So far, we’ve seen a human face on Mars, a monster crab, and a cannonball.
At least that’s what the internet tells us.
It’s easy for people to look at images from the red planet and see all sorts of things that seem to indicate alien life—even though the truth is much less exciting. The human face is a mesa, the crab is just a rock, and the cannonball is a pebble.
Most scientists aren’t surprised when some people come up with a sci-fi explanation for an image from another planet. After all, humans evolved to find recognizable patterns amid chaos. There’s even a word for it: pareidolia. But what we don’t expect is for fellow scientists—those who have been trained in the scientific method—to make those claims. When they do, it hurts science as a whole.
Read More Here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-premature-claims-of-life-on-mars-hurt-science/
