Looked around and didn't see this posted yet (although I probably just missed it)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/0...eut/index.html

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

WOW for that information!

But...

Claim of Martian Life Called 'Bogus'

What a shame for a scientific man to call BOGUS the work of another profesionals. Painfull to read.

Ouch---the findings will be presented tomorrow.
The Rovers weren't set up to confirm or deny this hypothesis?

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*

According to the MER home page, the scientific instrument package on the rovers are:

While their mission is part of the broader Life on Mars experiment, their main job is finding and following water.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

I disagree. It seemed to be a well reasoned statement. Quoting:

Norman Pace, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado, is skeptical of the new claims. "It sounds bogus to me," Pace told SPACE.com. "I don't consider the chemical results to be particularly credible in light of the hash conditions that Mars offers."

The fact is that there just isn't that much information available from the experiments. At most you can speculate. And that's what they're doing. Also from the article:

"If we assume these gases were produced during the breakdown of organic material together with hydrogen peroxide solution, we can calculate the masses needed to produce the volume of gas measured," Houtkooper explained.

Houtkooper and his colleague Dirk Schulze-Makuch from Washington State University speculate that an organism based on hydrogen peroxide and water could survive the harsh martian climate, in which temperatures rarely rise above freezing and can reach -238 degrees Fahrenheit (-150 degrees Celsius) at the poles. The hydrogen peroxide would act like antifreeze for the cell, preventing its insides from crystallizing due to the cold.

(Emphasis added). It seems likely that the popular press is making more out of a speculative argument than was intended.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Does bogus means fraudulent? If so, them's fightin' words.

Originally. Lately, it's taken on a bigger role, in the US at least: bad, misleading, ridculous, silly, useless, wrong.

Orion437, in the light of this usage, does it pain you to hear one scientist call another's work "wrong"?

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As implying a deliberate deception? No, I might say that an improperly written program produces "bogus results." That doesn't mean the writer (which might be me) deliberately wrote the program to produce bad results. Or I might say that (for example) the argument that the surface of the sun is solid iron based on some images is a "bogus conclusion." That is, I'm trying to say the process used to arrive at the conclusion wasn't a valid one. It doesn't require that the person arriving at the conclusion knows it was invalid.

I take his comment as an indication he thinks the argument is very wrong, as I do the solid iron sun argument.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

This is not exactly a shiny, new thought.

Washington State University News, 2007 January 8

===

BA Blog: Are Martians blonds?

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Not at all. There is a big difference between calling it "bogus" or "wrong".

They've been declaring that they've found "evidence that maybe there might have once been life that could have done this" for every soil sample they've taken. Until they find cell walls, or active chemical processes, or something concrete and direct it's speculative.

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Yes; and a leaf on my driveway is evidence that a bald eagle may have put it there.
That's been my question since the story broke... What do we need to do to use that minor piece of information and expand on it? What other chemicals, byproducts, tests, whatever are associated with H2O2 life?

The BA expresses my opinion:

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

You missed my point. There is not a big difference. You're focusing on the traditional: counterfeit meaning. To do so is... bogus.

(Edit: Upon a re-read, did I miss your point? When you said "not at all" did you mean that it no longer pains you to hear the work described as bogus -- because you now know that "bogus" can mean "wrong"? If so, I apologize for these details. Or, was your "not at all" an indication that your feeling hasn't changed? If so, continue on.)

Did you see the "hacker slang" entry lower on the page?

In American slang, bogus can just mean wrong. This hacker slang meaning moved into common slang in the 1980s:

Wiktionary: bogus

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Yes, I'm so used to the "bogus=wrong" definition that I was a bit surprised that this was brought up in the first place. I might use "bogus" to emphasize something is wrong, but before this thread, it wouldn't have occurred to me that some people would assume I was implying fakery just by using that word.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

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Planetary Society Weblog: Doug Ellison: Europlanet : Life's a bleach

Edit: I meant to add: Doug Ellison is djellison here. Yay, Doug!

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That's exactly what I suspected. As I said before -

It seems likely that the popular press is making more out of a speculative argument than was intended.

I liked this comment from here:

Ironically, despite the big-name media reporting on this event so widely - I see none of their journalists at Europlanet. Thanks to The Planetary Society - yours truly will actually be there.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Here if something is bogus it means it's good. Go figure...

3. False. “Your arguments are bogus.”

You are right. I guess i didn´t expect to see such slang language from a science man and maybe a "wrong" or "incorrect" "or "false" would be much more apropiatte. Nevermind.

Argumenting, presenting pros and cons is normal part of scientific inquiry. I think that is "painful" to you because you do not like that he said.

And yes, "bogus" here means "wrong", not "fake".

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Sanity is overrated.
Butterfly.

Wouldn't it really mean false but deliberate. Like a straw-man argument raised for a reason. In this case to point out possible alternative interpretations of results, rather that to actually erect a hypothesis.

The 'hacker' definitions refer to nuaunced terms eg 'broken' has been effectively redefined as 'defective', even 'wrong' = 'perverse'. In any case there remains a hostile overtone to 'bogus' and is a little inappropriate, imo. 'Spurious' might have been a better term to use.

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plenty of woo, at the hotel hoagaland...

No, it can just mean "wrong."

I didn't see anything inappropriate with it. Part of the problem is the definition you're used to, and as I said, I was a bit surprised this was brought up in the first place. I think people are reading into it something other than what was intended. Also, we didn't hear exactly what the question to Pace was that warranted the response. We've already seen that the press didn't accurately represent the argument. I know that my response would be a lot stronger if somebody said there was a claim that Viking found life on Mars based on an unusual argument, instead of what this really was: A clearly stated speculative argument about looking for other possibilities.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Dude, science isn't science without the ability for people to tell other people they're wrong (and then show why). Frankly, the professions need more people calling them on their excesses or mistakes. Reverence and deference aren't good if you want to get to the bottom of something.

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There is definitely a difference between saying that conclusions are wrong and that they are bogus. Someone claiming that one of my papers was wrong i would accept as being part of the game. Claims that it was bogus I would see as an attack on my personal integrity.

As to the original topic, while I think the I think the speculation in question unlikely it is certainly most interesting and worthy of further investigation. I can't see how anyone would call it bogus unless either they were misusing the word or had an axe to grind.

Jon

this whole thread is bogus, dude..

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I wouldn't. Where do you live?

Or were used to a different, commonly used, definition.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

It's irrelevant to the issue.

Or were used to a different, commonly used, definition.[/QUOTE]

I have checked a half a dozen online dictionaries and the word "bogus" has meanings such as "false, fraudulant, dishonest, not genuine, counterfeit" in all of them.

Jon

It most certainly is relevant. There are regional differences in common usage. For instance, it's quite clear that British use is different from common American use. I will say it again: It would not occur to me that this was such a horrible thing to say. If I want to say something is wrong, I might well say that "it is bogus." (After this thread, I think I'll make a point of doing it.)

What's so bad about saying a conclusion is false or incorrect? By the way, definitions evolve.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

It most certainly is relevant. There are regional differences in common usage. For instance, it's quite clear that British use is different from common American use..[/QUOTE]

Not at all. The dictionary definition from a wide range of sources is substantially the same, regardless of ethnicity.

Encarta

1. fake or deceitful: false, dishonest, or fraudulently imitating something
2. bad or useless: not good, pleasant, or acceptable ( slang )
[Early 19th century. Bogus, a machine for producing counterfeit money]

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/featur...fid=1861591603

Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary

false, not real or not legal

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/defi...8602&dict=CALD

Oxford Dictionary

not genuine or true.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/bogus?view=uk

American Heritage Dictionary

Counterfeit or fake; not genuine: bogus money; bogus tasks.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/86/B0368600.html

Cambridge American English dictionary

not what it appears or claims to be; false but made to look real

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/defi...gus*1+0&dict=A

Merriam-Webster's

not genuine, counterfeit, sham

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionar...onary&va=bogus

Wiktionary

counterfeit, fake, phony, incorrect, useless, broken, illegal

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bogus

Online Plain Text English Dictionary

Spurious; fictitious; sham; -- a cant term originally applied to counterfeit coin, and hence denoting anything counterfeit.

http://www.onelook.com/?other=web1913&w=Bogus

(I am not sure whether all these links will work freely, they are from online support at work).

Yes, definitions evolve. But the definition of "bogus" in general usage has not evolved, as the links show.

A conclusion can be false or incorrect, without being bogus. Saying that a conclusion is bogus implies deliberate dishonesty. I have no problem with saying that a conclusion is dishonest either, but please, let's have some evidence for that before we do.

In this case, the suggestion is speculative and is quite possibly wrong. But it is not incompentent

The suggestion by David Levin about water puddling in Endurance crater was wrong and incompetent, but not dishonest.

Hoagland is dishonest and the content of his web site bogus.

With respect to the original hypothesis about Martian life, note, we have no way of testing whether is is correct or incorrect at present. results from Phoenix may help. However it does enable people to think outside the box and better evaluate and design future life hunting experiments on Mars. Therefore it is a very useful speculation, regardless whether it is right or wrong.

Jon

Not when I say it, or many other people I know. Your argument is, quite simply, bogus.

Are you going to accuse me of dishonesty? Did you bother to read this post:

Study: Martian soil may contain life

Is he being dishonest?

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

The original researcher was not dishonest in the presentation of their conclusions in a peer review paper. The quoted commentary on by Pace ("this sounds bogus") is not justified by the available evidence.

You are simply refusing to admit you are wrong in your use of the language when faced with abundant documented evidence to the correct meaning of the term "bogus". Your failure to face facts is noted. Whether this is dishonest is not for me to say.

Jon