Just got back from a geological field trip to the Big Island (Hawaii) and Kilauea, where I was completely unplugged from the Internet for a whole weekend ;-)

Responding to Mark Eby's post at
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=131070&article=10920

Mark Eby wrote:
I'm not saying you should claim extremely low risk is the same as 0 risk. I'm saying you should not even begin to equate extremely low risk as "somewhere in between" BD and Zubrin. That's not being scientifically rigorous, it is being PC squishy.

Alex writes:
Look, this is really turning into a semantic debate. I fully realize that you have stated statistical training, but perhaps you may wish to also study number theory and infinite sets (e.g. Cantor "dust"). By definition, ANY number between zero (Zubrin) and infinity (DiGregorio), regardless of its asymptotic behavior, lies "somewhere in between"; however, this does not imply a median value.

For the record, I did note your other post at
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=131070&article=10922

which does seem to note the point I was trying to make.

Mark Eby wrote:
Do you honestly think there is significant chance of a major environmental catastrophe while at the same time think the odds of martian life being nonhazardous are low (defined here as being lower chance of being nonhazardous than being globally catastrophic)?

Alex writes:
A strawman argument, especially given that I never stated or implied that "there is significant chance of a major environmental catastrophe." I only said the risks associated with back contamination were not zero. The whole issue seems to be turning on the question of "What is close enough to zero to be safely ignored?", which I think both of us agree on. Although you asked for scientific rigor, perhaps one should also ask the same of Zubrin and DiGregorio.

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Responding to Mark Eby's post at
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=131070&article=10950

Mark Eby wrote:
It would be nice if the full report were online like previous related ones so we could more fairly evaluate these issues.

Alex writes:
The full (though unedited) report IS online at:
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309075718/html/index.html

under the NAS Open Book format.

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Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii