Chlorophyll on Mars? (1 Viewer)

[Julie K]

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
BBC overstated the results

 

[Jack Briggs]

*sighs*

Well, some day, somehow, humans will reach the surface of Mars. But I'm not surprised by this latest development.

Good thread, Julie. You've kept it on track.

 

[BrianW]

Personally, I don’t think the results were overstated at all. They never said they discovered chlorophyll on Mars. They said only that certain parts of an image of the Martian landscape exhibited spectra absorption characteristics of chlorophyll, and they even further qualified that by stating that they tested the image at only fifteen discrete frequencies of light. They even acknowledged that three of the areas in question were on the lander itself, and they more than readily acknowledged that there may be many substances that exhibit the same absorption characteristics under the same conditions.

I understand the need to downplay unconfirmed or uncorroborated results, and I certainly understand the need to avoid jumping to inaccurate and unwarranted conclusions based on limited empirical data. But I believe the article Julie first linked us to was very reserved in its portrayal of the experimental results. Far from proving that chlorophyll positively exists on Mars, the only thing the experiment did was to demonstrate that we cannot yet rule out the existence of chlorophyll on Mars. I believe the article made this quite clear, though it may take another scientist to understand that, as experiments go, this isn’t accomplishing very much.