Friday, January 4, 2013

Philosophy Wire: Black Beauty, science, Mars, assumptions

_65067064_gloveslicePhilosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-01-04]: A meteorite which fell on Earth from Mars in Sahara desert has astounded scientists. [source: BBC News] But... how do we know that it is from Mars? But of course because it resembles other rocks which have fallen on our planet from the Red Planet. Really? But this specific meteorite has some special unique characteristics. Could that be interpreted that it came from somewhere else? If 10 samples from a planet have composition A, is it impossible for the 11th sample to have composition B? It is really scary to realize that the categorizations made by the human mind of scientists are some times based too much on ungrounded assumptions...
 
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