by Josh Greenberger

Created on: June 24, 2008   Last Updated: June 27, 2008

(June 24, 2008) The Phoenix lander's May 31st, 2008, transmission of photos of ice on Mars is being hailed as a possible breakthrough in our search for life on other planets. The hope is to test the ice for evidence of organic compounds that are the chemical building blocks of life.

This kind of optimism, however, makes one wonder if scientists have lost all reasoning abilities. If we find the building blocks of life on Mars it'll prove the precise opposite of what scientists hope to prove - it'll prove that the scientific understanding of the evolution of life simply does not work.

If the building blocks of life exist on Mars, where's life? (And if the building blocks don't exist, there's something wrong with our understanding of planetary evolution. Earth and Mars evolved in roughly the same period from the same gases, according to scientists. How can earth be teeming with life and Mars not even have the building blocks of life?)

Well, maybe there is life in Mars, but we just have to dig for it. We have to dig for it? Is this a joke?

Here on earth we've had creatures the size of dinosaurs an alleged 200 million years ago. Yet in a staggering four and a half billion years, not even a small fly has evolved on Mars?

Earth has had an astronomical total of literally millions upon millions of plant and animal species. In the same period of time, Mars hasn't evolved enough life forms to even have a few rodents running around?

And if some natural catastrophe killed off life on Mars, we should at least see bones and carcasses here and there. But we're finding nothing. Zilch. We have to dig to find a trace of life?

How many times would a spaceship have to orbit earth before it found life? Would it even have to land? It certainly wouldn't have to dig for it.

Is the Martian environment really too harsh to support life? I don't think so.

In 1977 we found the first hydrothermal vent, an opening where water heated by earth's molten interior is released into the ocean. Closest to the vent, in the midst of water which sometimes exceeds 450 degrees Fahrenheit, were eight-foot long tube worms.

Most animals need sunlight to survive; the area where these tube worms thrive receive no sunlight whatsoever.

Then, as if to laugh in the face of what's considered "normal" for biological life forms, these tube worms had no eyes, mouth, or intestinal tract. They get their nourishment from surrounding bacteria.

To add to this ecological mystery, these bacteria thrived on hydrogen sulphide, which is

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