The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets

I highly recommend this excellent, very honest, well documented and balanced book. Everyone interested in the intelligent design controversy should read this book. It gives an accurate picture of both how science works and scientists as people which is quite in contrast to the public's perception of both. Sawyer documents that scientists not uncommonly behave like children arguing whose father is the strongest or can beat someone else's dad up. The book is about the scientific question of whether life once existed on Mars. The focus of the book is on a meteorite that researchers concluded is from Mars. Inside of the meteorite scientists have found evidence of bacterial life. When one figures in the dollar cost of Mars probes and the enormous time, money and resources spent on researching the Mars rocks, the cost is in the billions. Although much has been learned about many things in science from the research, a common concern is that the money could be much better spent elsewhere. One example is, one researcher has estimated that a billion dollars could defeat tuberculosis. Why spend this much money on Mars probes and on rocks to find evidence of life there? The reason is, if life, any kind on life, is proven to have existed, or to exist, on Mars this will demonstrate that, given the right conditions, life will eventually evolve most anywhere, providing strong support for both naturalism and molecules to man evolution. It will also strike a blow to theism and religion in general. In the end, this 394 page book concluded that there does not seem to be much good scientific evidence that the rock contained evidence of life, nor does there exist evidence of life, past or present, on Mars. On another point, it is commonly believed that J. William Schopf has proven the existence of at least 5 microbial life forms dating back to 3.5 billion years. I have been telling this to my students since he published his conclusions back in 1980. Sawyer documents that this claim is mostly speculation and good arguments exist to dispute this "well known fact." For example, see page 249 to 254 for Dr. Brasier's valid well documented scientific concerns about this claim, and page 254-260 for Schopf's attempt to rehabilitate himself. Sawyer reports that a Nature journal summary wrote that in the end "most judges gave a clear points victory to Brasier" and Schopf "had won few converts to his cause" (page 260). From now on after I explain to my students the "long held fact that humans have 100,000 genes has now been shown to be false" I will explain that the "fact" cited in your textbook that at least 5 microbial life forms dating back 3.5 billion years has been confirmed is also now very doubtful.

This book is a page-turner! The possibility of having discovered traces of ancient Martian life, no matter how primitive, has sent ripples throughout the (mainly scientific) world. This book gives an excellent overview of the entire story - from the 1984 discovery of this Martian rock in the Antarctic to the present time. As expected, there was much debate about whether the rock did indeed show signs of primitive, ancient Martian life. Consequently, two main camps formed: those trying to prove that the rock did show such signs of Martian life and those proposing alternative explanations for the rock's interesting features. I think that the author has done an excellent job in presenting the story without taking sides in the occasionally heated debates that took place over the years. There are no good guys and no bad guys here, just people trying to understand what had been found in the face of a possible paradigm shift. This book can be enjoyed by anyone because of its clear prose and engaging writing style. Nevertheless, because of its subject matter, it will likely be more popular among science buffs.

We are fascinated by the possibility that there may be some sort of life elsewhere than on the Earth. The possibility that there is no life elsewhere is equally interesting, but it doesn't, for instance, make interesting science fiction movies. Life outside of Earth has most often been imagined on Mars, which for all its differences from our planet is the one that is most similar to our own. Thus, when on 7 August 1996 researchers announced that they had found evidence that might show fossilized life on Mars, it was not just a scientific announcement, but one which that non-scientist President Clinton had to take part in making. _The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets_ (Random House) by Kathy Sawyer tells how the announcement came about, the science behind it, and the personalities (and the infighting) that made it happen and have kept research in the arena to the current day at various cutting edges at the limits of our understanding. Sawyer, a science reporter for the _Washington Post_, has made this story not only interesting but exciting, a refreshing view of how big science is done these days. The story began sixteen million years ago with an asteroid slamming into Mars. This sent up debris, and some of the debris became asteroids in their own right, and came down on Earth. This particular rock came down 13,000 years ago, and remained in the ice of Antarctica until it was discovered in 1984. The special nature of the rock, wasn't understood until 1993, when geochemists started examining it, and found that it was 4.5 billion years old; it was the oldest known rock from any planet including our own. More important, they found carbonates and iron crystals that were similar to such chemicals produced by organisms on Earth. Sawyer carefully explains the process of examining the rock; acid, electron scanning microscopes, ultraviolet lasers and more are brought upon it. There is lots of evidence that was turned up, and whatever the aftermath of the research, the team of David McKay, a famously careful and conservative researcher, did such a thorough job that the evidence was never in question. It was the interpretation of the evidence that proved to be troubling. Many scientists were upset that the researchers were taking undue advantage of a hot story and making it seem that their interpretation was factual rather than tentative. NASA was criticized from the start for hyping the research and using it for political reasons. In the ten years since the announcement, the controversy has become less prominent, but among scientists who are looking into the subject, there are still opposing camps on the matter, and vehement disagreements, and hurt feelings. As Sawyer winds up the story, there is no overall agreement on just what McKay's team turned up. There have been different ways of looking at the rock since then, none of them making a conclusive case. This is not a bad thing. Because of the controversy, new technique

From movies and television the public has an image of the scientist being a selfless, mild mannered, seeker of knowledge. 'Taint so. Scientists are people just like the rest of us. They are competitive with each other and with the world at large. They establish theories and points of view that they will defend almost to the death. When an alternative view comes around there is not the dispassionate scientific openness that allows honest discussion. Instead there is a very passionate series of thoughts centered around what this will do to the grants and funding that that scientist has. With that comes money, status, grad students -- all the things that matter most to a scientist. This is the story of a rock found in Antarctica. First it was just a rock. Then it became clear that it came from Mars. (The evidence is well developed in the book.) Then they spotted things that might indicate that there was or had been life on Mars. Then it hit the fan. Life anywhere but Earth has all kinds of meanings (for instance to the churches - intelligent design and all that). There could be entirely new branches of biology. The story of proving that this was or was not evidence of life on Mars fills the rest of the book. It was a vicious fight. It's a supurb book. Was there life on Mars? We really don't know. Even with all the space craft that have visited Mars, including the two rovers, we really don't know.

I was fascinated to read the about how the Mars rock came to the have such an impact on the public and scientific mind set. This little rock has quite the personality. The machinations of how one project comes to be officially accepted, who gets run over in the process, and who becomes the hero is very interesting. Very well researched and written. I was especially taken with the accounts of Robbie Score, the woman who found the rock. What a fun book.