User talk:Robertinventor/Old/Modern Mars Habitability/Old revision from Wikipedia with extra quotes
Removed quotes:
"'It is concluded that extant life is a strong possibility, that abiotic interpretations of the LR data are not conclusive, and that, even setting our conclusion aside, biology should still be considered as an explanation for the LR experiment. Because of possible contamination of Mars by terrestrial microbes after Viking, we note that the LR data are the only data we will ever have on biologically pristine martian samples"
This presupposes that the ephemeral surface habitats could be colonized by viable life forms, that is, that a subsurface reservoir exists in which microbes could continue to metabolize and that, as noted above, the viable microbes could be transported into the short-lived habitat.... Although there are a large number of constraints on the continued survival of life in the subsurface of Mars, the astonishing biomass in the subsurface of Earth suggests that this scenario as a real possibility
'"Claims that reducing planetary protection requirements wouldn't be harmful, because Earth life can't grow on Mars, may be reassuring as opinion, but the facts are that we keep discovering life growing in extreme conditions on Earth that resemble conditions on Mars. We also keep discovering conditions on Mars that are more similar—though perhaps only at microbial scales—to inhabited environments on Earth, which is where the concept of Special Regions initially came from
We argue that the strategy for Mars exploration should center on the search for extant life. By extant life, we mean life that is active today or was active during the recent geological past and is now dormant. As we discuss below, the immediate strategy for Mars exploration cannot focus only on past life based on the result of the Viking missions, particularly given that recent analyses call for a re-evaluation of some of these results. It also cannot be based on the astsumption that the surface of Mars is uniformly prohibitive for extant life, since research contributed in the past 30 years in extreme environments on EArth has shown that life is possible under extremes of cold and dryness
The case of ExoMars is particularly dramatic as the first priority of the rover is to search for signs of past and present life on Mars ... however, it has been explicitly banned to go to Special Regions because it will not comply with the minimum cleanliness requirements. As a consequence, the billion-dollar life-seeking mission ExoMars will be allowed to search for life everywhere on Mars, except in the very places where we suspect that life may exist.
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Also here is the wiki source for the old talk page discussion from wikipedia - may have useful material. For attribution of htis discussion - it's from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Modern_Mars_habitability
Quotations in cites[edit | hide | hide all]@Diannaa:. First thanks for working on the article. I just have a question about your most recent edit. You say it is "remove excessive and inappropriate non-free content, per WP:NFCC". However the material doesn't seem excessive to me. Some of the quotes are quite long, but not longer than is often used in quotes in the body of an article, at most a paragraph or so, and sometimes it is very short. For instance you removed the quotes here:
The reason for putting quotes into the cites is because it helps the reader to find the cite in what is often a long article with many sections in it - indeed it means they can read a quote from it by just hovering their mouse over the cite without going to the reference itself. Sometimes also the original source is behind a paywall so they may not be able to read it, and then a quote is especially valuable. It is of course generally accepted that it is permissible to give short quotes from non free content. Also, there can't be a blanket ban on using quotes in cites, because all the wikipedia cite templates have quote= parameters. I could understand removing the quotes for other reasons, perhaps because it made the reflist too long, especially the longer quotes. If that was the reason I could respond by shortening some of the longer quotes. But how is just quoting at all, in short quotes, going against guidelines on non free content? Please can you discuss here, do you still think this material needs to be removed, and if so, why? Once again thanks for your attention to the article, and if this is against the wikipedia guidelines for some reason, of course it should be removed, it's just that I don't currently see how it is and the quotes seem to serve a useful purpose and to aid the reader. Thanks. Robert Walker (talk) 22:22, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
@Ca2james: Why did you remove the quote "The results achieved from our study led to the conclusion that black microcolonial fungi can survive in Mars environment.". You cited this discussion but in this discussion this quote you removed is one of the quotations in the list above that @Diannaa: agreed was appropriate to add to the article. They are included under the WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV policy which is the very thing on which you are challenging the article in your AfD. I put the quotes into the cites as less intrusive to the reader but makes it easy for anyone to check attribution of the POV. Can you please clarify why you have removed this quote from the article? Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 01:04, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
External links modified[edit | hide]Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have just modified 3 external links on Modern Mars habitability. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Factual accuracy is disputed[edit | hide]The neologism of "habitability" WP:NEO is greatly abused in this article, as the context of many of the references cited. This article is a reflection of Robert's everlasting soap box, promoting the unavoidable viral Martian invasion, synthesis toward it, and bias towards life on Mars. Having interacted with Robert over many years, I expected him to dump his "modern" assays on Mars at some page, and this is it. I expect a zillion walls of text to follow claiming his his "scientific" friends are [still] outraged at my containment of his eternal biased assays, which will be best addressed at ANI at due time. This assay is tagged now for major inaccuracies, deficiencies and bias, for the benefit of all unsuspecting readers, if not of Wikipedia. BatteryIncluded (talk) 03:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
External links modified (February 2018)[edit | hide]Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have just modified 7 external links on Modern Mars habitability. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Sourcing for POV's in the article[edit | hide]This article's entry in the articles for deletion raises questions bout the sourcing of the POV's in the article. Much of that seems to be due to my omission of cites from the sentence in the lede that summarized the POV's mentioned in the rest of the article. This is now fixed. Another factor is probably the deleted quotes - which made it easy to verify that the views of the authors were accurately summarized, see #Quotations in cites above. I have restored the quotes mentioned there. Was planning to do so in April 2017, but I had a lot on and forgot. I have also added some more quotes to the remaining cites that support POV's presented in the article. I have a few left to do which I will look at soon. If there are any unsourced POV's remaining in this article please let me know! In particular @Ca2james: since you nominated this article for deletion in part because of a percieved POV slant - can you please let me know if there are any remaining unsourced POV's that you notice in this article? I can understand that it seemed WP:POV because much has changed in the views of astrobiologists on this topic in the last decade, and it is a topic of very active research, much of which doesn't get beyond the discussions in the pages of astrobiology journals and is not well known outside this rather limited field. Incidentally there is a vigorous debate going on right now, 2017 - 2018, in the Astrobiology journal - one of the top journals on astrobiology between Rummel and Conley, both former planetary protection officers for NASA with Fairén et al on planetary protection measures for future robotic missions to Mars. The view of the authors on both sides of the debate is that the surface of Mars is at least potentially habitable to modern Earth microbes. I will cite from this too. Robert Walker (talk) 23:49, 13 August 2018 (UTC) Have now added a couple of cites to that debate to the last paragraph of the lede plus a cite to Davila et al, all from the Astrobiology journal. Robert Walker (talk) 00:03, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Cites for the lede[edit | hide]I think part of the reason this article was nominated for deletion was because I had many uncited statements in the lede. The reason was that they summarized the rest of the article and while preparing the summary for the lede I didn't always add the cites in for the sections I was summarizing. I have added cites to most of the remaining uncited statements, just by going to the relevant section of the article and copying the cites into the lede after the relevant sentence. There are a few remaining uncited sentences there that I will add cites to, tomorrow. As for the quality of the cites used, I am not sure what else I can do to address that. So far nobody on this talk page has challenged any individual cites and they are to sources that are often used in other articles in this topic area. They are normally regarded as acceptable WP:RS. Some are secondary, some are primary, but that is the same with all articles in this topic area. For instance, take the very first section Modern Mars habitability#Viking observations - did Levin's labeled release experiment find life? - how can you cover the Viking labeled release experiments without citing the primary articles on the topic by Levin, Miller et al, as well as the ones criticizing them by Quine etc? I use the same cites as the linked to larger article Viking lander biological experiments @Ca2james: do feel free to elaborate and explain further here, as I know that as the author of the article I should limit my comments in the AfD debate itself. But it seems reasonable to ask such questions on the article talk page. I would appreciate clarification on this matter - unless adding extra cites to the lede has solved the issue already? Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 00:56, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Quotes in refs[edit | hide]Robertinventor please do not add quotes to references. They were already removed in 2017 and are not necessary and run contrary to fair use. You re-added the four quotes you'd discussed above; please don't add more. Ca2james (talk) 02:15, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Oh I see what happened. Just re-read Life on Mars#Habitability. This article was not a WP:POVFORK at the time I added it to wikipedia. This is what that section looked like back then: Life on Mars#Habitability - March 2017. I haven't kept an eye on it since then being very busy off wiki. It has been edited since then and now includes a singificant amount of WP:SYNTHESIS. Let me explain. For instance it does accurately still have this quote, which I added - here a "Special Region" is defined as a region on the Mars surface where Earth life could potentially survive. So, these were the findings of the 2014 Second MEPAG Special Regions Science Analysis Group:[1]
This is a good WP:RS and an excellent secondary source and it correctly says that
If you look at the details then in more detail they explain:
So, the article quotes from them correctly at that point. However it goes on to say in the next section Life on Mars#Cummulative effects
This is confusing dormant and living cells. That section is an attempt at a WP:OR WP:SYNTHESIS refutation of the findings of the 2014 science study and is inappropriate in Wikipedia. Meanwhile Modern Mars habitability covers this topic accurately and in detail in the section Modern Mars habitability#Challenge of ionizing radiation. This article should be used to update the mainspace article, rather than the other way around! Robert Walker (talk) 13:27, 14 August 2018 (UTC) The quotes I gave are not WP:COATRACK because I cite quotes from the full range of views of modern astrobiologists, and the ones who treat it it is an open question whether there could be extant life on the surface of modern Mars include some of the most eminent planetary protection experts and astrobiologists in the field today. The quotes you just deleted included cites from both sides of the planetary protection debate:
It is basically the mainstream view nowadays. The intro to the DLR page I just linked to well summarizes the mainstream view:
Actually I might add that as an in text cite to the lede as a good overall summary of the mainstream view? On this too, the main space article needs to be updated to match this one, rather than the other way around. Robert Walker (talk) 13:48, 14 August 2018 (UTC) References
Article in process of restructuring / copy editing[edit | hide]@Ca2james: - I am working on the article as per MOS as you suggest. Have added the template {{Under construction}} for the duration. Expect this to take a few hours of work total, but I can't work on it continuously, so am unlikely to complete it today. The lede will be my first priority. Robert Walker (talk) 22:16, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Robert is unable to understand the problems with his vast assays, POV, and synthesis, so he is not the one able to "fix" it. Delete. Rowan Forest (talk) 13:42, 17 August 2018 (UTC) Suggestion: Title change to Possibility of modern Mars habitability[edit | hide]A friend of mine off wiki suggested that one of the issues here might be the title. I got the title from the name of the 2017 Modern Mars Habitability conference. But it was of course understood as "Modern Mars habitability?" rather than "Modern Mars habitability!". Since tone doesn't get represented in print, and adding a ? seems lame, one idea is to change the title to Possibility of modern Mars habitability. Could this be part of why it was seen as WP:POV? If so it was just a mistake on my part. It was not intended to influence the reader. I just copied the title of the Modern Mars Habitability conference session in 2017. I tried moving it right now but @Abecedare: advises me that I can't change the title during an AfD unless it is agreed during the discussion. I have. however, added an extra couple of sentences to the end of the lede:
Robert Walker (talk) 00:20, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
On reflection I think I can say a bit about sources, just forget what you said about my t-ban - it's another toic area and irrelevant for this article. First, yes, I do have several WP:OR ideas in this topic area that I have posted in blog posts and in my online books. But I would never put any of them in a Wikipedia article. All the views in this article are by the authors cited in the article. The issues I have are just with WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV not WP:POV The authors are selected as the best ones in the field. Some of the top ones I cite here are
Many others. It's not a bunch of bloggers I'm citing or something. They are top astrobiologists and astrobiologial teams at the top astrobiological institutes in the world. Authors of numerous papers in the most presigious astrobiological journals. And wherever possible I use the secondary sourcing. For instance MEPAG is a bit like using IPCC for climate or USGS for volcanoes. Couldn't be more mainstream. I do not think it is possible eto get better sources than the ones I used in this topic area. Anyway enough on that. Robert Walker (talk) 06:51, 18 August 2018 (UTC) Attribution[edit | hide]This article uses material from the 13:35, 25 May 2013 revision of Water on Mars on Wikipedia ( view authors). License under CC BY-SA 3.0 Moved attribution declaration from article to Talk Ca2james (talk) 15:26, 19 August 2018 (UTC) |
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