February 18, 2005
No life
NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.
Posted by jnfr at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2005
Life on Mars?
A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.
Their work is being peer-reviewed now, and should be presented in Nature later this spring.
Posted by jnfr at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2004
Pennsylvania community mandates the teaching of creationism
In what is believed to be a first in the U.S., a school district in Pennsylvania has declared that teachers must include the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in science classes.
Intelligent design is a form of creationism, based on religious beliefs about God as the creator of the world and all that is in it. It's linked to some other religious beliefs such as the literal truth of the earth being created in seven 24-hours days, and other fundamentalist beliefs. But it's not science, and there is no scientific evidence for the idea. Nor should there be, since religion is a matter of faith and scientific evidence is irrelevant. But setting religion alongside science in classrooms is a dangerous breach of the wall between church and state. The ACLU is reviewing the case.
I strongly believe that if religious people want religious schools, they should have them. But religious teaching should not be funded with public money.
Posted by jnfr at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)