Jeff Findley wrote:
In article l-
september.org, says...
Last night I heard an interview with Richard Hoagland in which he said
that the face on Mars could not be a trick of light and shadow since
it turned up in two images taken 30 hours apart.
Hogland is wrong. There are other pictures, from orbit, which show no
"face". Humans are "hard wired" to see faces in things.
Yes.
There is or was a we site at one time dedicated to to the effect of
humanity need to identify the unknown by building comparisons to the known.
Science even has a name for this well known effect: Pareidolia
I send pictures of three pronged power outlets which look like faces.
Religious people seem to be more prone to seeing the face of Jesus. Even
back in high school defects in wood used in woodworking was referred to as
cat faces.
The problem of false pattern recognition is even described well in
statistics as a type one error, and the larger term Apophenia is often
used.
Hoagland made a career out of the face myth, even to the point of
misrepresenting his employment with NASA. Dozens of books all based upon
the fallacy of false authority.
Hoagland was a contract PR person, never as part of the science team. His
actual contract was canceled after it was found out he had misrepresented
his qualifications.