Letters from an Astrophysicist

True science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.

School is not only a place to learn, but a place to learn how to learn.

The theory of evolution is not something to “believe in.” Science follows evidence. And when strong evidence supports an idea, the concept of belief, when invoked the way religious people use the word, is unnecessary. In other words, established science is not an ensemble of beliefs, it’s a system of ideas supported by verifiable evidence. You did not ask if I believe in the sunrise. Or if I believe the sky is blue. Or if I believe Earth has a Moon. These are non-controversial truths about the physical world for which the word “believe” has no place. Evolution by natural selection is a non-controversial tenet of modern biology. It’s not controversial among biologists, that is. Among religious fundamentalists, biological evolution does not square with their faith-based belief system, in which they invoke the Bible as an inerrant understanding of the physical world.

The greatest casualty may be our growing inability to find words that precisely communicate our feelings and emotions. Why else the need for that burgeoning catalog of emoticons to supplement our written correspondence? A smiley face. A snarky face. A heart. A thumbs-up.

At $7.5 million, this represents ten minutes of military spending, out of their $400§ billion annual budget.

My life is what I make of it.

How about if (...) pious people all lived longer than non-pious people? How about when a plane crashes, only the pious people survive? How about Jesus comes when people say he will come? How about people pray for peace, and then all wars in the world stop permanently? How about good things happen excluesively to good people and bad things happen exclusively to bad people? How about an earthquake strikes Lisbon on All Saints Day, while everyone is in Church, as it did in 175, and it kills only people who are not in Church, rather than the tens of thousands of people who were, as what actually happened that fateful morning. These events would trigger serious (scientific) conversation about the existence of God and how he treats people who worship him versus those who do not.

Now think of a professor who faces you from the front of the room; who makes eye contact with the audience; who has invested time and energy thinking about how you think; who pays attention to your attention span; who is aware of what words you know and what words or concepts confuse you; who knows the demographics of the audience—age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, political leanings, cultural leanings, propensity to laugh, to cry; who carries some pop-culture fluency, for easy reference and analogy, but only when teaching the subject can be assisted by such references. That person is not lecturing to you. That person has opened conduits tailored to that audience in that moment, and at that time. That’s communicating.

Hope is the challenge of learning about the real world and using our intelligence to change things for the better.

As the saying goes, we spend the first years of children’s lives teaching them to talk and walk, and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down.

The Cosmic Perspective reminds us that in space, where there is no air, a flag will not wave. An indication that perhaps flag-waving and space exploration do not mix.

There’s nothing like the right telescope in the right hands of the right person at the right time for the right price.

2.​Of course religion is not the sole source of dogma in the world. There’s political dogma, as well as cultural & ethnic dogma. There’s even, on occasion, scientific dogma. But science contains the methods and tools within itself to ferret it out, so dogma in science doesn’t last long when it arises. Consider also that scientists hardly ever wield power. So when science becomes dogma in a country, it’s usually because a political system that is itself dogma has adopted it. Nazi Germany and communist Lysenko Russia are, perhaps, the best example of this.

It’s all you have when you realize you are not entirely in control of outcomes. But without it, how else do we cope with the challenges of life?

One objective reality is that our government doesn’t work, not because we have dysfunctional politicians, but because we have dysfunctional voters.