Re: Mars Fossils

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I appreciate the discussion of the Mars fossils.  My thoughts on various
people's comments:

1.  I think some of the media were trying to contact paleontologists but
just did not know where to go.   I actually had a call from Italy about
them, and there were a few others.  (No, this time I did not say
anything!!).   A second problem we recognize is that few paleontologists
are qualified to evaluate bacteria or bacteria-like fossils.  Given that
the media did not know where to go, those that tried went to where paleo
was easily identified--dinosaur people, museums of paleontology, etc.  How
do you find a bacterial or extraterrestrial fossil specialist if you are
fairly ignorant?

2.  The news releases I read seemed to concentrate more on the source and
the geology of the find rather than the fossils.  Fossils were subsumed by
the biology and "life", neither of which terms necessarily would evoke
paleontology in the poorly-informed minds of the media.   So I am not upset
that more paleontologists were not contacted--the media did their best, and
once again it was pathetic.   That goes for most of the PR people that NASA
and NSF have working for them too.  I have never been so misrepresented as
I was by an NSF Press Representative.  If paleontologists are to have their
opinions known, then they should react to news releases immediately
themselves by calling their local media.  We need a media contact point
within the societies too.  The media would welcome it, I am sure, because
they want something to say and they often will take almost anything (like a
dinosaur paleontologist bs-ing about Martian bacteria-like objects).

3.  We expect that life on another planet might not look like terrestrial
life.  However, if fossil life could be transported from Mars to Earth or
visa versa by an impact 15 mya, then the possibility that life was
transported in the very distant past might not be so ridiculous.   Maybe
the early forms were, in fact, transported to various parts of the Solar
System in the waning times of major impacting, say 3.5-3.0 bya.
Panspermia--oh, horrors.  Then the early stuff is all related!!

4.  Life might well look very similar in its early stages of C-based
evolution.  It seems likely to me that given the amount of C and H
compounds calculated to have been brought to earth by early impacts, that
any planet with impacts and water could develop C-based life, at least to
an early step, like something like bacteria.

5.  In fact, Jack Farmer, a NASA paleontologist, already coined the term
Exopaleontology for the discipline we are discussing.  He did it as part of
the Martian Lander planning team, and he was responsible for selecting
several potential sites near what appear to be hot-spring deposits on Mars
that look like Yellowstone hot springs.  Here stromatolites and mats might
be found.  So NASA already has plans based on exopaleontology.  Unlike
Exobiology, Exopaleontology may have, at least, discovered its subject!

6.  I wonder if NASA was a bit surprized by all the hoopla over this
finding.  Any normal scientist would think this was a really interesting
and exciting bit of discovery that supported the "life" hypothesis but that
many tests remained to be done, any of which could disprove the hypothesis.
I sure hope NASA would not be so stupid as to throw out this kind of
tenuous hypothesis with the idea that it would provide funding.  Surely,
they could see the potential for getting burned in a major way here.  This
could be a disaster for NASA just as well as a windfall.  Just too many
questions.  Bill Schopf has already raised serious ones.  There are others
too.  Unless, of course, all this is planned by one of those silly PR types
I referred to above.

7.  On the other hand, this has the potential to do wonders for
paleontology.  Like dinosaurs, everyone is interested in extraterrestrial
life.  So, even if it gets disproved or is questionable, I think we should
make our own hoopla over exopaleontology, if not for additional funding,
then as a tool to improve scientific reasoning and discipline visibility.

Jere