of how the photo was created and an examination of the photo for changes.

For example, a photo taken in a bank of a robbery... the prosecutor won't just hand a photo to the jury, say "that's the guy" and that would be the end of the story. The photo would have to be entered into evidence, there would probably be testimony from the bank personnel about the system that took the photo, there would be records of how the photo was tranferred out of the bank's system and into police custody, and there would be eyewitness testimony of the robbery to collaborate what is shown in the photograph.

And that is exactly the point we are making. People are "handing" us photos, saying looks like a goldfish, and expecting that this is proof of goldfish on Mars.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Are these fossils?



or these



or this

Ewwww - don't touch it! You don't know where its been! Are those concretions or coprolites?

What follows is purely my speculation :

Now even though the rovers aren't designed for exopaleobiology, if a lot of reputable, renown paleontologists said "AHA!!!! Let's get some pics of that" in response to a press release photo (provided the rover was still in the area, say Opportunity in Endurance), I don't think JPL would just ignore them. Imagine something resembling a stromatolite gets imaged, and even if the team doesn't recognize it, they get calls from several different university departments about it. I think they would try to figure a way to look more closely.

The fact that only a few "experts" are crying fossils means either:

1) There isn't any professionally accepted evidence in the pictures
2) The entire academic community is in on the secret.

Which is more likely?


edited for spellink, dahlink!

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Lyford Rome
"Zis is not nuts, zis is super-nuts!"
Mathematician Richard Courant on viewing an Orion test

Wouldn't this be funnier if it had a prehistoric foot print embedded in it?

They are all concretions, formed by abiotic processes.

That the "blueberries" are concretions make them no less interesting...just think of the conditions needed to form all those little buggers!

Wow!

No.

Sorry, don't want to stir up an old controversy. 8-[

No worries Candy, probably over-reaction on my part, but that's the first thing that came to mind.

Hello everyone and thank you for answering me in a timely manner.

In this day and age to think that one is prone to such scrutiny as I have seen lately on this board about the Mars images. It frightens me to think that one's opinion is often marked for death. My opinion only

Do you all question anything ?? about maybe what is seen is what it is ? have you ever thought that maybe just maybe you could be wrong ? Even in a simple matter as this is. If these are what you say they are then all is well but if it turns out your wrong then what?
A lot of people tend to think that the work Sir Charles is doing is serious enough to let him know he is on the right path his benefactor is agreeing with him as to have him continue his work as he stated in the interview with Art Bell. I have no reason to beleive that he would lie about something as huge as this. And to risk his livelyhood on it. From what I have read in the postings here that you dont think to highly of him. And my questjon is do you all know him personaly? also the question of knighthood was explained in his first radio show with Art Bell.
Yes, I have done some home work and looked at past postings of the issue of Sir Charles Shults III . How come he never answered your questions? the thing that bothers me the most is that. I have talked with many that said that he could be banned from this site for his claims if that is true then how can you debate what he claims if he has no way to answer your claims?

All I am doing is asking questions here and nothingelse. It is a logical conclusion to draw on this end.
As I dont know the protocal for this group I am sorry for the directness of my questions.

A newbie yes and a hopefull person for a better future, but to be called a bad newbie ...lol I hope my opinion is not the reason why im called a bad newbie. That would be just too strange. Is questioning you wrong? If so I will refrain from doing that then. I will just read like before.

8)

__________________
....who know what evil lurks in the heart of man......... the Shadow knows............

contempt prior to investigation..........hmmmmmmmm......... food for thought.

That's not the way it really works in science (as has been pointed out many times on this board.) Being bound by the scientific method means restricting your conclusions to empirical results. Ever since the Mars images started being posted it seemed obvious to me that large-scale water processes had to have been responsible for some of the features - long before the NASA teams came to this conclusion. Does that make me smarter or sharper than them? Nope. That just means that my impression was a whole lot easier to draw than their conclusion. In other words, they can actually give an empirical answer to the question, "How can you be sure?".

In science, speculation is always wrong in the terms of conclusions. That means if your conclusion turns out to be right, but your methodology turned out to be wrong, you still don't get credit for the discovery. It's the proofs that count - the conclusions just happens to get all the print.

[Prepares for barrage of nitpicks :P]

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In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

The protocal for this group is easy to understand....

If an extraordinary claim is made here, we will require that it be supported by evidence...

"Sir Charles'" theory's have no supporting evidence...

It's that simple...

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Hello and Thank You again for the timely manner in which you replied.

I will try to restrain my questions next time.... thank you for the heads up on the nit picking . I sorta figured it out after reading all the postings.

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....who know what evil lurks in the heart of man......... the Shadow knows............

contempt prior to investigation..........hmmmmmmmm......... food for thought.

Claiming that they would be banned for their claims is a common way of voiding the issues. If BA banned people because they disagreed with him or made outragus claims, I doubt there would be many people left on this board at all. The only way to get yourself banned here is to deliberatle break the FAQ Rules, such as being abusive, repeatedly refusing to answer questions while ignoring responses, using sock puppets or using ad hominems. There is a thread in BBABling which discussed banned posters and why they were banned, I've yet to see anyone banned simply for stating something wierd and I've seen a lot of people post wierd stuff, from Fossils on Mars to geocentrism to glass tunnels on Mars, to Aliens on the moon, to the Moon being in the wrong place and so on.
He would indeed be quite welcome here, as long as he follows the board rules and remains polite, it's that simple, and the same is expected of everyone.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I think you will find that questions here are treated with a great measure of patience and respect - in fact, the BA insists on that. Assertions are usually met with a call for evidence, which doesn't always make it friendly toward posting speculation, but that's the nature of discussions involving science. There is plenty of good science discussed here and I have learned a good bit from reading and asking questions.

Nitpicks can bruise one's ego, but also can expand one's mind. :P

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In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

Um...I hate to quibble but...this entire thread is nothing but ad homs against this guy. He is probably a quack (I heard his interview and was not impressed, to say the least), but, really, shouldn't this site be better than this?

Could someone address his claims? Or is the only thing needed to refute his points personal attacks against him? If his claims are not worth discussing, then neither is he, I should think.

Or am I off base here?

If you're seeing them in images from Mars, I'd say you're highly likely to be wrong because eminent astrobiology experts on the MER science team are not saying likewise, people like:

Andy Knoll, Harvard paleobotanist

Jack Farmer, PhD paleontology, Arizona State astrobiologist

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Another part of the scientific method is to ask questions. That's why it appears that we question everything (we do). Don't feel you have to restrain your questions. But if you ask a question, you might not get the answer you want :wink:

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

This is a email I got from Sir Charles today. any comments?


From: Sir Charles W. Shults III <NOaichipSPAM@cfl.rr.com>
To: Shadow <tlsadler@cfl.rr.com>
Subject: Re: banned from BA?
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 11:53:56 -0400
This is because when I tried to post a message on the board it said I
was a banned user.

Cheers!

Sir Charles W. Shults III, K. B. B.
Xenotech Research
321-206-1840

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shadow" <tlsadler@cfl.rr.com>
To: <aichip@cfl.rr.com>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2004 07:58
Subject: banned from BA?


> Sir Charles,
>
> I have been reading in the newsgroup Bad Astronomy that your work is
> all wrong. One thing that is bothering me is why you haven't replied to
> answer these questions.
> Once again thank you for your work and keep it up.
>
>
> Shadow


Well that answered one of them.

__________________
....who know what evil lurks in the heart of man......... the Shadow knows............

contempt prior to investigation..........hmmmmmmmm......... food for thought.

Shadow, you may want to edit your post. In the FAQ:

You could just tell us that "Sir" Charles thinks he is banned. I don't remember him being banned, but perhaps he has come in under another name and broke the FAQ's. We had a lot of trolls soon after the rovers started producing pictures.

__________________
Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.
These days, every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he knows what a photon is, but he is wrong. - Albert Einstein

We need to find out what "Sir Charles'" user name was...and why he was banned, before we can determine what's going on.

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Even if you had a image that REALLY looks like a fossil critter (and I really don't think any of those images on the page do...is he claiming that all the bajillions of hematite globules on Meridiani Planum are all urchins?), appearances are can be deceiving.
I mean it's obvious that the sun goes around the earth, I see it every day.You need to use more than your eyes, "even in a simple matter as this is."
And welcome to the board! I apologize if my images are taken as mockery, I do get silly at times. While I agree ad hominum attacks shouldn't even be seen here, I do feel it is fair game to lampoon positions and "evidence." There's a big difference between saying someone is a no good so and so and making fun of their arguments.

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Lyford Rome
"Zis is not nuts, zis is super-nuts!"
Mathematician Richard Courant on viewing an Orion test

Hello everyone
I thank you asgain for your answers in a timely manner.

I am not very good at conveying my thoughts here so please bare with me. I do appoligize for my lack of high tech wording. I am not used to this.
Please forgive my lack of censorship in the email I recieved from Sir Charles. I had emailed hiim and let him know what i had done. I am waiting to hear from him.
I think that if you saw a sea shell you would know it. Youv'e held one even played with them. rolling them around in your hand as you turned this way and that. what i dont understand is if you have done this why is it that when you see one from another planet you dont beleive what you see? knowing that it is what it is. Makes me think alot about the sciences if they clasim to understand more then lets say a child that has played with sea shells and to tell them that it isnt makes them think ok these people are lying to me and wil not beleive what they say anymore.doesnt matter what your lable is either PHD's or others.... my point is this. If having all these letters makes you better at telling me what is or isnt a shell then I would think maybe someone has to go back to college and learn more.

I am trying not to be difficult here just trying to understand is all......
I wonder if anyone can see this reasoning.....besides me.


once again thank you for your time.

__________________
....who know what evil lurks in the heart of man......... the Shadow knows............

contempt prior to investigation..........hmmmmmmmm......... food for thought.