[meteorite-list] Mars life concerns

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Mark Fr. wrote:
 
>There's also a non-zero probability that gravity will reverse,
>time will speed up suddenly, evolution will cease, and that 
>monkeys will fly out of my butt.
 
Hi Mark, Now that was a vile (bile?) respone!  Was it from a John  Carrey 
movie or an original? 
 
I'll keep my reply short just responding to the "scientifically" reasonable  
objections, as your branded horse sense-based arguments strike me as  much 
weaker that you realize.
 
1. What you seemed to be emphasizing in your first post was the  probability 
that the astronauts contaminated specifically the (apparently  virgin) part of 
the camera insulation during there journey back to earth.
2. A typical sneeze has, what, 50,000 diverse microbe individuals?  A  
typical human hand, how many, 100,000,000 diverse individuals (95% under the  
fingernails)?
3.  And now you would expect me to believe using "an iota  of horse sense" 
that all 100 organisms being identical are the result of a  someone "sneezing on 
a lab bench", adding that you are reasonably sure  there were other microbes 
there, too that went undetected and blame it on  unknown errors and your view 
of limitations in analysis?  You could be  right, of course, we'll never know. 
 Because in the end you just have a  series of assumptions you are making 
regarding an analysis done by a technician  before you were born, in which you 
impose own pet biases as  well.
4.  You also agreed with my pirated statement from the NASA website  pointing 
out the apparent fact that none of the other rocks or camera parts  were 
contaminated (detected as such), but say this only further proves it was  
contamination because it wasn't repeated?  That is uncommon horse  sense.  My sense 
tell me there would have been at least one more  "false positive" setting off 
bells and whistles in all those rocks that were  handled in a similar manner by 
the astronauts regarding the possibility of  contamination.
5. I don't know why the positive result was specific to exactly one species  
and 50-100 dormant individuals of this species -and only this species- were  
detected and somehow subsequently cultured at the CDC.  I do believe  it is a 
good argument against that random sneeze or astronaut sweat which  targetted 
the inner insulation.  And if makes me speculate if that  particular organism is 
particularly hardy as a space traveller, under the  selective pressures and 
circumstances that could have been present.  The  good news is all is easily 
testable.
 
It is interesting to note that as Ron mentioned a few NASA employee  
objections, there is also a view from an analyst within the CDC: That the NASA  post 
flight handling at the Houston lab under Jaffe is the most likely point of  
contamination, if contamination could have occurred.  The plot thickens  
aimlessly...
 
My problem here is not to acknowledge a  possibility of post-contamination.  
It is the confidence  which you have in your exaggerated statements of  
probability in trying to revise results you feel you know best due to  your 
training.  There is a reason this remains an  open controversy.  Send those 
contaminated monkeys back where they  came from...
Se acabó
Doug