right and wrong
esiegel | May 6, 2016“Even when Darwin’s teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its scientific, materialist core, its teaching concerning the evolution of living nature, was antagonistic to the idealism that reigned in biology.” -Trofim Lysenko
When it comes to many issues, democracy and popular opinion does and should determine the outcome. But when it comes to science and scientific issues, popular opinion or the votes of even an elite group of people doesn't mean very much at all. Instead, it's the truth that the Universe tells us about itself, through experiment, measurement and…
esiegel | April 16, 2016"If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity." -John F. Kennedy
No one likes being denied an opportunity -- or told they shouldn't do something they want to -- solely because of the way they are. That's especially true when it comes to something that's an intrinsic part of one's self, such as their race, gender, demeanor or personality. Which is why it surprised me to have my own legitimacy as a scientist questioned because of the way I choose to present myself to the world.
Image credit: J. Cummings, of Ethan Siegel in 2015.
I think it's…
esiegel | March 8, 2016"The fundamental choice is not whether humans will have faith, but rather what the objects of their faith will be, and how far and into what dimensions this faith will extend." -Matt Emerson
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Matt Emerson asserts that science is faith-based, since scientists believe that the predictions of their theories will be borne out. It's true that faith, by definition, is the belief in an outcome for which we cannot be certain. Indeed, we could not have been certain that LIGO would have found gravitational waves, nor that Einstein's predictions for their properties…
esiegel | February 13, 2016"I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all." -Alexis de Tocqueville
You don’t need to be right to be a scientist, and your theory doesn’t need to be correct to be a scientific theory. While there is a big difference between the way we colloquially use the word theory (to mean “idea”) and the way scientists use it (to mean “testable idea”), there are actually three different stages that…
esiegel | January 22, 2016“Our knowledge of physics only takes us back so far. Before this instant of cosmic time, all the laws of physics or chemistry are as evanescent as rings of smoke.” -Joe Silk
When people use the word theory colloquially, they use it to mean an "idea" or a "possibility" that could conceivably be at play. But a scientific theory has a much more stringent set of things it must accomplish: it must encompass all the successes of the previously leading theory, it must make successful predictions for phenomena that the leading theory cannot make, and it must predict additional, novel phenomena that…
esiegel | January 15, 2016“Beauty provokes harassment, the law says, but it looks through men's eyes when deciding what provokes it.” -Naomi Wolf
Geoff Marcy. Tim Slater. Christian Ott. And a great many more who are just waiting to be publicly exposed for what they've done (and in many cases, are still doing). Does it mean that astronomy has a harassment problem? Of course it does, but that's not the real story.
U.S. Department of Education Program Legal Group (Title IX), from the United States Department of Agriculture. Image credit: USDA photo by Lance Cheung.
The real story is that, for the first time, an entire…
esiegel | October 21, 2015When we look at the vast expanse of stars in the night sky, we can't help but wonder what else is out there. Not just at the gas giants, rocky worlds, comets, asteroids, moons, and homeless planets strewn throughout our galaxy and all the galaxies beyond our own, but about what life -- what possibilities -- exist beyond our home world.
Illustration credit: NASA.
Very recently, a most unusual star -- KIC 8462852 -- had its light-curve data released by Kepler team, containing a series of unusually large, and inconsistent, drops in brightness around the star, fueling speculation that perhaps…
esiegel | October 13, 2015“There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.” -Denis Diderot
Last week, news broke that UC Berkeley astronomer Geoff Marcy -- perhaps the most famous single person in the field of exoplanet discoveries and study -- was found guilty by a University panel of sexually harassing at least four students over a period of 2001-2010, with allegations and further accusations extending far beyond that. I wish I could tell you it's a one-off, a rarity, or a thing that will end with the dismissal of Geoff Marcy from his position.
Image credit…
esiegel | October 11, 2015“I can look in their eyes and see it. That’s the best feeling I can have. … I know I didn’t affect their lives just today, but it carries on for years and years to come.” -Warrick Dunn
When most people think about the NFL, they think of a sport they either enjoy watching or couldn't care less about. But when they think of the players, words that come to mind are violent, thug and criminal, which doesn't paint a flattering picture. Maybe you'll get a song running through your head when you think of it, like Uncle Tupelo's
Criminals.
You may have heard of any number of crimes committed by its…
esiegel | September 20, 2015“It is worthwhile, too, to warn the teacher that undue severity in correcting faults is liable at times to discourage a pupil’s mind from effort.” -Quintilian
We live in a society where we often draw this dichotomy between "our side," which is always right, and "their side," which is against us and, of course, always wrong. Yet we have more in common than you might think, and that's something we can find so long as -- as Tower of Power sings -- we're
Willing To Learn.
Yet that requires we approach problems with not only an open mind, but people with an open heart.
Image credit: screenshot…
esiegel | September 3, 2015“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” –Joan of Arc
In 2012, I had the honor and the privilege to learn about Mariam Sultana, the first woman in Pakistan to be awarded a Ph.D. degree in astrophysics. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to contact her and obtain permission for an exclusive interview, for which I solicited questions for her from all over the globe.
Image credit: The Express Tribune with the International Herald Tribune, http://tribune.…
esiegel | August 27, 2015“When I say, ‘I love you,’ it’s not because I want you or because I can’t have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your kindness and your strength. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are.” –Joss Whedon
When you first venture out into the world, you're armed, as a human being, with an incredible intelligence, but with no experience. All sorts of basic things must be learned, often the hard way: hot things will burn you, hot things that don't look hot will also burn you, and that…
esiegel | May 14, 2015“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” –John Stuart Mill
If there's nothing else that science has to offer, it's this elegant notion: that anyone, anywhere, at anytime, can investigate and uncover the mysteries and workings of the Universe simply by asking it the right questions in the right ways, listening to its answers, and putting the pieces together for themselves. Anyone can do it.
Image credit: University of Baltimore.
Only, for various and sundry reasons, not everyone gets to do it. Some people don't have the economic…
esiegel | April 16, 2015“There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
‘I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.’” -Shel Silverstein
It's pretty obvious that the Universe exists in such a way that it admits the possibility of intelligent life arising. After all, we're here, we're intelligent life, and we're in this Universe. So at minimum, the Universe must exist in such a way that it's physically possible for us to have arisen.
Image credit: Chris Cook of http://www.abmedia.com/astro/.
But are there physically interesting things we can learn about the Universe from this line of…
esiegel | April 9, 2015“The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based. And if you can’t find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don’t deserve to wear that uniform!” -Captain Picard
The scientific story of the Universe is a remarkable one. All at once, it's exciting, it's the very frontiers of knowledge and discovery, and and it's always going forward. As time goes on, we're continuously discovering new things that surprise us, and it's…
esiegel | January 8, 2015“Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.” -Dream Hampton
As any scientist knows, it's true that no scientific theory, no matter how well-tested, how validated, or how universally applicable it is, can ever be 100% proven.
Image credit: Leonard Eisenberg, 2008, via http://www.evogeneao.com/.
But is this a flaw, or is it a feature of science? As it turns out, being able to revise, refine, and learn as we move forward leads to something even better than scientific "proof."
Image credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
It…
esiegel | December 23, 2014“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” -Amelia Barr
All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the best. At least, that's how Occam's razor is most commonly phrased these days. Yet, when it comes to the headlines -- whether it's a "discovery" of dark matter or "evidence" for life on Mars -- you have to wonder what "simple" actually means.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SAM-GSFC / Univ. of Michigan.
The answer isn't what most people suspect, and it shouldn't really be up for debate. If you want to hypothesize that something novel is occurring, something…
esiegel | November 19, 2014“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.” -Judith Thurman
You'd think that landing on a comet for the first time, with all ten instruments functioning, and collecting more than two full Earth-days worth of data would be more than enough to sate the scientifically curious among us.
Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA.
But the sad reality is that despite the tremendous successes of Philae, we'll always be left to wonder what might have been if it had functioned optimally, and given us…
esiegel | June 4, 2014“There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program — your tax-dollar will go further.” -Wernher von Braun
Over the past 100 years, we've gone from looking out at a Universe whose very nature -- the stars, nebulae, and even the planets -- were virtually unknown to us. And because of the investment we've made as an entire world in the endeavor of science, it's almost breathtaking to realize how far we've come.
Image credit: ESA/C. Carreau, edits by me, via http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2013/03/Planck_history_of_Unive….
But the big question -- the one no one…
esiegel | May 15, 2014“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” -Mohandas Gandhi
When it comes to figuring out what's going to happen in our material world -- as far as energy, particles, interactions, space and time are concerned -- science is perhaps the only real tool of knowledge we have to guide us in our endeavors.
Image credit: me, using a public domain image of Kelvin.
And yet perhaps the most famous scientist of our modern times -- Neil de Grasse Tyson -- has just come out and disparaged the value of an entire field: philosophy. Needless to say, I am not pleased.
Image credit…