Three days ago the NYTimes's Kenneth Chang wrote up in solid style NASA's latest microscopic iteration of its endless parade of water-on-Mars-and-ain't-we-having-astrobiological-fun? press announcements. At which, after reading not only that story but the 200-plus comments that the Times deemed fit to print that follow it, I find myself shaking head in wonder and dismay. What a stupefying mix of brilliance, dementia, waggish remark, and inability even to recognize humor that this fine newspaper's readership is cabable of generating by the torrent!
The news is of course worth covering even if the rover Curiosity on Mars has, far as I can tell, not yet profoundly changed the scientific view of Martian astrobiology. Its gist, as Chang summarizes things, is that maybe Mars has or had life, there is no proof of that, but the place sure has had its share of rivulets and rivers and surely lakes and perhaps oceans and ergo it's still got lots of H20 underground. It's been that way for decades, with the main achievement being the assembly of a very long list of minerals confirmed to be there and that are commonly (on Earth) associated with watered places.
That is, this particular story may be fine and stimulating but should not be a distinct fulcrum on which to pin such an outpouring of opinion and declaration. Have you ever done that yourselves, o wondrous tracker readership members? Just sit down and plow through a huge commentary archive on a story that at first glance is complete in itself? It is mesmerizing, inspiring, and in long stretches painfully tedious. Is there a sociology of this genus of on line commentary? Are there broad lessons to be learned from such meandering duels of wit, spit, and wry? Does giving so many people room to vent increase public discourse and undersanding of issues, or is it merely a cacophonous, lazy way for news outlets to add bulk to their claimed cultivation of interactive journalism?
In this mass one finds an earnest proclamation that Mars scientists, among other things, inadvertently conceded some previously unappreciated evidence for Mars once having been in geostationary orbit of the Earth. Really. The commenter includes link to a daffy website where is explained that while Immanuel Velikovsky glimpsed some of the circus tricks that the planets performed in ages past – as revealed in ancient texts and general mythos – he didn't know the half of it. Then there's the reader who speculates on a future Mars where, as in Planet of the Apes, a surviving, dying escaped-prisoner-astronaut crawls across the presumed alien sands and comes across the Statue of Liberty's wreck protruding from the shore. Another fellow can hardly believe that anybody could read this NASA news without recognizing the inevitability of life on other worlds, foaming on about flostigen and screeching "There are 30 billion GALAXIES out there." Hmmphhhtt. Everybody knows that figure is way too low. Couple'a hundred billion at least. And how could somebody pen a letter, even an e-letter, to the NYTimes without checking how to spell phlogiston?
One reader takes Chang to task for saying Curiosity is about the size of a Mini Cooper car. Actually it's not as long, but is taller and wider. Oh. Another laughs hard at anybody who thinks there might have been life on Mars, what a waste etc etc – only to get to his point: What we really need to do is get a bunch of robotic probes at work on Saturn's moon Titan! Another blames the "bloated" Mars program (actually a pitiful remnant of a once far larger enterprise) for the sad shape of our fleets of Earth-observing, remote-sensing satellites right overhead.
There are gems to be sure. Such as the commenter who politely applauds another's musing upon terraforming Mars some day before upbraiding the same musing with this slap back into the real world "Exhale and put down your hash pipe and let your head clear." Better yet the same correspondent closes his own remark thus: "I'll now fire up my bong." Badda-da-bing.
To be sure, the Times's watchdogs do a good job keeping outright trolls' comments off their list. And the readers are a generally enthusiastic, reasonably well-informed lot. They tend to try to keep their writing on an elevated plane. Not all succeed. I identified with one near the top of the list who said, as amazing as Mars discoveries are, even more awesome would be a world where people "can construct and utter a cogent sentence."
Last and best: Linda, self-described former NASA-Ames public affairs writer (some of you out there probably know her, maybe I do), informs us that she wrote a press release of exactly the same gist and incipient discovery … in 1984. And now she has to write it again.
Same news, other stories:
- NBCNews.com /Cosmic Log – Alan Boyle: Curiosity rover sees life-friendly conditions in ancient Mars rock ;
- Wall Street Journal/WSJ digital Network – Robert Lee Hotz: Life on Mars? NASA Says There Could Have Been ;
- Los Angeles Times/ScienceNow – Amina Khan: "Giddy" NASA official asks Curiosity scientists if they'd go to Mars ; also, Mars Curiosity rover on spring break after hitting pay dirt ;
- Space.com – Mike Wall: Wow! Ancient Mars Could Have Supported Primitive Life, NASA Says ;
- Reuters – Irene Klotz: Mars had the right stuff for life, scientists find ;
- Christian Science Monitor – Pete Spotts: Curiosity hits 'pay dirt': Mars was habitable, evidence suggests (+video)
Grist for the Mill: NASA-JPL Press Release ;
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