![]() ![]() One reason for the failures is simple: getting to Mars is hard. The first time we landed on a planet it was Mars, and the first time we roved around the surface of a planet, it was Mars. The first time we orbited a planet, it was Mars. "The first time we flew by a planet, it was Mars. "We - the United States and former USSR - have been going to Mars for 40 years," says Naderi, manager of the Mars Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Firouz Naderi puts it -"Mars is a favorite target." ![]() Two out of three missions to the red planet have failed, a loss rate highlighted by the fact that - as NASA's Dr. 37 (3): 15.Landing on Mars provides some difficult challenges The views expressed are his own.Ĭite this article: Coppedge, D. * David Coppedge works in the Cassini Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Natural law is also designed by God, of course, but is usually considered secondary causation-i.e., not requiring direct intervention. The right kind of design reasoning can save face. The Face-on-Mars people deserve to blush for their credulity. When highly-improbable patterns fit an independent specification, though, the design inference can be compelling. Some well-meaning Christians infer design when it is not warranted. 4 Since much of our creation apologetic depends on an argument from design, it is important that we understand and apply it properly. 3 More often, He lets the thunder obey the natural laws He has ordained (secondary causation, natural revelation). In His rule over nature, God sometimes speaks in the thunder (primary causation, special revelation). These discussions will lead to deeper questions about information, communication, and primary versus secondary design.Īs Christians, we need to understand that not everything in nature is a product of God's direct intervention. Throw in some difficult ones, like a solar eclipse, or abstract art, or a bush trimmed like a rabbit next to a real rabbit. Show these on a screen and have volunteers decide if they are "designed" or "not designed." Ask them how they know. Some examples would be cannonballs and concretions burrow tracks and hieroglyphics an archery target and a radiohalo cave paintings and cave formations a river and an aqueduct columnar basalt and steel girders sand ripples and sand castles lenticular clouds and skywriting a trail cairn and a random rock pile. Compare objects that look similar and ask whether they are products of intelligent design, chance/natural law, or both. The Face on Mars can be a useful introduction for teachers and parents who want to present a lesson on design detection. It is ironic that the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) program, staffed as it is by staunch evolutionists, depends on this ability to separate intelligent design from chance and natural law. Rushmore, by contrast, are both improbable and specified by the well-documented faces of four American presidents. 2 Using these principles, the Face on Mars is explainable by chance and geological processes. Design as an explanation is a last resort after chance and natural law have been ruled out. Even if it were rusted and inactive by then, would they know it was a relic of civilization, rather than a product of the natural forces-wind, erosion, chemistry, electromagnetism- acting in the planet's environment?Īs explained in the excellent film Unlocking the Mystery of Life, 1 design can be inferred when a structure 1) is improbable and 2) matches an independently specifiable pattern. Say that one day aliens land on Mars and find one of our rovers. How can we reliably detect intentional design versus the results of chance or natural law? It is tempting to ridicule the gullibility of believers in the Face on Mars, but we can make it a teachable moment. Sometimes, though, genuine designs are hard to discern. Our brains tend to find faces on mountains and messages in noise. Photos from Mars Express in 2006 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2007 have quieted all but the most incorrigible believers. More recent orbiters with better camera resolution began to show the feature's true "face"-a windswept mesa. For countless hours on late-night radio, enthusiasts offered speculations about long-lost civilizations that left monuments to their presence, along with conspiracy theories that NASA was covering up evidence. It launched a worldwide enterprise of imagination. In 1976, Viking snapped a photo from Martian orbit that looked like a human face staring up from the plains of Cydonia. ![]()
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