Hey, Alex, I knew it was only a matter of a short time before you heard about that paper. I slogged through it last night, and found it to be a testimony to Hoagland's experience as a science writer--it reads well and argues persuasively, and is likely to impress (even awe) people without the background to properly evaluate the claims. To my mind, that makes it worthy of a comprehensive rebuttal from you--they're trying to play on your turf, which gives you a wealth of opportunity to shoot them down, point-by-point and with authority. To let it slide risks allowing the patina of scientific jargon and lipservice to the scientific method to carry the day.

I wonder if perhaps there isn't some data buried in there that might prove useful (separated from Hoagland & Bara's assertions about it). I've followed the work of England and Palermo for a while now, and their plot of stains on Mars appears to be fairly disciplined and well executed. Their results are presented on Palermo's Web site, which requires some wading through anomalism material; but Jill England, who actually did the analysis, is a bonafide database analyst and her methodology appears above reproach. Might there be some truth to be gleaned from their data?

--Robert