It gets to be annoying to hear reporters and Public-Affairs types spin things.
Here's a report called "NASA's Cassini Discovers Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus"
The first sentence reads: "NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus."
And I suppose it may have discovered antimatter, or the fountain of youth, or something else, from the tone of this statement. This kind of prevaricating is so prevalent in NASA it's not funny anymore. Why don't they just say "We've discovered some sort of volcanic activity on this moon. We don't know what the material being ejected is yet, but we'll get back to you when we figure it out."
Well, in that spirit, I'd like to let you know we've have potentially discovered radio signals from intelligent life forms out in the galaxy.
It's a true statement, the potential for evidence of intelligent life exists in radio waves we receive from space, but it doesn't mean its there. It's a non-statement.
I guess I'd make a terrible PR person. I'd prefer to stick to the facts and not speculate or bull$%&!.
Posted by Bob at March 9, 2006 04:02 PM