“Astronomical fads have always involved miracle working to some degree, and their discussion in so-called workshops and in the streams of papers that pour into the journals have affinities to the incantations of Macbeth’s witches on the blasted heath.” —Fred Hoyle, Home is where the wind blows. The so-called “queen” of the sciences, cosmology, is…
But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. —Hilaire Belloc Tumultuous times like these encourage questioning of long-held convictions. Our predicament seems the result of complacent reliance on consensus and a failure of commonsense. But for adventurous, practical souls…
For those who haven’t noticed, this year is “The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009).” The International Year of Astronomy will involve 135 nations and thousands of events around the world. It marks the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei. However, astronomers have little to celebrate…
“..astronomers can tell the temperature of the central regions of the Sun and of many other stars within a few percentage points and be quite sure about the figures they quote.” —A Star Called the Sun, George Gamow. The cone nebula shows a star at the top of a conical-shaped dusty plasma, festooned with lights.…
“The Genesis team can take great satisfaction not just in having salvaged their mission, but in underscoring once again how little we know about how our strange and wonderful home planet came to exist.” — Kelly Beatty, Sky & Telescope From the NASA website comes the following report: “Kevin McKeegan’s announcement at the 2008 Lunar…
Science has become an international circus. And opening day for “The Greatest Show on Earth” has arrived. In the 27 km main circus ring we have the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, starting up after $6 billion dollars and thirty years of development. Before the show the clowns have warmed up the audience with fantastic…
“..if a special geometry has to be invented in order to account for a falling apple, even Newton might be appalled at the complications which would ensue when really difficult problems are tackled.” — Sir Oliver Lodge, FRS, 1921. [1] [This news item is shortened and modified from a presentation given in Cambridge, England, in September…
Twinkle, twinkle electric star Astronomers don’t know what you are! “Sit down before facts like a child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” — T.H. Huxley An undergraduate textbook on the structure and evolution of stars makes a…
“The conformist propensity of social institutions is not the only reason that erroneous theories persevere. However, once embedded within a culture, ideas exhibit an uncanny inertia, as if obeying Newton’s law to keep on going forever until acted upon by an external force.” —Henry Zemel. “One fact that strikes everyone is the spiral shape of…
Just as much of modern science has become self-serving in striving for status and funding, the theory of how science should be done is similarly afflicted. An assessment of a theory based on ‘degrees of belief’ might be useful if scientists didn’t routinely ignore, minimize or dismiss falsifying evidence and twiddle the countless knobs on…