Why Can't I See Some Of These Fossils?

For some, recognizing them or making out the forms is tough

    As I have found, there is a small but persistent portion of the population that has a difficult time recognizing the fossils.  There are good reasons for this, and it is important to address them here.

    The primary reason is familiarity.  We all know what a chair looks like, but we might not recognize one that was radically different enough.  A good case in point is the "back chair" which was popular a few years ago.  Its form and use are so different from what we expect that recognition is at first chancy.  But once you see it in action, you will know from that point on what it is.

    Recognition is often dependent on context; in other words, if you know what you are looking for, or what it should look like, you have a far greater chance of finding it.  Optical illusions or pictures that obscure an image are excellent examples.  We have all seen those images entitled, "what do you see?" and stared at them trying to find something.  Once we see it, it seems to leap out at us from then on.  We wonder how we could have missed it at all.

    The primary reasons for people not being able to see the fossils is two-fold.  First, most are not familiar with the organisms in a fossilized state, or not familiar with some organisms at all.  This is not unusual.  Many of the things pictured are not "mainstream" items.  Almost nobody knows what a cystoid is, or a paracrinoid.  Not knowing how they look is a great detriment to recognizing them.  I have provided (whenever possible) links to images of each that can be used as a reference.

    The second major reason is that some people have not trained their vision for recognition of specific forms, because they have never been exposed to those things.  A perfect example is somebody who is raised in a city being dropped in the country and expected to navigate by bent branches and the curve of a dirt path.  The task is too utterly different from what they are used to, and their visual system has not been trained to take note of that sort of detail.

    Conversely, a country person dropped in a city can easily recognize the shape of a tree or pathway, but to him, the city is all identical blocks with identical shaped signs- and confusion can result.  They have not been trained to sort out the proper visual cues to navigate successfully in the city.

    Take some time to look at the primitive organism examples, and don't try too hard to force yourself to see things.  Like those optical illusion or obscuration images, it will come when your brain and eye have figured out where the details are and how they fit together.  In almost all cases, I have provided an outlined version of each Martian fossil to help the newcomer find the features, but even this is no guarantee.

    It sometimes helps to blur an image, because we will often tend to focus on the details, which can obscure the larger pattern.  While most people can see the fossils without much trouble, they are still not in a form that you are used to seeing them in.  Fossil hunting is a specialized field, and not everyone can do it.  That is why we are not all fossil hunters!

Further note about the ability to make out fossils

    I have a friend who is tone deaf.  He loves music, and he is constantly humming tunes, but what emerges is radically different from the actual tune!  He truly cannot perceive the actual notes, only the beat and structure.  To him, that "is" the tune.  But when trying to explain to him what he is missing, it results in trouble.  He cannot imagine that what he thinks he hears and what is truly there are so different.  It is inconceivable to him that there is something more present that he is unable to perceive.

    Colorblindness is similar, except that time and again, it is demonstrated that there are things that people with normal vision can see that the colorblind cannot.  It is accepted that there is a difference, but the colorblind person cannot imagine what the difference is, having never perceived it.  And conversely, it is difficult for somebody who is not colorblind to imagine what his friend is seeing.

    So it is with visual recognition.  Some people simply cannot see the fossils, and when confronted become defensive or outraged.  They truly cannot imagine that there is something to be seen, and rather than admit that they are unable, they will become angry or will claim that "you must be making this up!  There is nothing there except in your mind!"  Sorry, but this is truly a difference in our visual systems.  And there are simple visual tests that can show that people have differing abilities.

    Some people have very good acuity and a better ability to discern subtle patterns than others.  That is a simple fact, and nothing can be done about it.  The good thing is, many people can train their visual systems to better recognize features with practice.

    Oddly enough, people who deal with mathematics or software are often unable to see fossils easily, whereas somebody who is a mechanic or draftsman might see them quite easily.  The ability to make an accurate three dimensional model in one's head is a critical skill for a mechanic, and so their skills are directly applicable to seeing fossils and other obscured images.

NOTE about monitor settings

    I have recently found that on some monitors, the contrast and brightness settings (altogether often called "gamma") are very important to the ability to make out some of these features.  I will be posting a simple gamma calibration page shortly that will help to remedy this.  I was taking somebody through my site on their computer and found that much of the detail simply could not be seen.  It required readjusting the monitor settings to get the images to be clear and distinct enough to make out the finer details.

    My monitor settings (as a reference) are:  brightness, 41%, contrast 98%, color temperature 9300K.  A contrast and gray scale placard will be posted that will allow the finer adjustments to be verified by any visitor to my site.

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