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'Life on Mars' Meteorite Rejected After 10 Years

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the only-david-bowie-knows-the-truth dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ten years ago, NASA announced that the Martian meteorite ALH84001 showed evidence of life on Mars. The announcement made headlines around the world, and even prompted President Clinton to make a statement. Ten years later, most scientists believe that everything in the meteorite can be explained by non-biological processes. "We certainly have not convinced the community, and that's been a little bit disappointing," said David McKay, a scientist behind the 'life on Mars' paper. Unfortunately, David McKay's own brother is one of his critics. "He [David] got a little testy about the results we were getting," said Gordon McKay. "What we have shown is that it is possible to form these things inorganically.""

2 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Only now? by Zen+Punk · · Score: 2, Informative

    no, not really

    --
    Sleep is futile.
  2. Re:its belief that keeps it going by Dilpo · · Score: 2, Informative

    And that the rover actually got back rock from the mars?
    the rock in question is actually a metiorite(sp?) that fell in antartica, I dont believe we(humans) have ever brought anything back from mars, its a one way trip.
    If some scientists believe there is life on mars, why try hard to disprove them?
    Its part of the scientific process, nothing is considered fact even so called "Laws" its just not disproven yet. One of the other posts on here outlined the scienfic process in a really simplistic way, maybe look at that or google the scienfic process so you understand why its so important to attempt to disprove things. If you are to lazy for that or want the easy quick answer it basically comes down to this. If you never attempt to disprove something then you'd never know if it was really true or not. Lets say I have some evidence that supports my hypothesis that (just making stuff up dont flame for this) I am somehow genetically surperior to you, if you never attempt to disprove me how will you know if I am right? my evidence could very well suport that hypothesis but I could miss something that points in a totally different direction. This post is a lot longer than I originally intended so the end.