Conference noted::sf

    	I too, think the Mars "face" is just a natural rock formation
    formed by Martian winds over the ages - just take a look at the
    Old Man in the Mountain formation in New Hampshire.
    
    	Humans have a tendancy to anthromorphize many natural objects,
    such as clouds and rocks - perhaps to give us a kind of psychological
    comfort towards anything unfamiliar by making it familiar?
    
    	Larry
    

    I haven't gotten the latest Analog yet.....so:
    
    Can you give us/me some idea as to the author's background/credentials?
    
    Also, don't be mislead by Stan Schmidt, he will often take an editorial
    stance simply to provoke thought by his readers.  It's not necessarily
    a reflection of his personal views.
    
    
    				-Jeff

    Re .1
    
    Human might tend to see human faces everywhere from a desire for
    the familiar, but I think it likelier that we have a hard-wired
    "face-recognizer" as part of our visual system, making us particularly
    sensitive to anything that can be construed as a face.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Re .1:
    
    > . . . just take a look at the Old Man in the Mountain formation in
    > New Hampshire. 
    
    Yes, indeed, take a look at it.  It does not display bisymmetry,
    and neither do other known natural formations resembling faces.
    The "Face on Mars" does.  That's as unusual as finding two Old Man
    in the Mountain formations side by side and lined up in the same
    direction -- naturally-occuring-face-resembling objects may occur
    many places on Earth, but they are rare enough so that finding two
    of them together is worth looking at.
    
    In another note in this topic, somebody said Hoagland attributed
    other scientists' statements to jealousy.  I don't see where Hoagland
    said any such thing.
    
    Personally, I don't think the patterns presented so far are strong
    enough to prove the formations are artificial.  But recall the article
    and other arguments being made are not supposed to prove the
    formations are artificial.  And neither is it proper science to dismiss
    something because not enough evidence has been presented.  Proper
    science would be to get more evidence.  And that is the aim of the
    article, to show there is enough pattern to arouse interest and be
    worth pursuing.  We should take some more pictures at our next
    opportunity -- and only then can scientists properly dismiss or accept
    theories about the formations. 
    
    
    				-- edp

    A question - I remember reading somewhere that the regularities
    of the "face" - such as two nostrils, two pupils in the eyes were
    a result of noise in the computer processing of the original photo.
    anyone know anything about this?

    I basically agree with edp's position in .4, but I thought Hoagland
    got just a little too enthusiastic about his "evidence" of
    intelligence.  It's as much his writing style as anything else.
    
    But when I looked at the pictures, the "face" seemed to me to look
    as much like a beheaded female torso as a face.  I can "clearly"
    see breasts, a navel, and arms.  Now, were I so inclined, I could
    probably fabricate an equally plausible "explanation" involving
    the various other rock formations in the area that provides "evidence"
    of intelligence behind them.
    
    An regarding the bisymmetry argument - yeah, the Old Man is a bad
    example (BTW, the picture of the Old Man in the ZK lobby is mine);
    there are several strikingly bisymmetric peaks in the Himalayas;
    Gasherbrum IV in the Karakorum range is a virtually perfect chisel
    shaped pyramid from every angle you look at it.
    
    Hoagland's "analysis" of the shape of the five sided pyramid really
    stretches things; he ignores numerous deviations from symmetry,
    or explains them away as erosion.  Our visual system is very carefully
    "designed" (sorry, no teleology for me, this is just an expression)
    to extract "signals" from noise, even when there's no signal there.
    Somebody's earlier remark about "face detectors" is right on the
    mark.  We will see "straight lines" where there is only approximate
    straightness.  Look at a random field of dots - you'll see all kinds
    of "patterns" that aren't really there.  And Hoagland's invocation of
    improbability is statistically naive - given the number of geological
    structures on Mars, it would be incredible if there weren't a set
    somewhere that didn't exhibit *some* kind of apparent structure.
    
    The remark about "jealousy" was perhaps misstated - that was actually
    in Schmidt's editorial, which was about "getting cold feet at the
    last minute".  But Hoagland did seem to be to be saying that he
    wasn't being taken seriously because he was an outsider; a variation
    on the "not invented here" syndrome, which I consider a form of
    envy (or jealousy regarding prerogatives).
    
    Yeah, I'd like more/better pictures, if only to demonstrate that
    this is "just another" geological formation.  The thing that bugs
    me is Hoagland's overweening pride in the "quality" of his "evidence",
    and his whining ambience about not being taken seriously.  His evidence
    is to me garden variety UFO grade.
    
    len.
    
    
     
    

    	I do not believe that a civilization ever originated on the
    planet Mars, as evidence would indicate Mars' geological (and possibly
    organic) evolution ended rather abruptly at a time comparible to
    the time in Earth's history that the first microbes were evolving.
    During that period on Earth (approximately 4 to 3.5 billion years
    ago), oxides on the surface caused the rocks to literally RUST -
    this is what happended to Mars (that's why it is red) - but whereas
    Earth kept changing, Mars seemed to come to a halt after that stage,
    so that at best, perhaps no more than microbes were left in the
    waterways, and soon died off in Mars' primitive conditions.  
    	We may find some day the fossilized remains of some ancient
    Martian microbes, but certainly no civilized Martian beings or
    artifacts.
    
    	Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that alien
    beings from OTHER solar systems came to our system and explored
    Mars (as well as the other worlds), perhaps leaving some artifacts.
    
    	Larry
    

    
    
    	Some people would call the artifacts our travelers left on
    	the moon junk.
    
    zack
    

Well, it's an interesting phenomina, anyway- I don't mean the "face"
and the associated "city" and "grandstand" that Hoagland describes...
I mean the tendancy to WANT to see these things.

We are probably not familiar with all the possible effects of long-
term wind erosion, because it doesn't occur on the Earth. Possibly
such wind erosion increases the incidence of bisymetrical formations,
and knife-edge pyramidal formations, particularly if the the wind
always blows the same way. I don't know of anyplace on Earth where the 
wind has been blowing the same way for millions of years, and nothing
else (like water erosion) has been going on.

I can't see some of the formations Hoagland describes as "visible" in
the photos, and there's nothing wrong with my eyes. Perhaps Percival
Lowell could, but I can't... The idea of the edges of one of these
pyramidal forms representing human proportions seems particularly
bogus- reminds me of the many comparisons to the pyramids of Giza.

In the meantime, we continue to search and hope for some evidence of
XT life. Collective human lonliness? Desire for a perfect parent (to
take care of us, solve all our problems)? Wishing the universe was
more interesting than it already is? Will we be able to face the 
vast emptiness alone, or will we retreat or distroy ourselves? These
are questions that I think humanity will have to face as we venture
out from Earth, and this isolation becomes more real and apparent.
On an individual level, lonliness and isolation are the major cause
of depression, and depression is the only fatal psychological diorder.

We have to ask not only "Are we alone?", but also, "If so, can we
survive it?"

John O.

    Back when I took Intro to Psych there was a chapter in the textbook
    on Gestalt Psychology.  I remember something called "forming a 
    gestalt."  That is, taking the visual info you are given and filling 
    in the blanks in order to find some pattern in it.  The example in
    the book looked like this:
                       .
                      . .
                     . . .

    only bigger.  Anyway, if you asked most people from non-primitive 
    cultures what this object was, they would say it a triangle.  Only
    it isn't a triangle.  It is a bunch of dots that if connected into
    lines would be a triangle.  The point is we unconsiously fill in the
    gaps between the dots and see a triangle.  We see what we want to
    see.  People see shapes in clouds all the time.  The military uses
    the technique of camouflage is to break up the patterns of military 
    objects so the enemy eye will not fill in the gaps and see what is 
    really there.  Of course they are only copying what animals do
    naturally.  

    Only more pictures or radar images will or an on site examination
    will be able to say for sure whether the objects are natural or 
    artificial.  

    Mike

    As I understand it, more pictures and radar images is what Hoagland
    is asking for.
    
    ESW

    RE .8 That's some pretty expensive junk.
    
    Steve

    re .11 - yes, that's what Hoagland is asking for, but you've got
    to ask, given limited resources, what ought we be spending our money
    on.  I agree with the sentiment, but the practicalities require
    that we address other things before we can attend to what strike
    me and a whole lot of other people (all us narrowminded conventional
    scientific establishment bureaucracy types, to paraphrase) as just
    so much wishful thinking and artful fabrication.
    
    len.
     

    A face on Mars doesn't suggest anything to me but randomness.  You
    could find hundreds if you looked.  How many people "verified" the
    canals of Mars?
    
    BUT
    
    The ET idea that intrigues me the most is the size and position
    of the moon.  It was first pointed out to me in college that the
    moon is the EXACT size in the EXACT position to block out the sun
    COMPLETELY during an eclipse.  Not too big, not too small, but just
    right.
    
    (Actually it's one or the other.  It's a certain size in the EXACT
    place, or it's an EXACT size in a certain position.)  But that's
    one hell of a coincidence.
    
    So the supposition is that aliens put it exactly there to say, 
    "Hey, you guys, make a note of this!  We are/were here!"
    
    

    	Sorry, but the Moon's current diameter and distance is due to
    its very slow (5 feet per century) progression AWAY from Earth,
    and we just happen to be living at a time when the Moon's diameter
    and distance is just right for "matching" the Sun's diameter - in
    other words, some more cosmic RANDOMNESS.
    
    	I also think that any aliens, especially ones travelling across
    many light-years - would find a much easier way to contact Earth
    humans (if they wanted to) than position the WHOLE Moon!  Like,
    burying a large black Monolith in the lunar crater Tycho! 
      
    	Larry
    

Is it just coincidence that the Moon rotates in such a way that
we only see one side of it in the light?  That always seemed a
little strange to me (like Is Somebody Hiding Something Back There?).

    No, the Moon always faces Earth because of tides.  Lunar tides on
    the Earth move the oceans around and are slowly increasing the length
    of the day; Earth tides on the Moon are much stronger and long ago
    "locked" the Moon into a fixed position relative to Earth.  After
    all, Earth is about 64 times the volume of the Moon and denser;
    it has nearly 100 times the mass of the Moon, so its tidal effects
    are much greater.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

re: .14 and .15

There could still be a monolith in some crater.  The present position 
of the Moon could be just a BIG marker saying "look here".   The other
places to look would be other transient phenomena in the solar system.
Saturn's rings might qualify, although I don't know if anyone's sure
whether they're stable or not.  
/jlr

    	I still say it would be a major waste of power to move the entire
    Moon just to be a marker!  And how many people would actually derive
    such a conclusion from the present position of the Moon?  Not many,
    and the majority of the scientific community would disregard such
    a theory as Von Dankien nonsense.
    
    	Aliens probably would be much more direct in their signaling
    methods - like a monolith - to ensure that we humans would take
    their marker as definetely artificial, and not just some random
    chance of nature (as was said about the Martian "faces" - personally,
    I think the Martian faces would have a better chance of being alien
    markers than the whole Moon!).
    
    	And before you answer "Well, how do you know what aliens would
    do?", I reply that there are certain universal "logics" to everything,
    and it would logically be more effecient and easier to recognize
    a monolith than a "positioned" moon (re-read my note 383.15 on why
    the Moon is where it is).
    
    	Larry
    

from .14:
>    The ET idea that intrigues me the most is the size and position
>    of the moon.  It was first pointed out to me in college that the
>    moon is the EXACT size in the EXACT position to block out the sun
>    COMPLETELY during an eclipse.  Not too big, not too small, but just
>    right.
    
...    
>    So the supposition is that aliens put it exactly there to say, 
>    "Hey, you guys, make a note of this!  We are/were here!"
    
I, too, have been intriqued by the almost "exact" size and position of the
moon. I would also point out that the Moon is rather a singularly large
satellite for the Earth to have. Mars has two captured asteroids, and that
is only because it is near the asteroid belt. Looking at it logically, one
should be surprised that the Earth has any satellite at all! Then there is
the fact that the Moon's makeup is significantly different than that of the
Earth's (primarily light elements) which has made it difficult for a while
now to associate the Moon's creation with that of the Earth's.

I think you all have the basic idea, but not quite right. I would say that
Luna was placed in Earth orbit by Aliens not in order to indicate there
existance, but to foster an interest in the heavens, astronomy, and eventually,
space travel. Luna is too conveniently close: far enough away to be a technical
challange and an incentive to develop space travel, yet not so far away as to
discourage space travel. 

A bit more subtle than sending a monolith down to Earth to monkey with the
monkeys, eh?

kevin routley

    	If the Moon is a "lure" to get humanity out into space, then
    the hypothetical aliens certainly did not build a very stable marker;
    as I said in 383.15, the Moon is drifting away from Earth at a rate
    of five feet per century, and we just happen to be existing at a
    time when its diameter matches the Sun's from our perspective on
    Earth. 
    
    	The Moon was created with Earth about 4.6 billion years ago,
    from that giant nebula of gas and dust which would one day become
    the Sun, planets, and moons.  The Moon first formed about 20,000
    miles from Earth, and slowly drifted away from our planet BY NATURAL
    FORCES, just as it was created and was one of the few "planetesimals"
    to survive our Solar System's early formation by natural forces.
     	In the far, far future, the Moon will recede as far as 400,000
    miles from Earth, then slowly drift back, where towards the end
    of the Solar System (when the Sun inflates into a giant red star),
    Earth's gravitational forces will pull the Moon apart, forming a
    ring of lunar debris around our world.
    
    	All this is in accordance to the physical laws, and was a cosmic
    RANDOM occurance - as I've said twice already, it is far more practical
    to build a much smaller artificial device - or teach the natives
    directly - than "move" the Moon, and hope that a few humans might
    catch on.  A lot of effort with too high a risk for failure to 
    justify the cost.
    
    	Larry
    

re .21:

You're no fun! :-)
kevin routley

    	"Fun" can be derived from scientifically and logically exploring
    a theory - sometimes the truth is more interesting than the theory!
    
    	Larry
    

    Why do most people assume that another race, whether more
    scientifically advanced or not, has to do things any better, or
    any more logically then we do.  We build lots of things that dont
    work so good.  Also things that dont last so long.  If the Sphinx's
    nose can fall off, aliens can goof on their calculations too :^)
    
    /Dan (who doesnt believe the theory but does believe in fun)

    Moon created within 20,000 miles?? Isn't that way within the Roche
    limit for a body that size?? just asking.
    
    Ross Faneuf
    

    	RE 383.24 -
    
    	I knew somebody was going to ask how do I know what aliens would
    do, and as I said before, there ARE certain "logics" to everything
    everywhere - one of them being you don't try and move septillions
    of tons of rock on the bare chance of hoping someone millions of
    years down the road gets your subtle hint, when something much lighter
    and more productive in a shorter amount of time will do.
    	But I am confused about your comment that - going on your idea
    that the Moon is an alien marker - there is a FAULT in their setup;
    WHERE is there a "goof" in their calculations, and what exactly
    are you referring to?
    
    	RE 383.25 -
    
    	When the Moon was 20,000 miles from Earth, this was about 5
    billion years ago, and both worlds were in a very molten state,
    hardly holding themselves together in a spherical fashion.  Earth
    and the Moon had no set center of gravity in this near-liquid state,
    so there was no Roche limit to speak of at the time.  By the time
    both worlds did solidify, thus making the Roche limit possible,
    the Moon was far enough away to avoid any damaging gravitational
    effects from Earth.
    
    	Larry
    

    On the other hand, artificial things break, wear out, deteriorate,
    and generally rot.  Try keeping fresh paint on your house in New
    England.  There are no artifacts in New England of the bunches of
    constructors who lived here 4,000 years ago (like a America's
    Stonehenge/Mystery Hill), EXCEPT for the stones they left behind.
    
    Granted that space is a more benign and neutral environment for
    artificial things, a conglomeration of round rock has a better
    chance of surviving the millenia and lasting as a marker.

    re .26 - the fact that the earth and moon were molten doesn't affect
    their gravitational effects on one another.  The Roche limit is
    that orbital radius at which tidal forces exceed the internal binding
    forces.  If anything, I would expect that these forces are lower
    for a molten mass than a solidified mass, hence the molten moon
    would be more likely to separate into droplets than a solid moon
    into fragments.  The moltenness of the earth would not significantly
    affect its tidal forces (gravitational gradient) unless there were
    a dramatic difference in its density in the molten and solid states.

    len.
    

    	RE 383.27 -
    
    	It is very practical to use artificial devices, especially in
    the near-vacuums of the Moon and interstellar space.  Using our
    "primitive" space artifacts as an example, the probes and Apollo
    lunar landers will survive in almost the same condition as they
    were left for millions of years on the Moon's surface, and the Pioneer
    and Voyager Jovian probes (the ones carrying the plaques and recordes
    for aliens) will survive at least one BILLION years in interstellar 
    space!  And these ships were not specifically designed to last
    very long - so imagine just how well an alien artificial device
    purposely designed to survive for ages WILL last!
                                          
    	RE 383.28 - 
    
    	It is conceivable that the Moon was torn into several parts
    in the early days, only to pull itself back together and solidify
    due to its elasticity in the molten state.  Many of the Jovian moons
    have been found to have just such events happen to them; inother
    words, back in the days of the Solar System's birht, it was possible
    for the Moon to survive the Roche Limit.
    
    	Larry
     
    

    Thought the currently acceptable theory, with some proof, was that
    the moon was knocked out of the Earth early in the Earth's history
    by a massive asteriodal strike.
    
    Dwight

    	That is one theory I have not heard of.  Where did you get this
    information, and could you elaborate?
    
    	Larry
    

>    Thought the currently acceptable theory, with some proof, was that
>    the moon was knocked out of the Earth early in the Earth's history
>    by a massive asteriodal strike.
>    Dwight

My recollection of studies of moon rocks and moonquakes indicated that the
moon consisted primarily of lighter elements. This is inconsistent with the
theory that you just stated in that if the moon was originally part of
earth, one would suspect that it would still be made up of the same elements
as the earth.

Besides, this sounds just like Valichofsky's (sp?) "Collision of Worlds"
stuff.
kevin routley

    	The Moon was created with a smaller mass than Earth's, therefore
    it lost many of its lighter elements in the early days of the Solar
    System.
    	It is also NOT true that the Moon is not composed of many of
    the same elements as Earth.  There are no elements on the Moon which
    are alien to Earth.
    
    	Larry
    

    re .32 - it's Velikovsky.
    
    re .33 - it's not that the elements differ, but that their relative
    abundances differ.  Also, re the Roche limit discussion, I thought
    you were arguing that the earth/moon system's molten state would
    "prevent" tidal disruption, not that it waould allow recombination
    of fragments.   Sorry if I misunderstood you.
    
    len.
    

    re .24:
    
    > If the Sphinx's
    > nose can fall off, aliens can goof on their calculations too :^)
      
    BTW, The Sphinx's nose did NOT *fall* off, it was *shot* off by
    Napolean's army who used it for target practice.
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    re .20:
    
> I, too, have been intriqued by the almost "exact" size and position of the
> moon. I would also point out that the Moon is rather a singularly large
> satellite for the Earth to have. Mars has two captured asteroids, and that
> is only because it is near the asteroid belt. Looking at it logically, one
> should be surprised that the Earth has any satellite at all!
  
    Some theories about the evolution of life requires the existence
    of tides. The repeated drying then wetting would act as the selective
    force to generate cell walls. If this is true then it is obvious
    why the Earth has a rather large moon. Of the millions of planets
    that had all the other ingredients to create life, only those with
    a rather large satellite creating tides would actually produce life
    (as we know it).
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

re: .-1

There's even a name for this; it's called the anthropic principle.  
It was discussed in an article in SciAm several years ago.
The idea is that the universe is the way it is because otherwise we 
wouldn't be here to study it.  Is it accidental that the Earth is the 
right distance away from the sun for supporting water-carbon life?  No,
because the planets that weren't at the right distance didn't produce 
water-carbon life to worry about it.  Is it accidental that the 
various fundamental constants work out in such a way that complex 
chemistry is possible?  No, because the universes without complex 
chemistry lack chemistry-based observers.  In this sense there *IS* a 
design to the universe: it's designed to make observation of itself 
possible.  Kind of tautological, but perhaps of some comfort.

/jlr

    	If you want to believe that a Perfectly Supreme Being (that's
    what my old college Philosophy class professor called God) created,
    designed, and gave reason to the Cosmos (I do), then that is fine,
    but please don't apply such magnitudes of order to any alien species;
    in my opinion, there can only be one God per Universe, and I doubt
    that any alien species could do what a SPB can, simply because they
    will not be perfect and omnipresent by nature of their being.
    
    	Larry
     

    re .37:
    
    (haven't I seen you in PHILOSOPHY?)
    
    The anthropic principle as you state it sounds perfectly reasonable,
    but as I recall, it is actually pretty extreme, one step away from
    solipism almost.
    
    Asking why the universe is the way it is, is like asking why is 
    {any animal} so perfectly suited to its enviroment? It's because 
    those that weren't; died, and those that were; lived. It is not
    because it is necessary that an animal occupy that niche.
    
    My objection to the anthropic principle is the statement:
    
    > In this sense there *IS* a design to the universe: it's designed 
    > to make observation of itself possible.
    
    It implies that there is an answer to the question "who designed
    the universe"
    
    We are here, and can observe the universe, because of the way the
    universe works. The universe does not exist in order to make us
    possible.
    
    As to how this relates to SF, if we can discuss physics, why not
    meta-physics?  Heinlein, of late, has been including a bit of strange
    meta-physics in his novels, "the world as myth" or "plural solipism".
    Which personally I find annoying, but I suppose it is perfectly
    reasonable for fictional characters to consider themselves to be
    fictional characters. But, I think I should continue this in the
    RAH note.
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /

    re .38:
    
    I do not understand how .38 relates to .37.
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

re: .40 -> .38 -> .37

I think the comment that the universe is "designed" is the key point.
Is the universe the way it is because some external entity configured
it, or is it all happpenstance?
I'm willing to support the happenstance hypothesis.  A convenient
extension of this hypothesis is the "bubble" hypothesis of the Big Bang.
This hypothesis presumes that multiple separate universes were created
at the Bang, each with different sets of physical laws.
Our universe ended up with laws that allow life as we know it.

Also, I'm willing to accept aliens as capable of creating anything,
including us, our earth, our moon, and even the face.  I'm not about
to try to outguess the mental processes of other species.  Maybe the
subtleties of the position, orientation, etc of the moon are aesthetics,
and the message (if any) is secondary.  It's all a big metaphor, a poem
in the sky.

- tom]

PS: With the reference to RAH, the theology of "Job" may apply here.

< Note 383.38 by EDEN::KLAES "Welcome to Olympus, Captain Kirk!" >

>    	If you want to believe that a Perfectly Supreme Being (that's
>    what my old college Philosophy class professor called God) created,
>    designed, and gave reason to the Cosmos (I do), then that is fine,
>    but please don't apply such magnitudes of order to any alien species;
>    in my opinion, there can only be one God per Universe, and I doubt
>    that any alien species could do what a SPB can, simply because they
>    will not be perfect and omnipresent by nature of their being.
    
>    	Larry
     
What are the requirements of godhood?  Why couldn't alien races be soooo
advanced as to have god-like powers?  I will not attempt to suggest that
mere mortal beings could create the cosmos in its current perfect state,
but I will suggest that they could seed a world and place a satellite to 
develop intelligent life on said world.

I think Frederick Pohl's Heechee in the Gateway trilogy are a good example.

kevin routley

    	I believe that there are alien races out there who DO have godlike
    powers - there is no reason for them not to - I am arguing against
    any alien races BEING God, or creating the Cosmos.
    
    	And I still doubt that an alien intelligence put Earth's Moon
    where it presently is - it's just like giving credit to aliens for
    building the Pyramids; our ancestors were a lot more intelligent
    and resourceful than we give them credit for.
    	And the fact that people believe that the Moon was artificially
    moved into position shows that we still have trouble in thinking
    that natural forces alone can shape the Universe.
    
    	Larry
    

    Why is it a lot of people belive that becacuse there could be life
    on another planet that "they" are more intelligent? I don't think
    the human race gives itself enough credit! after all arn't we just
    now on the threshold of going to other planets seeing for the first
    time what people of generations have dreamt of? Picture another
    planet and there people looking up in the sky and seeing one of
    our voyagers with it's strange markings on it's side U.S.A. or
    NASA they couldn't read our heiroglyphics they would be thinking
    how advanced those people must be!
                   Bill-

>    Why is it a lot of people belive that becacuse there could be life
>    on another planet that "they" are more intelligent? I don't think
>    the human race gives itself enough credit! after all arn't we just
>    now on the threshold of going to other planets.....

Probability would indicate that if there are other life forms out there
that most of them WOULD be more advanced than we are.
The universe as we know it is 10~20 billion years old.
Life on earth began some 3 billion years ago.
Complex creatures (multi-celled, likely manipulators of their environment)
are only about 1 billion years old.
Sentience (as the sentients define it) is less than a few milion years old.
Civilization is only about 10,000 years old.
Technology is even younger than that (you decide when "technology" started).

So out of 10^10 years, a contactable civilization has existed on earth
for less than 10^4.  A one million year head start on somebody else's part
out of those 100's of million of years is trivial.  
The odds are thus that there are a lot more advanced civilizations
that will still be apparent (presuming that civilization can maintain itself)
than there are RECOGNIZABLE pre-civilizations.

- tom]

    Re .45:
    
    Well, thats the standard argument, but the flaw in it (IMHO) is hidden
    in your last line:
    
>The odds are thus that there are a lot more advanced civilizations
>that will still be apparent (presuming that civilization can maintain itself)
>than there are RECOGNIZABLE pre-civilizations.
    
    Problems:
    
    	1)  Prove that it is LIKELY that most civilizations that have
    reached our level of development (ie. approx. 10,000 years worth) will
    SURVIVE for another 10,000 years.
    
    	2)  Prove that a civilization that is 10,000 years more advanced
    than ours would be RECOGNIZABLE by us as a civilization.
    
    
    These are not just knock-off problems.  I find it unlikely in the
    extreme that if there is no FTL-drive that OUR civilization will
    survive another 1000 years, let alone 10,000.
    
    AND,... assuming that we do, I have a real hard time just imagining
    what our civilization (and ourselves) will be like only 1000 years from
    now, let alone 10,000.  I find it likely that any civilization 10,000
    years advanced from our own could even be identified by us (unless of
    course it is wiping us out for the parking space).

>    Re .45:
>    Well, thats the standard argument, but the flaw in it (IMHO) is hidden
>    in your last line:
>>The odds are thus that there are a lot more advanced civilizations
>>that will still be apparent (presuming that civilization can maintain itself)
>>than there are RECOGNIZABLE pre-civilizations.
>    Problems:
>    	1)  Prove that it is LIKELY that most civilizations that have
>    reached our level of development (ie. approx. 10,000 years worth) will
>    SURVIVE for another 10,000 years.
>    	2)  Prove that a civilization that is 10,000 years more advanced
>    than ours would be RECOGNIZABLE by us as a civilization.

Entirely true, but I purposely ignored this aspect because it negates
the question that was asked.
If there is only a window of 10^4 years in which a civilization can be 
recognized (acknowledging that sufficiently advanced and sufficiently
retarded preclude "recognition"), then that reduces the number
of contemporary recognizable by a factor of 10^6 or so.
Even starting starting with 10^12 or 10^15 possible home stars for civilization
in the Drake equation (see Larry Klaes's personal name), a factor of 10^6
is a real drag on the ability to find a partner.

And I DO expect that 10^4, maybe 10^5, years IS a maximum window.
Read Vernor Vinge and George R. R. Martin.  *>I<* expect the Singularity
to hit before the end of the 21st century.

- tom]

    re .-1:
    
>Read Vernor Vinge and George R. R. Martin.  *>I<* expect the Singularity
>to hit before the end of the 21st century.
    
    I have read them, but I don't recognize your reference.  What
    specificaly should we read by them?

    Re .last_few:
    
    The mathematics are nice, but there's another point.  It's entirely
    possible that while civilizations may be arising on various planets
    throughout our galaxy, we might be furthest along.  [Demonstration:
    assume we're not the first.  Assume the first happened 10,000 years
    previously, and assume their technology was about like ours is now,
    back then.  Then if two members of _that_ civilization were arguing,
    they'd use essentially the same argument about more-advanced civil-
    izations then that have been used here, now.]  It's a possibility
    to consider.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

>>Read Vernor Vinge and George R. R. Martin.  *>I<* expect the Singularity
>>to hit before the end of the 21st century.
>    
>    I have read them, but I don't recognize your reference.  What
>    specificaly should we read by them?

I knew somebody would test me on it....
Vernor Vinge wrote "The Peace War," in which he proposed the existence
of "bobbles," roughly equivalent to Niven's "stasis" generators.
He wrote a sequel called "Marooned in Real Time," in which some number
of people are either trapped or choose to skip through time embobbled.
Some number of these people "sleep through" the depopulation of the Earth,
apparently sometime in the 22nd(?) century.  The event is referred
to as "The Singularity."
Of the people still around, nobody can figure out where everybody went,
whether they were exterminated by extra-solar events, or we all "grew 
up and moved away."
Vinge's editorial implication (as stated in an afterword, not necessarily
part of  the story) is the latter explanation - something truly
transcendent happened, maybe something like Clarke's "Childhood's End."

I threw in Martin because I recall similar "singularity" references
in some of his stuff, but the details escape me.

- tom]

PS:  I read the Vinge stories in Analog - I don't know if they have been
published elsewhere.

>< Note 383.49 by LESCOM::KALLIS "Wait for the eclipse." >
>    
>    The mathematics are nice, but there's another point.  It's entirely
>    possible that while civilizations may be arising on various planets
>    throughout our galaxy, we might be furthest along.  

Sure, we could be, but the argument about probability can be restated
as follows:
It's taken roughly 10^9 years to get from the origin of multi-cellular 
life to the present.
If evolution had proceeded merely one thousandth of one percent faster
over that time, then an equivalent state of development to us now could have
been reached 10,000 years ago.
I consider a factor of 10^-5 variation in biological evolution quite 
reasonable.
Apply a similar factor to the cosmological evolution over 10^10 years,
and there's LOTS of room for predecessors.
Given all the places life and civilization could show up (10^11 galaxies
of 10^11 stars each, even assuming you need stars for life),
it would be really unlikely that we would be the first.
That leads us to the window of 10^3 to 10^5 years.
We might not be the first, but we might be the only ones around right now.

- tom]

    	See SF Topic 484 for more on Vinge's works.
    
    	Larry
    

    I am not sure that anybody out there is smarter than we are. They
    would *have* to be different, but smarter? Who knows? The reason
    I say this is two fold: 1) are we evolving towards higher intelligence?
    Not clear. 2) Do we even know how smart *we* are? I suggest the
    answer is no. Our technological expertise has increased greatly
    but we are still using the same organic machinery we hade 60000
    years or more ago. However, the *way* we think I suspect is
    dramatically different. The "software" has changed. I heard a quote
    that every book you read is a someone's lifetime of experience.
    And the more books you read, the more lifetimes you have incorporated
    into your own mind. Therefore, we have no real idea of what our
    capabilities are.
    
    And given that, who the hell do these Antareans think they are,
    anyway?
    
    steve

    Did anyone else read the story (in Asimov?) based on the
    presumption that the Face is an artifact and hides a labyrinth?
    
    Bonnie

From: PJS@GROUCH.JPL.NASA.GOV (Peter Scott)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Face on Mars (not the one you think).
Date: 16 Oct 89 20:08:40 GMT
 
    I just discovered an issue of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
publication UNIVERSE, dated February 22, 1985, (before most of the
current fuss) which contains the following: 
 
    BEST FACE FORWARD - "Imagination", so goes the old song, "is
crazy; your whole perspective gets hazy..."  Lately, news stories have
focused on the center photo of this trio [pic of Hoagland face], a
feature strongly resembling human or anthropoid characteristics,
reflecting the belief of some that the face was sculpted by another
civilization [but how do we know that some feature that resembles an
armadillo, say, wasn't created by a race of sentient armadillo-like
creatures?  - PJS].  These three [pix] are typical of many surface
details found on Mars by the Viking Orbiters in the late 1970s and
which, with a little fantasy, could be transformed into serious or
whimsical caricatures.  A typical Martian impact crater, above, offers
a smiling mouth and eyes formed by fractures caused by the original
impact.  (The area around the crater even reinforces our happy man's
"sunny" disposition!)  [Pic is of a smiley face-crater with bright
rays.  Eyes and mouth are distinct and in the right places, and there
is a hint of a nose - PJS].  The main crater is about 8 km (5 mi) in
diameter, creating the largest known "Happy Face" in the solar system.

    The center photo [Hoagland pic] was taken by Viking 1 orbiter in
Mars' northern latitudes on July 25, 1976, while searching for a
landing site for the Viking 2 lander.  The speckled appearance is due
to missing data, called "bit errors", and including the "face's"
visible "nostril" and part of the "eye". [In other words, what looks
like a nostril on the pic is actually an error in the picture; it's
remarkable how un-lifelike the picture is without it - PJS].  Planetary 
geologists attribute the origin of the formation to purely natural 
processes.  The feature is 1.5 km (1 mi) across. 

    The third in this whimsical trio of Martian "creatures" is the
piece de resistance.  An unusual lava flow pattern lies on the flank
of Alba Patera, a large volcano north of the Tharsis region in Mars'
northern hemisphere.  Any grade-school kid - and maybe even a few
adults - will go to bed dreaming that the Muppets' "Kermit the Frog"
had a prior life on Mars. [Pic shows a pretty good outline of upper
part of Kermit, including eye, in profile - PJS] 
 
    Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov)

Article: 27339
From: higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Plans to acquire Face images (was Re: Mars Observer and the "Face")
Date: 13 Oct 92 23:05:33 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 
In article <1992Oct12.150056.9477@ryn.mro4.dec.com>,
randolph@est.enet.dec.com (Tom Randolph) writes: 

> Can someone at NASA post NASA's thoughts one way or another regarding the
> Mars Observer and the Martian "face"?  [...]
> Does NASA even have an opinion on this? Is any hi-res coverage planned? There
> are all kinds of rumors flying, including "the hi-res camera isn't easily
> pointable, so no hi-res coverage is planned"... how about clarification?
 
I passed on this request to a friend at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
and he provided this summary of what David D. Evans, Mars Observer
Project Manager at JPL, was saying to people who were writing to him
about Cydonia before the launch.  (JPL manages the spacecraft under
contract to NASA, so this is about as authoritative as you can
possibly get.)  I received permission to post this. 
 
[begin quote from JPL]
 
The Mars Observer Project at JPL is certainly aware of the great
interest in the Cydonia region.  The project's staff intend to do
their best to be responsive to requests for high-resolution
photographic coverage of the region.
 
They unfortunately cannot absolutely guarantee, however, that they
will obtain the requested Cydonia region coverage, although they
are optimistic that they can do so.  The reasons have nothing to do
with politics, but rather with the nature of the Mars Observer
mission, of the camera, and of Mars itself.
 
The Mars Observer spacecraft will be in an orbit that will take it
over each part of the planet only once in each Martian year.  In
order to achieve the highest possible resolution, the Mars Observer
Camera was designed with a very small field of view (only about 3
km (1.8 mi) wide).  It physically cannot be pointed in any
direction except straight down.  Thus, we will have, at best, one
or maybe two opportunities to photograph any 3 km square piece of
Mars.  In addition, given the uncertainty in the position of each
orbit and the timing of the spacecraft within each orbit (resulting
from atmospheric drag because the spacecraft is so low), mission
controllers will not be able to predict precisely when Mars
Observer will fly over a specific location on Mars.  Finally, even
if they are able to predict when the appropriate images should be
taken, Mars may not cooperate -- clouds, fogs, hazes, and dust
storms frequently obscure the surface.
 
Thus, whereas the project team fully expects to acquire images of
the Cydonia region, they cannot be absolutely certain that they
will acquire high-resolution images of any particular small feature.
 
There has also been some confusion about when these photos will be
released to the general public.  We expect to release two kinds of
photo products.  First of all, we will release selected prints of
interesting features on Mars to the news media, typically within a
week or two after acquisition.  Cydonia area photos fall into this
category.  Once the photos are released, they will be made available 
for purchase by the general public through a local contractor.
 
The second set of data, comprising an immense data set of all photo
products of Mars, will be released in digital form, in several
increments, on CD-ROM diskettes within about six months from the
time these products are acquired.  This is to allow sufficient time
for computer processing for time tagging, for orbital position
determination, etc., and for the project science team analysis and
correlation with data from other instruments.  This digital data
set, which will be available from the National Space Science Data
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, can be accessed by anyone with a
commercially available CD-ROM reader attached to their personal
computer.
 
[end quote from JPL; back to quoting Tom Randolph again]
 
> This is a hot topic of late over in
> alt.alien.visitors. It would probably be a good idea to head off the 
> government conspiracy theories early and avoid the rush.
 
Go ahead and re-post if you like, Tom.  No way am I gonna get
involved.  Besides, those characters don't believe anybody who posts
from a government laboratory anyway. (-:
  
     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
 /       \                          (_) (_)                    / | \
 |       |     Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 \       /     Bitnet:     HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET
   -   -       Internet:  HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
     ~         SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS 

I'm currently reading Allen Steele's Labyrinth of Night which is a yarn centered
on the "Face" and a city of pyramids in Cydonia.  So far, a good read.

/Ted

From:	US1RMC::"baalke@kelvin.Jpl.Nasa.Gov" "Ron Baalke" 22-AUG-1993 
To:	sci-space-news@uunet.uu.net
CC:	
Subj:	Observations of the "Face on Mars" by the Mars Observer Camera

This posting is from Mike Malin, Principal Investigator of the Mars
Observer Camera, in response to the net discussions that have been
going on during the past two weeks.

Please do not respond to the e-mail address above.  My only link
to the network is through this third party and I don't want them
deluged with replies.  I do read the net occassionally and will try to
respond when time and interest permit.

Topic: 	Observations of the "Face on Mars" and other such "Things" by
	the Mars Observer Camera

There have been a lot of questions about whether or not the Mars
Observer Camera (MOC) will observe the "Face on Mars" or other
features in the Cydonia region on Mars.  This note will (try) to
describe what we are going to do and why.

BACKGROUND

For those of you not familiar with the topic, several Viking images
show features on the surface of Mars that, in the eyes of some people,
resemble "faces," "pyramids," and other such "artifacts."  The most
famous of these is the "Face on Mars" and associated features "The
City," "The Fortress," "The Cliff," "The Tholus," and "The D&M
Pyramid."  A fairly substantial "cottage" industry has sprung up
around these features, with several books having been written about
them, newsletters published, public presentations, press conferences,
and, of course, National Enquirer and other "tabloid" published
reports.  The basic premise of these people is that the features are
artificial, and are messages to us from alien beings.  Their tack is
to say, "These should be rephotographed by Mars Observer, since with
high resolution we should be able to PROVE that these are artificial.
If these are in fact artificial, this would rank as one of the
greatest discoveries in history and thus every effort should be made
to acquire images."   Evidence cited as presently "proving" these are
unnatural landforms include measurements of angles and distances that
define "precise" mathematical relationships.  One of the most popular
is that "The D&M Pyramid" is located at 40.868 degrees North Latitude,
relative to the control network established by Merton Davies (the RAND
scientist who has been more or less singularly responsible for
establishing the longitude/latitude grids on the planets) to an
accuracy (actually, a precision) of order 0.017 degrees.  They point
out that 40.868 equals arctan (e / pi); alternatively, one of the
advocates notes that the ratio of the surface area of a tetrahedron to
its circuscribing sphere is 2.72069 (e = 2.71828), which, if
substituted for e in the above arctan equation gives 40.893 degrees,
which is both within the physical perimeter of the "Pyramid" and
within the above stated precision.  Other mathematical relationships
abound.  The advocates of this view argue that "no scientific study of
these features has been conducted under NASA auspices" and that NASA
and the conservative science community are conspiring to keep the
"real" story from the American public.

The conventional view is that this is all nonsense. The Cydonia region
lies on the boundary between ancient upland topography and low-lying
plains, with the isolated hills representing remnants of the uplands
that once covered the low-lying area.  The features seen in these
mesas and buttes (to bring terrestrial terminology from the desert
southwest to bear on the problem) result from differential weathering
and erosion of layers within the rock materials.  The area is of
considerable importance to geologists because it does provide insight
into the sub-surface of Mars, and to its surface processes. The
measurement of angles and distances seems so much numerology,
especially when one understands the actual limitations in the control
network (of order 5-10 km, or 0.1-0.2 degrees) and the imprecision of
our corrections of the images (neglecting, for example, topography
when reprojecting data for maps) on which people are trying to measure
precise angles and distances.  Even given accurate data, however, most
science does not depend solely on planimetric measurements, even when
using photographs.  There are many other attributes used to examine
features that don't work for these things.  No one in the planetary
science community (at least to my knowledge) would waste their time
doing "a scientific study" of the nature advocated by the proponents
of the "Face on Mars is Artifical" perspective.

To provide you with an idea of the magnitude of this issue, consider
that I spend roughly a quarter of my time these days trying to prepare
thoughtful answers to (often abusive) letters from people who analyse
every word in every sentence in every paragraph in every letter I have
written on the subject (they send copies of my letters to each other
and exerpt them in their newsletters).  They see innuendo and hidden
meaning everywhere.  I also have it on first-hand authority that at
least 2 NASA Headquarters managers spend similar amounts of time
responding to letters sent over from Congressmen whose constituents
write about "The Face" and to which NASA is obligated to respond. 

THINGS LIMITING MARS OBSERVER CAMERA OBSERVATIONS

Before I discuss the observations MOC will make of "The Face on Mars,"
some facts about the camera and its ability to look at specific
locations are needed.

0.  The MOC is body fixed to the spacecraft.  It has no independent
pointing capability.  It makes pictures the same way a fax machine
does (i.e., the scene is moved past the single line detector).

1.  Cross-track Field of View - The MOC has a very small field of view
(0.44 degrees), which is about 3 km from the 400 km orbital altitude.
It typically takes very small images at very high resolution (lots of
data).  Anything wider than 3 km cannot be imaged in its entirety.

2.  Along-track Field of View - The MOC's downtrack field of view is
limited by the amount of data that will fit in its buffer (about 10
MB).  If one uses the entire buffer (which is not likely to be
completely empty unless its planned to be) and 2:1 realtime predictive
compression, this translates to a downtrack image length of about 15
km.  We've designed the camera to be able to average pixels together
to synthesize poorer resolution, which frees up data.  Under the best
case buffer availability, an 8X summed image would be 3 km wide (but
only 256 pixels across) by 40960 pixels long which, at 12 m/pxl (8 X
1.5) would be almost 500 km long.

3.  Pointing Control Instability - The spacecraft uses IR horizon sensors
for in-orbit pointing control.  Owing to variations in the IR flux of
the horizon with latitude, season, surface topography, atmospheric
dust content, cloudiness, and other meteorological and climatological
conditions, the control capability is about 10 mrad (0.6 degrees = 4 km),
which is larger than the MOC field of view.

4.  Spacecraft Position Uncertainty - The position of the spacecraft
is determined by radio tracking for 8 hours (roughly 4.5 hours of
actually seeing the spacecraft) a day, and by computing the position
of the Earth, Mars, and the spacecraft in an inertial coordinate
system.  It takes a few days to do this, and to use it to determine
where the spacecraft will be a few days later.  By that time, gravity
perturbations, atmospheric drag, and autonomous momentum unloadings
will have changed the orbit.  Error studies suggest that the
uncertainty seven days after the end of a given orbit can be
represented as a 40 second uncertainty in the time the spacecraft will
be at a specific point in its orbit.  This translates (at the orbital
rate of the spacecraft projected on the ground of 3 km/s) to 120 km
downtrack and (because Mars rotates at 0.24 km/s at the equator) 9.6
km crosstrack. At 40 degrees latitude, the crosstrack uncertainty is
7.4 km.

5.  Non-inertial Position Uncertainty - The position of the spacecraft
is determined inertially.  As noted above, the position of the
longitude/latitude grid is also uncertain to about 5-10 km.

6.  Orbit Spacing - If, in spite of the preceding, orbits were equally
spaced, then the average spacing of orbits at the equator for the 687
day mission would be about 2.5 km, which means that each spot on the
equator will fall within the MOC field of view in (possibly) two
images.  In fact, the repeat distance is just over 3.1 km, again
assuming equal spacing, and it is more than likely that each spot on
the equator will only be seen once. At 40 degrees latitude, the
spacing is roughly 2.4 km, and any location will be seen, at most,
twice.  Given Items 1-5, it is most likely that some places will be
overflown twice, and others not at all, and that our ability to
predict this is very limited.

We are attempting to address some of these issues with, for example,
optical navigation.  This could reduce the spacecraft position
uncertainty by perhaps a factor of five or more.  We will try to
create a new control grid with higher precision (perhaps as good as 1
km).  But we cannot do anything about the orbit spacing or the
pointing control or the width of the MOC field of view.  Thus, hitting
anything as small as a specific 3 km piece of the planet is going to
be very difficult.

And what about the fact that Mars has a very dynamic atmosphere?  The
one orbit we fly over something of interest, it may be cloudy, or
dusty.

SO, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO

Despite providing a number of people involved with the "private" studies
of the "Face of Mars" with exactly the same information I've just
noted, they continue to think I am purposefully avoiding taking the
picture they want.  They are very concerned that the MOC is being run
by a company and that I will try to ransom or profit from the
"important" data (as if they are not).  And talk of conspiracy is
everywhere.  But it isn't the case:  if we get a picture of "The
Face," we will most definitely release it.

"The Face on Mars," "The City," "The Fortress," "The Cliff," "The
Tholus," "The D&M Pyramid," etc.  are in our target database (now they
want detailed copies of that binary data base!).  We will try to get
pictures (its almost impossible not to try to take the pictures, since
the data base and initial targeting effort is fully automatic).  Of
course, given the factors noted above, I'd be stupid to tell people we
were definitely, without doubt, and postively without uncertainty
going to get a picture of any of these things.  For one thing, they
would then cry that I was hiding the picture if in fact we never got
one.  So my approach has been not to promise anything, which of course
gets me in trouble, too.

BOTTOM LINE:

We will try.  We more than likely will not succeed.  There is no
conspiracy.  We are not ignoring the problem (just the people who are
making a real nuisance of themselves).

    Since they've lost contact with the observer, all this might be moot.

>    Since they've lost contact with the observer, all this might be moot.

Since the idea occurred to me (and I don't give it any serious consideration)
it might also occur to those who suspect these faces are real.  That is that
the loss of communications (along with the loss of the last 2 Soviet probes
to Mars) is proof that there is something out there that doesn't want to 
be seen!

PeterT

    re .60 - but I thought the argument went that these "artifacts" have
    the shapes they do because they represent an attempt to communicate;
    why then interfere with the communication?
    
    Of course, I'm assuming a certain amount of consistency of argument.
    Your mileage may vary.
    
    len.
     

Article: 81121
From: packer@fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Newsgroups: alt.journalism,soc.history,sci.space,sci.skeptic
Subject: Gotham Rag Touts Martians!
Date: 11 Jan 1994 13:02:30 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Independence
 
The New York Times once took an editorial position in favor of there
being intelligent life on Mars. I learned this when a colleague who
knows my tastes passed along to me the .sig line of another net user
that quoted a Times headline of August 27, 1911: 
 
  Martians Build Two Immense Canals in Two Years
 
With the help of the Times's Index and microfilms of the appropriate
editions, I found out that between February and August, 1911, the
Times gave a generous amount of space to claims by Percival Lowell
that Mars was inhabited, including the full-page article of August 27,
illustrated with his drawings of the "canals." It was Lowell's belief
that the lines he saw on Mars during 1911 had lengthened since the
last favorable viewing period in 1909, and he concluded that this
represented Martian civil engineering prowess. 
 
The Times reported the opposing view in two small items. Robert D.
Aitken and, independently, Svante Arrhenius, challenged Percival's
view that the lines were canals, calling them fissures caused by the
Martian equivalent of earthquakes. 
 
The Times then published an editorial calling the opponents' criticism
"deplorable," in view of the fact that another astronomer from the
Naval Observatory had recently concluded that life must be abundant in
the universe. The editorial even charged Aitken and Arrhenius with a
"conspiracy" against "Lowell's admirably consistent theory." It concluded 
earnestly that for the time being, Lowell should be believed. 
 
I thought it was amusing how easily and casually journalists would
raise the cry of "conspiracy." Also, it would be interesting to locate
whatever papers, if any, were published in professional journals by
the protagonists at the time, and check out the extent to which the
Times's account of the debate oversimplified the full debate or not. 
 
At any rate, Times's coverage of this debate is an informative example
of how "bias" is manifested in the press. It can be appreciated by
anybody, regardless of political leanings, since the issue is hardly
important to us now. We're separated from it by plenty of time -- 83
years -- and, of course, space.