position -- as it was until Mariner 4's revelation of a "Lunar-like" Mars.

When Mars craters were revealed to the view of those cameras, Mars effectively "died." The uninhabitable and uninhabited lunar model continued till Mariner 9 disclosed the presence of innumerable channels and river beds. Maybe Mars wasn't dead after all. Vikings 1 & 2 disclosed something that absolutely appeared to be biological activity was occurring in the soil on the surface. But there was no discernable evidence of carbon compounds in the soil, so elaborate alternatives to biology were asserted to explain the Viking results, alternatives which have never been experimentally confirmed or refuted on Mars. Consequently, the question of whether there is life on Mars is open, and yet we hear that consensus is still firmly against the proposition.

Consensus should actually affirm the presence of life unless something can be adduced to preclude it. The insistence that biology must be precluded on Mars until it is "discovered" is actually a political not a scientific issue. When Gil Levin infamously asserted the fact that life had been "discovered" by his LR experiments in 1976, he was denounced for violating political, not scientific, strictures. Sans consensus, there can be no acceptable "discovery." And consensus can only come when the political conditions permit. In this case, I think it can only come after Gil Levin dies.

It's too bad.