Trouble is, when stuff gets in front of a lay audience (i.e. the general public), they often believe things literally, and then we get uninformed comments such as "Mars must be earth-like, because it looks like Earth".

if we are to properly understand the differences in processes and timescales between Mars and earth, we must be careful to compare Apples with Apples (e.g. flythoughs or static images of Earth terrains at the SAME V.E> as Mars terrains we are investigating). I always find the direct comparison to be useful in highlighting the differences as well as the similarities.

The perception of relief is a strange one. In an Aeroplane, relief is perceived dramatically at low altitude when there is also a perceptioon of speed across the terrain. At high altitude, the aeroplane crawls across a flat map-like lanscape, even though (if one looks sideways with a telescope) the terrain is equally rugged...