Space Forum / Space Science / September 2005

-> at Padua, is the principal professor of philosophy whom I have  
-> repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets  
-> through my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not  
-> here? What shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! And  
-> to hear the professor of philosophy at Pia labouring before the grand  
-> duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm  
-> the new planets out of the sky.'
-> At that time the moons were sometimes described as new planets and it  
-> was generally thought that Jupiter and other planets were located on  
-> rotating crystal spherical shells so they could not have orbiting  
-> satellites.
-> This indicates the attitude of many scientists today who did not accept  
-> the possibility that the "face" and other features on Mars may have been  
-> artefacts as soon as they were visible on Viking images, without waiting  
-> for further evidence because it rejected their firm belief that there  
-> could be no signs of former intelligent activity on other planets then  
-> Earth. So far, the further evidence is not conclusive.
 
You're shooting yourself in the foot. The people who *did* look through
Galileo's telescope, and saw the moons of Jupiter, are like the people
nowadays who *do* look at the high-quality images from recent
spacecraft, and see that there is *no* "face", or evidence for other
artifacts, on Mars. The people who refused to look through the
telescope are like those who refuse to examine these good images, and
restrict themselves to fuzzy Viking ones.
 
                               dow