The Sun Seers of Planet Evercloudy: A Science Fiction Story

In a solar system of the Andromeda galaxy, there was a planet Evercloudy where intelligent life existed. But the planet was very different from Earth. The planet was constantly covered with thick clouds. The clouds in the planet's atmosphere were so numerous that almost never could the planet's sun be seen. 

The scientists on this planet pondered two great questions:

(1) What causes daylight on planet Evercloudy?

(2) How is it that planet Evercloudy stays warm enough for life to exist?

Having no knowledge of their sun, the scientists came up with wrong answers. They speculated that daylight and planetary warmth are bottom-up effects.  The scientists began to spin all kinds of speculations such as hypothesizing that daylight comes from photon emissions from rocks and dirt, and that their planet was warm because of heat bubbling up from the hot center of their planet.

One day one of the scientists had a dinner with his son, who had not long ago become an adult. 

"We are making great progress in explaining how our planet is warm and lighted," said the father, boasting without warrant. "Only last week one of my colleagues published a paper speculating how there might be certain types of chemical reactions within rocks and soil, causing the emission of tiny  particles of light that might lead to daylight, particles we call photons." 

"Ah yes, another theory of photon-emitting rocks and light coming from soil," said the son. "How creative you professors are.  But, tell me, how do you account for the reality of nightfall? If rocks and soil constantly sent out little particles of light called photons, would we not expect that there would never be nightfall?"

"I admit that the phenomenon of nightfall is challenging for bottom-up theories of the origin of our planet's light and heat," conceded the father. "But we are working on that problem. Someday we will solve it. We already have interesting theories of how there might be 'easily tired photons' that rest during the night, and wake up during the daytime."

"Can't you see that there's a much more straightforward way to explain nightfall?" said the son. "You can abandon your theory of a bottom-up origin of light and heat. You can move to an alternate theory that light and heat on our planet mainly comes from an unseen external source outside of our planet -- something called 'the sun.' If such a sun existed, and our planet rotates, that would easily explain nightfall. Nightfall would simply occur to a side of our planet that was facing away from the sun."

"Oh, come on!" said the father. "Don't tell me you are warming up to those nonsense claims about the existence of a sun! You are just starting to study at the university. You know what the consensus of the professors is. It is that heat and light come bottom-up, not top-down. Read your science books. They all say that daylight comes from rocks and soil."

"Yes, I know the social conventions that professors like you follow," said the son. "You and your colleagues have made it taboo to believe in the sun. But does it make sense to declare something is taboo, when it has often been observed?"

"What are you talking about?" asked the father. 

"Have you not heard?" said the son. "There are now meetings of believers in the existence of the sun. They meet outdoors in meetings they call 'see-ances.'  At such meetings they look up at the sky. They gather together in a circle, with each person looking at a different direction. Sometimes the people at such meetings report they were able to see the sun in the sky, when the clouds briefly parted." 

"Don't believe in that kind of nonsense!" said the father. "You can't trust those so-called 'sun-seers.' They are just a bunch a kooks and crazies or scoundrels who are lying or hallucinating." 

"Have you studied the many reports they have written, in which multiple named witnesses said they saw the sun?" asked the son. 

"You mean the reports made in those 'sun-seer' periodicals?" asked the father. "Surely you don't expect a respectable scientist like me to read such rags."

"So when teaching your classes and writing, you don't even mention that many claim to have seen the sun?"

"Of course," said the father. "A rule of respectable professors like me is: nothing spooky allowed." 

"But what about those photos they sometimes take that seem to show a sun in the sky?" asked the son. 

"Oh, come on, don't tell me that you're starting to believe in those claims of 'sun photography,' " said the father. "All those photos are just fakes." 

"Father, this is very hard to do, but I think it is at last time that I finally 'came out of the closet,' " said the son. "I must confess that I have gone to some of these 'see-ances' and that I believe I have actually seen the sun with my own eyes. I had to stare up at the sky for a long time, before the clouds finally started to part. And then I kind of half-saw it, for a fleeing instant, what looked rather like a bright yellow ball in the sky. I think it was the sun I saw." 

"Good heavens!" said the father, grimacing and putting his hands on top of his head. "Don't tell me that my own son has become one of those loony types that call themselves 'sun-seers!'  How will I live through the embarrassment and the stigma of being the father of a 'sun-seer' ? My colleagues at the university will ridicule me endlessly!"  

"Sorry for the inconvenience," said the son. "But I have to follow the path plowed by what I saw, not some old path plowed by social conventions." 

The son went outdoors for some fresh air, and the father followed. 

"Don't you understand our rules?" said the father. "A rule of scientists like me is: explanations must always be bottom-up, not top-down. And you can only say that a causal effect came from some cause you have seen yourself." 

"Nature never taught us such rules," said the son. "Those rules are just social conventions, not something demanded by logic or evidence. And you don't even follow such rules, because you never saw some of the things you believe in, things like photons sleeping at night." 

"I didn't make your mistake when I was young," said the father. "When I started at the university, they taught me that our planet's light and heat come from the rocks and soil below us, not from any sun above us; and I have never taught otherwise."

"But did you arrive at that belief through an objective study of all the evidence, by pondering impartially all the relevant arguments and observations of both sides?" asked the son. "I doubt it. You probably soon learned that a particular belief would be expected of you. So you went along with that belief, and became an asolarist, a non-believer in the sun." 

"Well," said the father, "it was made pretty clear that my university was not a friendly port for solarists who believe in a sun." 

The son looked up at the sky, and was surprised to see a very rare event, as rare on his planet as a tornado. The clouds were briefly parting. It was a much more dramatic parting of the clouds than the son had seen before. 

"Look!" said the son. "The clouds are parting! There it is, I can see it in that hole in the clouds!  Look, father, look! It is a bright and yellow ball! IT IS THE SUN!"

"A respectable professor like me cannot ever get involved with this type of nonsense," said the scorning father, being careful not to look up at the sky. "I'm going back inside our house." 

Newspaper Reports of Spirit Manifestations

Below is an image of a newspaper account I will discuss later in this post, an 1854 account describing how 13,000 people petitioned the US Senate to investigate paranormal phenomena being massively reported at that time:

The account below appeared in a newspaper in 1908. We read of a woman who claims that she discovered a treasure of gold coins and a large roll of currency, after being guided to the place (1000 miles away) by a child spirit. 

You can read the account below:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042242/1908-09-06/ed-1/seq-1/

Below is a newspaper account from 1927.  We read of six witnesses who claim to have seen a shadowy hand appear near a photograph of a man who died months ago. 

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86075298/1927-10-13/ed-1/seq-3/

The newspaper article here includes several interesting accounts of the paranormal, including an account of what seems like a spirit of the dead breaking a lamp, to fulfill a promise that was made to do just that, to provide evidence of life after death.  We have this headline:

The account is quoting an account given in one of the volumes of Camille Flammarion's must-read three-part opus Death and Its Mystery. I will quote the same account from page 10 of Volume III of that work (I'll boldface a few sentences for the sake of clarity). The narrator is "a positivist and sincere materialist, Dr. Caltagirone of Palermo," who relates what happened in 1910, 13 years before the publication of that volume. Vicenzo Caltagirone states this:

"I was a friend of Benjamin Sirchia; his physician, in fact. Sirchia, well known in Palmero, was an aged patriot, and very popular. He had splendid civic and moral virtues. He was, like me, a skeptic, in the widest meaning of the term.

One day, in May, 1910, we happened to discuss psychic phenomena. I answered his questions by assuring him that, speaking from my own experience, certain of these phenomena were real, but that the interpretations given them were debatable. In the course of this conversation he said to me jestingly:

'Listen, Doctor. If I die before you, which is probable, since I 'm old and you 're still young, strong, and healthy, I give you my word that I'll come and give you proof of my survival, if I still exist.'

Laughing, and in the same jesting way, I answered:

'Then you'll come and manifest yourself by breaking something in this room — for example that gas-fixture above the table.' (We were at that moment in my dining-room.) And, to be polite, I added : 'I 'll  pledge myself, too, if I die before you, to come and give you some sign of the same sort, in your house!'

I wish to repeat that all this was said jestingly rather than seriously. We separated, and some days afterward he left for Lieata, in the province of Girgenti, where he went to settle down. From that day I had no news of him, either directly or indirectly. This conversation took place in May, 1910.

The following December, the first or the second, toward six o'clock in the evening, I was seated at table with my sister (the two of us compose the household) when our attention was attracted by several slight blows, some of them struck upon the shade of the gas-fixture which hung from the ceiling of the dining-room and some upon the little movable porcelain bell of the smoke-shield above the glass chimney. At first we attributed the tapping to the action of the heat of the flame, which I tried to lessen. But the blows increased in force, and continued with a sort of rhythmic noise. I then climbed upon a chair, to examine more carefully what was happening, and I ascertained that the phenomenon could not be attributed to the heat of the flame, which was burning at a very usual rate of pressure. Besides, it was not a question of slight popping noises, like those produced as a result of extreme heat, but of sharp taps of a special tone, suggesting blows struck with the knuckles or with a finger ring with which one might knock purposely upon some porcelain object. I sought to discover the cause of these strange blows. To no purpose. Meanwhile we finished dinner and the phenomenon came to an end.

The following evening the same tapping was repeated, as it was on four or five consecutive days; this continued to excite our intense curiosity more and more.

But on the last evening a strong, sharp blow split the little swinging bell in two; it remained in this state, hanging by the hook of the metal counterbalance....I must also declare and affirm upon my honor as an honest man that during the course of these five or six days on which was observed the phenomenon which I could not explain, I never once thought of my friend Benjamin Sirchia, and still less of the conversation of the preceding May, which I had entirely forgotten.

The day following the evening when, as I have said, the little porcelain bell split, I was in my study; my sister had gone out on the balcony to look at something or other in the street; the servant had gone out; when we heard, in the dining-room, a tremendous bang as though a violent blow with a club had been struck upon the table.

My sister heard it from the balcony, and I from my study : both of us hurried to see what had happened.

It is strange, but however fantastic this occurrence be, I can answer for its truth : on the table, and as though it had been placed there by a human hand, we found half of the little movable bell, while the other half was still hanging in its place.....The fragment of the bell was placed in such a way as to point to the conclusion that what had happened was not due to an accident — an accident which would, moreover, have been contrary to the law of falling bodies.

I must acknowledge once more that I had absolutely forgotten Sirchia and the pact which we had made in the preceding month of May.

Two days afterward I met Professor Rusci; he said to me, 'Did you know that poor Benjamin Sirchia had died?' — 'When?' I asked anxiously. — 'On one of the last days of November — the twenty seventh or the twenty-eighth.' — I then thought: 'The last days of November? Strange! Could the phenomena which happened at my home have some connection with his death?' (The memory of our last conversation, with its peculiar details, had come back to me.) The phenomena began on the first or second of December and continued for five or six days. An attempt to break something connected with the gas-fixture of the dining-room had been agreed on between us, in the month of May, and this manifestations did not end until the final carrying out of the agreement. A thing equally strange was that when the compact had been carried out in this way, almost as though to signal its fulfilment, a terrific blow informed us of the fact! The intentional carrying of the little bell to a spot where it could not have fallen of itself, in ordinary circumstances, thus eliminating the element of chance, completed this strange manifestation."

In 1854 a newspaper account appeared of a petition signed by 13,000 petitioners and N. P. Talmadge, who served as a US Senator and the governor of Iowa.  An image of the account is at the top of this post, and you can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85025007/1854-04-19/ed-1/seq-2/

The petition called for a scientific investigation into reports of spiritual manifestations, which had been begun in 1848 in the USA town of Hydesville, New York. By 1854 reports of the spiritual manifestations were now arising abundantly in the United States and Europe, as documented in my posts here and here and here and here and here. The newspaper account gives this summary of the petition:

"In the Senate, on Monday, Mr. Shields presented a memorial from N. P. Talmadge and 13,000 citizens of the United States, asking the appointment of a scientific committee to investigate certain physical and mental phenomena of questionable origin and mysterious import, that have of late occurred in this country and Europe...He observod that a partial analysis of the phenomena attest:

First. An occult force, which is exhibited in sliding, raising, arresting, holding, suspending, and otherwise disturbing ponderable bodies, apparently in direct opposition to the acknowledged laws of matter, and transcending the accredited powers of the human mind.

Secondly. Lights of various forms and colors, and of different degrees of intensity, appear in dark rooms, where chemical action or phosphorescent illumination cannot he developed, and where there are no means of generating electricity or of producing combustion.

Thirdly. A variety of sounds, frequent in occurrence and diversified in character and of singular significance and import, consisting of mysterious rapping, indicating the presence of invisible intelligence. Sounds are often heard like those produced by the prosecution of mechanical operations, like the hoarse murmurs of the winds and waves, mingled with the harsh creaking noise of the mast and rigging of a ship laboring in a rough sea. Concussions also occur resembling distant thunder, producing oscillatory movements of surrounding objects, and a tremulous motion of the premises upon which these phenomena occur. Harmonious sounds as of human voices, and other sounds resembling those of a fife, drum, trumpet...have been produced without any visible agency.

Fourthly. All the functions of the human body and mind are influenced, in what appear to be certain abnormal states of the system, by causes not yet adequately under stood or accounted for. The 'occult force' or invisible power, frequently interrupts the normal operation of the faculties, suspending sensation and voluntary motion, and reducing the temperature of the body to a deathlike coldness and rigidity; and diseases heretofore considered incurable have been entirely eradicated by this mysterious agency....

The memorialists, while thus disagreeing as to the causes, concur in opinion as to the occurrence of the alleged phenomena, and, in view of their origin, nature, and bearing upon tho interests of mankind, demand for them a patient, rigid, scientific investigation; and request the appointment of a scientific commission for that purpose."

The petition was presented to the US Senate by one of the two senators from Illinois, James Shields, who after presenting the petition gave a long diatribe denouncing the petitioners, and "poisoning the well" by trying to depict the witnesses as crazy or fools or evil people. His diatribe caused the petition to be ignored.  A scientific commission like the one that 13,000 Americans asked for was not formed until 1869, when the London Dialectical Society took up a long formal investigation of the phenomena that the 13,000 Americans asked to be investigated. After a long investigation, that society issued a report resoundingly finding in favor of the reality of the described phenomena. You can read about the report of that society in my post here.  The text of the investigation committee's report can be read here, where we read the following on page 7: 

"Since their appointment on the 16th of February, 1869, your Sub-committee have held forty meetings for the purpose of experiment and test.

All of these meetings were held at the private residences of members of the Committee, purposely to preclude the possibility of pre-arranged mechanism or contrivance.

The furniture of the room in which the experiments were conducted was on every occasion its accustomed furniture. The tables were in all cases heavy dining tables, requiring a strong effort to move them. The smallest of them was 5ft. 9in. long by 4ft. wide, and the largest, 9ft. 3in. long and 4.5ft. wide, and of proportionate weight.

The rooms, tables, and furniture generally were repeatedly subjected to careful examination before, during, and after the experiments, to ascertain that no concealed machinery, instrument, or other contrivance existed by means of which the sounds or movements hereinafter mentioned could be caused.

The experiments were conducted in the light of gas, except on the few occasions specially noted in the minutes...."

On pages 8 to 10 of the report we read this: 

"Every test that the combined intelligence of your Committee could devise has been tried with patience and perseverance. The experiments were conducted under a great variety of conditions, and ingenuity has been exerted in devising plans by which your Committee might verify their observations and preclude the possibility of imposture or of delusion.

Your Committee have confined their report to facts witnessed by them in their collective capacity, which facts were palpable to the senses^ and their reality capable of demonstrative proof.

Of the members of your Sub-Committee about four-fifths entered upon the investigation wholly sceptical as to the reality of the alleged phenomena, firmly believing them to be the result either of imposture or of delusion^ or of involuntary muscular action. It was only by irresistible evidence, under conditions that precluded the possibility of either of these solutions, and after trial and test many times repeated, that the most sceptical of your Sub-committee were slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena exhibited in the course of their protracted inquiry were veritable facts.

The result of their long-continued and carefully conducted experiments, after trial by every detective test they could devise, has been to establish conclusively :

First: That under certain bodily or mental conditions of one or more of the persons present, a force is exhibited sufficient to set in motion heavy substances, without the employment of any muscular force, without contact or material connection of any kind between such substances and the body of any person present.

Second: That this force can cause sounds to proceed, distinctly audible to all present, from solid substances not in contact with, nor having any visible or material connection with, the body of any person present, and which sounds are proved to proceed from such substances by the vibrations which are distinctly felt when they are touched.

Third : That this force is frequently directed by intelligence."

On pages 10 to page 12 we read this:

"At thirty-four out of the forty meetings of your Committee some of these phenomena occurred....In less than a minute the table, untouched, moved four times ; at first about five inches to one side, then about twelve inches to the opposite side, and then, in like manner, four inches and six inches respectively....The table was then carefully examined, turned upside down and taken to pieces, but nothing was discovered to account for the phenomena. The experiment was conducted throughout in the full light of gas above the table.

Altogether, your Sub-committee have witnessed upwards of fifty similar motions without contact on eight different evenings, in the houses of members of your Sub-committee, the most careful tests being applied on each occasion. In all similar experiments the possibility of mechanical or other contrivance was further negatived by the fact that the movements were in various directions, now to one side, then to the other ; now up the room, now down the room — motions that would have required the co-operation of many hands or feet ; and these, from the great size and weight of the tables, could not have been so used without the visible exercise of muscular force. Every hand and foot was plainly to be seen and could not have been moved without instant detection.

Delusion was out of the question. The motions were in various directions, and were witnessed simultaneously by all present. They were matters of measurement, and not of opinion or of fancy.

And they occurred so often, under so many and such various conditions, with such safeguards against error or deception, and with such invariable results, as to satisfy the members of your Sub-committee by whom the experiments were tried, wholly sceptical as most of them were when they entered upon the investigation, that there is a force capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact and which force is in some unknown manner dependent upon the presence of human beings."

But how many witnesses were there in support of such phenomena? In the Dialectical Society's report we read the following summary:

"1. Thirteen witnesses state that they have seen heavy bodies — in some instances men — rise slowly in the air and remain there for sometime without visible or tangible support. 

2. — Fourteen witnesses testify to having seen hands or figures, not appertaining to any human being, but life-like in appearance and mobility, which they have sometimes touched or even grasped,

and which they are therefore convinced were not the result of imposture or illusion.

3. — Five witnesses state that they have been touched, by some invisible agency, on various parts of the body, and often where requested, when the hands of all present were visible.

4. — Thirteen witnesses declare that they have heard musical pieces well played upon instruments not manipulated by any ascertainable agency.

5. — Five witnesses state that they have seen red-hot coals applied to the hands or heads of several - persons without producing pain or scorching ; and three witnesses state that they have had the same experiment made upon themselves with the like immunity.

6 — Eight witnesses state that they have received precise information through rappings, writings, and in other ways, the accuracy of which was unknown at the time to themselves or to any persons present, and which, on subsequent inquiry, was found to be correct.

7. — One witness declares that he has received a precise and detailed statement which, nevertheless, proved to be entirely erroneous.

8. — Three witnesses state that they have been present when drawings, both in pencil and colours, were produced in so short a time, and under such conditions, as to render human agency impossible.

9. — Six witnesses declare that they have received information of future events, and that in some cases the hour and minute of their occurrence have been accurately foretold, days and even weeks before."

Below is an 1898 newspaper account about spirit manifestations:

You can read the full account below:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1898-09-04/ed-1/seq-22/

You can read about the case in my post here. 

Scientist Flubs and Flops, #4

               

                 Press button to watch video

• There is little evidence of widespread adaptive evolution in our own species...Hominids appear to have undergone very little adaptive evolution." -- Biologist Adam Eyrie Walker, 2006, "The Genomic Rate of Adaptive Evolution." 
• "What gambler would be crazy enough to play roulette with random evolution? The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Durer's 'Melancholia' is less infinitesimal than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the formation of the eye...There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it." -- Biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse (link). 
• "Natural selection acting on populations is incapable of guiding evolution." -- Biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse (link). 
• "The Lamarckian and Darwinian theories, in whatever form, do not resolve the major evolutionary problem -- that of the genesis of the main systematic units, the fundamental organizational schemes." --Biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse, "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation" (link). 
•  "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." -- Statement signed by about 1000 scientists (link).
• "The open-ended generation of novelty does not fit cleanly in the paradigmatic frameworks of either biology or physics."  -- A paper by six scientists. 
• To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion the carries the same validity as a bedtime story -- amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific."  -- Evolutionary biologist Henry Gee (link).
• "Countries where fossil fakes are common include Peru, Colombia, Russia, USA, Germany, France, and (especially) Morocco and China. The biggest markets for these fakes are in the USA, Morocco and China. The US market is also the leader in the trade of fakes and the Internet provides a ready source for them. Sale and auction websites on the Internet are an ideal way for selling fake fossils. Other outlets for selling fake fossils are the numerous mineral and fossil fairs organised around the world, and the more important the fair, the larger the number of fakes.... An important fact to emphasise is that, since China became open to commerce, fakes have increased by more than 500% as a result of the massive demand for Chinese fossils. The variety and magnitude of Chinese fake fossils is endless. They include every kind of forgery, from fakes made of pieces of different specimens (dinosaurs, turtles and crocodiles), to copies made completely of plaster (turtles, crocodiles and sabre-toothed cat skulls)." -- Two natural history museum curators (link). 

Weep No Tears for the Abandoned Mars Soil Samples

 I disagree with many of the decisions and statements coming these days from the White House. But there was announced recently a decision I approve of.  The Trump administration has recommended reduction of the budget of NASA, which will apparently lead to cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission. We read this in a recent government document: "In line with the Administration’s objectives of returning to the Moon before China and putting a man on Mars, the Budget would reduce lower priority research and terminate unaffordable missions such as the Mars Sample Return mission that is grossly overbudget and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars."  Estimated to cost some 11 billion dollars, the Mars Sample Return mission is a boondoggle that should not be funded, mainly because of the failure to ever find amino acids on Mars. 

In my February 2021 post "The Poor Design of the Latest Mars Mission," written just after the Perseverance rover landed on Mars, I said that because of the poor design of the Perseverance mission, "you will not be hearing any 'NASA discovered life on Mars' announcement anytime in the next few years."  So far that prediction has held up. A NASA page said that the "Perseverance Rover will search for signs of ancient microbial life." But no such signs have been found. 

The Mars mission I referred to was a weird hodgepodge. It landed a rover on Mars, and also a little helicopter device. A key part of the mission was the strange idea of digging up soil samples, putting them into tubes, and just dumping the tubes where the soil was retrieved, in hopes that a later mission would retrieve the samples.  I lampooned the idea in my visual below:

The idea was that a later automated mission might  land on Mars, go to where these soil samples had been dumped, grab them, and somehow bring them back to Earth. From a design standpoint, this never made any sense. Why not have any new mission (manned or unmanned)  dig up its own soil samples, rather than going to all the trouble of trying to find soil samples that had been dug up by a previous mission, and left in various remote locations on Mars? 

Over its lifetime, as the Perseverance rover kept digging up Martian soil samples and putting them into tubes, the estimated price tag of the Mars Sample Return mission has grown ever higher, reaching 11 billion dollars.  There are two key items to be considered in judging whether it makes sense to fund it:

Issue #1: Will a manned mission land on Mars in the next 25 years?  

It makes little sense to spend 11 billion dollars to retrieve soil samples from Mars if a manned mission is going to Mars at any time in the next 25 years. It is estimated that if the Mars Sample Return mission was funded, it would be at least five years before it could retrieve samples from Mars, meaning the samples would not be returned before the year 2030. But many think that humans will land on Mars by perhaps the year 2040 or 2045. Any manned mission to Mars could include a lab capable of full analysis relevant to biology.  It makes no sense to spend 11 billion dollars to bring Mars soil samples to an earthly human-directed lab capable of full analysis, if you are going to send to Mars (by means of a manned mission to Mars) exactly the same  human-directed lab capable of full analysis 10 or 15 years later.  There is no time urgency involved in analyzing Mars soil, no reason why such a task cannot wait.

Issue #2: Were there any amino acids found on Mars?

The main reason to spend money analyzing soil from Mars is to look for something of biological relevance: either living organisms or traces of living organisms that existed long ago. A key issue is the probability of finding on Mars anything of biological relevance.  Very relevant to such a probability is whether amino acids have ever been found on Mars. 

Even the simplest living thing is built from very complex components: hundreds of different types of protein molecules, each a different type of complex invention. The building components of such protein molecules are amino acids. Because functional protein molecules require very special arrangements of amino acids (arrangements incredibly unlikely to occur by chance), the mere detection of amino acids does nothing to show a likelihood of life appearing. But in a place where there are no amino acids, the chance of life ever appearing is basically zero. Life originating from chance combinations of amino acids is comparable to the probability of ink splashes ever producing a 50-page technical manual.  A situation in which there are no amino acids is like hoping that ink splashes might produce a book, in some building where there isn't even any ink around. 

The fact is that amino acids have never been detected on Mars. The Perseverance rover has a sensitive SHERLOC instrument capable of detecting various types of complex chemicals. That instrument has analyzed very much Martian soil. But it never found any trace of an amino acid. 

Cells are built from organelles, which are built from protein complexes, which are built from protein molecules, which are built by making very special sequences of hundreds or thousands of amino acids, sequences that have to be just right for the protein to be functional. Life as we know it requires twenty types of amino acids, in addition to other types of equally complex components such as nucleobases. No amino acid used by living things has ever been found on Mars. This failure makes it very unlikely that Mars ever had life. To put it in baseball terms, Mars seems to have never even got a fifth of the way to first base in the process of building the simplest life. A better analogy would be to say that the chance of you getting life on Mars was like the chance of a monkey producing a well-written 40-page book, scribbling with a pen that did not even have any ink. 

The paper here discusses chemical analysis by the Mars Perseverance rover and its SHERLOC instrument mentioned in Friday's press release. We have no mention of any amino acids found. We have no mention of any biologically relevant molecules, and the biologically irrelevant organic molecules discussed are not found in any concentration greater than 20 parts per million (Earth soil, by comparison, is between 1% and 80% organic molecules). 

The 20 amino acids used by life (credit: Wikipedia commons)

So without amino acids to be found anywhere on Mars, what is the chance that soil samples retrieved from Mars would have either life or any trace of life? Basically zero. So spending 11 billion dollars on a Mars Sample Return mission would seem to be the worst kind of boondoggle and wild goose chase. 

The failure to find any amino acids on Mars is of great relevance not just to whether a Mars Sample Return mission should be launched, but also to whether a Mars manned mission should be launched. It seems that no one can credibly claim any biology rationale for a manned mission to Mars, given the failure to find amino acids on Mars. If there is any rationale for such a mission, it would have to be made without an appeal to doing important biology research. 

The cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission is a golden opportunity for NASA to do what it has so very badly failed to do: to educate the public about the sky-high levels of organization and functional complexity in every living thing. NASA could put up a web page announcing the cancellation of the mission, and explaining why the mission is unjustified, given the failure to find any amino acids on Mars.  That would require educating people about the enormous levels of organization in all living things, something NASA never seems to do decently. There is a reason why I don't think we will see any such web page appearing. The reason is that NASA does not want to properly inform us about how bleak are the chances of ever finding any trace of life on Mars, given the failure to detect amino acids on Mars, and given the enormous organization in even the simplest living cell. NASA does not want to do that, because properly educating people about such topics will reduce the chance that the public funds a manned mission to Mars. 

A chasm chance could not have crossed on Mars

In my Google science news feed today, I see an editorial by two scientists (Bruce Jakosky and Scott Hubbard), one entitled "Mars Sample Return now!" It is an example of untrue claims and very bad reasoning by scientists. Here is some of its sophistry:

• "The results will be worth the effort and the cost, not just in understanding the world around us in general but also in determining if there has ever been life on Mars." Mars soil samples have already been well-analyzed by the SHERLOC instrument of the Perseverance Rover. Analyzing soil samples returned from Mars will not do anything to help us understand the world around us. Since amino acids have never been found on Mars, returning Mars soil samples will almost certainly not determine that life once existed on Mars. And a failure to find anything will never exclude the possibility that life once existed on Mars. 
• The authors claim that "having samples in our labs here on Earth will allow us to answer fundamental questions" about "the evolution of planets in general." The claim is untrue. 
• The authors claim that "either finding life, or looking and not finding any, would have profound implications for our society and for our understanding of the universe around us." To the contrary, not finding any evidence of life in Martian soil samples would have no implications for  our society and no implications for our understanding of the universe around us. Believers in easy abiogenesis would just keep on believing in such a thing, and might well keep on believing in life on Mars, simply thinking that these particular samples did not have life, but that life exists elsewhere on Mars. Finding life on Mars would have important philosophical implications, but because of the failure to ever detect amino acids on Mars, the chance of such a detection is negligible. 
• The authors state, "And, as we know from the Apollo experience, samples are the gift that can keep on giving, even 50 years after acquisition." Nothing of any great scientific importance was ever discovered from analyzing rocks and soil returned from the moon. 
• The authors state that "if NASA delays the return of the samples so carefully gathered by the Perseverance rover, the critical engineering and technological knowledge of how to land on Mars may be lost in the U.S. as layoffs occur." No, technological knowledge is not lost when people are laid off, partially because employees are required to document things in great detail, and organizations make sure that people write down things, rather than carrying around all their technological knowledge in their memories. 
• The authors state that by abandoning the Mars Sample Return mission (MSR), "the U.S. will be conceding the first-ever MSR to China, which has announced plans to return samples by 2031." If the Chinese are going to do their own sample return mission returning Mars soil samples by 2031, that is a strong reason for not funding NASA's proposed mission for returning Mars soil samples, as such a mission would be redundant. 
• The authors claim that "analyzing returned samples will help us dramatically in preparing for upcoming human missions." No, this is not true at all. 
• The authors claim that "returning samples in advance of human missions also allows us to reduce the risk in the human missions themselves." Once again, a claim from the authors which has no basis in fact or logic. We already know from Mars rovers what Mars soil is like. Looking for traces of extinct life in Mars soil samples will not do anything to make a manned mission safer. 

There is another reason for not doing the Mars Sample Return mission. It is the fact that anything found of biological interest is likely to be a result of earthly contamination, something coming either from an imperfect decontamination of an outgoing spacecraft, or from contamination after the return of a sample. The risk of contamination was shown by a recent news report that in the so-called "clean room" used to prepare one of NASA's Mars rovers, 26 species of contamination-resistant bacteria were discovered.