More bad journalism, this time about a hypothesized “underground ocean” on Mars
How today’s journalists analyze potential stories
Today’s example of modern bad journalism from our dismal mainstream press concerns a paper published yesterday in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences describing the possibility of liquid water in the Martian “mid-crust,” based on InSight seismological data and computer modeling.
I read the paper yesterday and decided that there really wasn’t much there. While the data suggests a lot of liquid water might be saturated within the fractured rocks of this deep underground crustal layer six to twelve miles down, the paper was based on many assumptions and had many uncertainties. It is also not confirmed by other researchers, and remains nothing more than educated speculation at this point.
Not surprisingly, our ignorant mainstream press today has immediately declared the discovery of a vast underground ocean on Mars, ready for the taking and possibly harboring life!
- Live Science: Enormous hidden ocean discovered under Mars could contain life
- BBC: Reservoir of liquid water found deep in Martian rocks
- Guardian: New hope of finding life on Mars after indication of water, scientists say
- AP: New Mars study suggests an ocean’s worth of water may be hiding beneath the red dusty surface
- Reuters: Martian subsurface harbours oceans of life-giving liquid water
- Cosmos: Liquid water found on Mars could host life
- Physics World: Liquid water could abound in Martian crust, seismic study suggests
- CNN: Underground reservoir on Mars could fill oceans on the planet’s surface, study finds
- Forbes: NASA Has Found Oceans Of Water On Mars — But There’s A Problem [it’s underground]
The paper “found” nothing. It simply postulates that the presence of water about six to 12 miles below the surface might explain some of the seismic data from InSight. This is hardly a “discovery”, and it certainly includes zero evidence of Martian life.
This bad reporting was helped along by the press release from the University of California at Berkeley, which shouted in its headline “Scientists find oceans of water on Mars” and then proceeded to claim, without evidence, that this would be a great place to search for life.
The problem across the board is that modern journalism is too often nothing more that retyping press releases, with little other research at all. As far as I can tell, not one of the stories above spent any time looking at the original paper to discover how uncertain its conclusions were. Moreover, the modern obsession with looking for alien life in every nook and cranny in space makes these “journalists” immediately speculate about such a thing, even though it is absurd to jump to that conclusion based on the data presented.
It is all a joke when you think about it, but it is sadly a joke being played on us all. It indicates a level of stupidity and ignorance permeating society that forebodes a very dismal future. It will be impossible to maintain our very complex technology civilization if so many people in it no longer know how to think critically.
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I was expecting your standard image from “Idiocracy”. Seems to be needed frequently these days.
Q: If and when the atmosphere on Mars is transformed combined with the potential “Life” that may have been discovered from last week:
At what point will there be a radical movement on planet earth to deny the experimental proposed terraforming of Mars because it “May” endanger the existing “life” that already may exist there?
Bob Zimmerman has, once again, discovered a vast ocean of clickbait!
University of California at Berkeley: “Scientists find oceans of water on Mars” and then proceeded to claim, without evidence, that this would be a great place to search for life.
You want me to search for life 6-12 miles deep. On Mars. I’ll get right on that.
Saw the headlines, BS detector immediately went off. Expected this post here ; )
John: The real irony is that these bad news reports clearly prove that none of these reporters have the faintest idea that a lot of water is already known to exist on the surface of Mars. Why bother going ten miles down when you can stick a shovel in the ground at the Starship candidate landing zone and hit ice every time?
JPL always announced water in Mars every few months hoping Goldin would throw them another Delta II bone with another bomb disposal robot atop it.
I suspect this is, at least in part, battlespace preparation for radical “planetary protection” types who want to head off SpaceX’s Martian settlement plans.
I’ve been 2 miles down in an actual working underground gold mine, and it was a struggle. Now we need to go 6 -12 miles down. No money in it, just research credit?? Oh, and not here, but on Mars. Wow.
And now from Consumer Reports. The headline from today: “CR tests reveal rocket fuel contaminants in our food”.
A component of rocket fuel that has been linked to serious health issues—the chemical perchlorate—is in a wide variety of fast foods and grocery items, revealed in new tests by Consumer Reports. Even more troubling, the highest perchlorate levels were in foods popular with babies and kids. Find out what CR tests found, how perchlorate gets into our food, and the potential health risks in our latest investigation into how rocket fuel has been contaminating our food and water for years.
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/why-perchlorate-has-contaminated-food-and-water-for-years-a1065715826/?EXTKEY=EE482AAAC&utm_source=acxiom&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240813_cromc_engagewkly&utm_segment=allaccess&bt_ee=pSsA7Qbrd4YSjt1C8xBnzeeAM2KfCpDXw24uDnwYcUudn13pwojOmLXwY4ktcCO7M7qH+nWMxv0gcHspBtrHkw==&bt_ts=1723587269836
They just had to have the term “rocket fuel contaminating our food supply”. I need to cancel CR. They are going a little over the edge with this click-bait title. But the anti-Space X goons will climb out of their basements with renewed attacks.
Our Founding Fathers realized the importance of the press and gave them special protection in the Constitution.
Rather than giving people the facts and letting them decide, the press has used their power to deceive people.
The oceans just a desert with its life underground and the perfect disguise above…
The deepest bore hole on Earth is a little over 7.5 miles deep.
It took months to drill.
On Mars it might take a year to drill and then a water pump jack would have to be installed to get the water up out of the depths.
Plus you would need water to do the drilling in order to keep the drill lubricated, cool and to flush the mud out of the hole as you go.
And you might not get much water out of the hole anyways.