Mars Fossils

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Date
The "discovery" of alleged fossils from Mars is slightly old news now, but
I was wondering whether anyone besides myself was bothered by the fact that
paleontologists were somewhat under-represented in the group of scientists
the media asked for comments. Now I'm more than willing to agree that the
meteorite specialists and astronomers should be given equal time to explain
the proposed mechanism of transport for the putative fossils and provide
some background info. However, this "discovery" concerns fossil evidence of
life forms that some paleontologists have a great deal of experience
recognizing. The fact that the small number of Precambrian paleontologists
who's views were given a sentence or two in newspaper accounts (e.g., Bill
Schopf) seem pretty skeptical makes me wonder why their statements haven't
been given greater prominence. Is this just an example of a governmental
institution putting a favorable spin on the story by selecting who gets to
provide "expert" testimony, or do paleontologists just lack sufficient
credibility in areas outside of dinosaur studies to have their views taken
seriously? I've been saying for years that the single biggest thing that
paleontologists could hope for to revitalize the field was for someone to
discover a fossil on another planet. Given that the views of qualified
paleontologists have been rather downplayed over the last few weeks, now
I'm not so sure.

Norm MacLeod



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Norman MacLeod
Micropalaeontological Research
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
         Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  0171-938-9277
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