It rained on Mars -- three billion years ago

Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 10:34:46 -0600, Greg Crinklaw
wrote:


It never ceases to amaze me how a publicity department can make what has
been known for years appear to have been discovered yesterday (by the
scientists they are publicizing, of course). This sort of hyperbole
needs to be stopped, and I say the responsibility lies with the
scientists whose work is being reported to keep the hyperbole out of
these publicity announcements.


Having just read the paper, I'm curious what information you think "has been
known for years"?

The paper presents the first good evidence of liquid water flowing on the
surface near the end of the Hesperian epoch. The surface morphology suggests
that rain was the source of the water, in a time when the general presumption
has been that all Martian water was locked up in ice.

The press release seems to accurately describe the paper, and I fail to identify
the hyperbole you are seeing here.

Yes, it does do that. But it also engages in hyperbole. I quoted the
relevant part (which you snipped from your reply). It has long been
known that *in general* there exist water carved features on Mars. MGS
MOC images have shown this for years. There is a paragraph in this
press releases (coincidentally the one I quoted) that appears to claim
there was no such evidence before the recent results. That is either
self serving hyperbole or at they very least very sloppy writing...

Either way there is no excuse for not doing better, and my point is that
more astronomers/planetary scientists should take responsibility for
what is written by the PR departments at their institutions. Not really
an earth shattering idea, that.

I consider Malin Space Science Systems an example of an organization
that always writes excellent hyperbole free press releases. They set an
excellent example that others should try to emulate. On the other side
you have the kings of hyperbole, the massive press office of the Space
Telescope Science Institute (although they have cleaned up their act
some in recent years).

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

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http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply have a physician remove your spleen

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 18:29:32 -0600, Greg Crinklaw
wrote:

Yes, it does do that. But it also engages in hyperbole. I quoted the
relevant part (which you snipped from your reply). It has long been
known that *in general* there exist water carved features on Mars...

Well, I agree that the first sentence could be misunderstood, since it doesn't
explicitly mention the time period in question. But that strikes me as rather
minor considering that the rest of the release goes on to accurately clarify
things.

We all have different thresholds for these things. Having seen so many really
bad cases of science reporting in the popular press, I'd be happy if everything
were reported as well as this!

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 18:29:32 -0600, Greg Crinklaw
wrote:

Yes, it does do that. But it also engages in hyperbole. I quoted the
relevant part (which you snipped from your reply). It has long been
known that *in general* there exist water carved features on Mars...

Well, I agree that the first sentence could be misunderstood, since it doesn't
explicitly mention the time period in question. But that strikes me as rather
minor considering that the rest of the release goes on to accurately clarify
things.

We all have different thresholds for these things. Having seen so many really
bad cases of science reporting in the popular press, I'd be happy if everything
were reported as well as this!

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com