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Look… up in the sky…

October 9, 2008

John McCain’s trying to score political points; I understand that.  But on more than one occasion, he’s done so by showing that, after all, science doesn’t really matter to him.  He’s mocked the bear genetics study and just last week dismissed a planetarium projector as “an overhead projector”.  It’s not just a political fib, it’s a destructive lie.  Here, take a look at an example of what the candidate called “an overhead projector”.

Planetarium projectors are marvels of engineering and science in themselves, and over their approximately 40-year lifespan they can introduce hundreds of thousands of people to scientific wonders of our cosmos.  In our country, slipping as we are in so many areas of education, we need to let children know that something lies over the horizon.  And since most of our nation’s children live in brightly-lit urban areas, they may never truly see the night sky in its immensity, any other way.

“Never before was an instrument created which is so instructive as this; never before one so bewitching; and never before did an instrument speak so directly to the beholder. The machine itself is precious and aristocratic… The planetarium is school, theater, and cinema in one classroom under the eternal dome of the sky.”
- Elis Stromgren

Kids won’t be driven to stick to the toughest science and mathematics studies by the prospect of some unimaginable and unimaginably distant job in industry.  They need serious inspiration – the kind that lifts the soul above today’s discomfort and tomorrow’s obstacles.  They need museums and planetariums and chemistry classes and science programming and nature field trips.  And we need them to have those things. 

Obama gets it: he has been endorsed by 63 Nobel Prize winners in the sciences.  If we’re ever going to dig ourselves out of the economic hole in which we find ourselves, it won’t happen by plodding along with our eyes on the sidewalk.  We need to look farther ahead than that.

And there’s something else just as important as innovation and economic development.  Bill Clinton put it this way: “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”  It’s one thing not to put your light under a bushel, but you need to keep it burning, too.

Updates:

Categories: Science & Technology
  1. October 9, 2008 at 21:32 | #1

    The conflating of the planetarium projector as an “overhead projector” was the thing that angered me the most, even more than the “that one” crack.  I’m still analyzing my reaction; why do I consider dissembling about a piece of equipment more egregious than what I regard as a veiled racial slur?

    It may be because of Obama’s forgiving nature, his ability to let personal attacks go as he focuses on the big picture.  And it may be because the pursuit of knowledge, science and wonder are bigger issues than a nasty, petty man.

  2. October 10, 2008 at 10:14 | #2

    Is the endorsement of 63 Nobel scientists a good thing or a bad thing for a candidate in our “ignorant and proud of it” society?

  3. Janet
    October 10, 2008 at 11:52 | #3

    George, this YouTube piece has nothing to do with the planetarium or science, but it does have to do with showing yet more of what John McCain is like.  I hope you don’t mind my placing it here but I thought that some of your other readers might also be interested in this.  I am a little young to have paid much attention to the Keating Savings and Loan financial disaster back in 1984, and I honestly (call me stupid) did not know that John McCain was one of the Keating Five.

    This YouTube presentation makes some very concise points, and I thought you and your readers might want to see it.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY

  4. October 10, 2008 at 14:41 | #4

    Gerry might be right.  I was talking with a friend who watches Fox the other day and she told me quite confidently that professors in general were radicals trying to foist their revolutionary views on unsuspecting students.  I didn’t reply to her beyond saying that I found her views “disturbing”.  I’ve found you cannot argue with the locked in ignorance of the regular Fox viewer.

  5. Janet
    October 10, 2008 at 14:50 | #5

    Paul, a past acquaintance of mine, who is a religious Christian, told me that professors are all trying to keep their jobs and so that is why they teach about falsehoods such as evolution, natural selection, and mutations (falsehoods such as these things even EXIST).  This person became very resentful when I tried to explain about the process of meiosis and fertilization and genes and chromosomes. This person has an engineering degree.  Incredible.

  6. October 10, 2008 at 17:08 | #6

    Janet:  My God … I learned the rudiments of mitosis, meiosis and genetics before high school.  I am stunned.

  7. Janet
    October 10, 2008 at 17:31 | #7

    I have had some very difficult (and painful) experiences with people I was friends with when they learned that I believed in evolution.  One friend of seven years was shocked when I used the E word during a conversation about biology.  This person’s exact words were, “Oh, my gosh, don’t tell me you believe in evolution!”  The friendship dissolved soon after that.
    Another friend, on the way home during a long road trip, told me that she was taking an ornithology class at Cornell to learn more about birds, but that she couldn’t wait until they finished with the section on evolution because that was all nonsense. My jaw dropped; I explained how birds are the ultimate example of evolution (their myriad of adaptations for flight).  My jaw dropped further when she told me that perhaps dinosaurs did exist but that they probably died out before humans came along.  We had a late-night discussion about TV evangelists and how they didn’t understand a thing about biology and natural selection. (I am passionate during discussions, but not unreasonable—and certainly not mean.)  I awoke the next morning at 5:30am to find her gone.  I tried to keep in touch, sent her children the gifts I had gotten for them, but I never heard a word from her again.
    The E word is a dirty word.  These are otherwise relatively intelligent people, I think…or else I am a bad judge of character.
    One of the veterinarians where I live is a bible thumper (goes to Central America each year and knocks on doors, bringing the Word).  The guy went to vet school, which is 4 years (on top of 3 or 4 years of undergrad college).  When I mentioned the E word to him he gave me a five minute lecture on how evolution is impossible and just a silly theory.
    So, George’s post about McCain being anti-science does not surprise me one bit.  Roger Ebert had a great piece earlier in Sept. about the mediocrity of Sarah Palin.  http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1156080,091008ebertpalin.article He sums things up beautifully.

  8. Janet
    October 10, 2008 at 21:31 | #8

    Oh, the Sun-Times just took down the Ebert article, but you can still read it here. http://prince.org/msg/105/282452
    It’s really worth it.

  9. October 10, 2008 at 21:55 | #9

    It’s really worth it.

    Sure is!  I just posted it in my Google shared items.

  10. October 12, 2008 at 07:15 | #10

    There needs to be a backlash in this country against willful ignorance.

  11. October 12, 2008 at 07:27 | #11

    I just read the Ebert article. I think he’s spot on that Sarah Palin’s popularity owes a lot to the “American Idol effect”.  It makes a lot of sense that many people, at least, are trying to vicariously live out their fantasies of fame, power, and fortune through her.  Strange world we live in when someone the likes of Sarah Palin can serve as a vicarious identity for millions of people.

  12. October 12, 2008 at 18:24 | #12

    Janet,

    I am not surprised by those who deny evolution, nor their empirical gymnastics in doing so.  Even as a biology major, my fundamentalist upbringing kept me from full understanding—and acceptance—of evolution as a fact of science. for some time.

    But still I had no doubts about phenomena such as meiosis, which could be demonstrated with simple tools such as macro photography and trait variation of progeny.

    So when I hear that seemingly intelligent people don’t “believe” in meiosis or other basics of science, I am stunned.  Either the education system has deteriorated to a perilous point, or Chrisitan radical/cultists have fashioned effective programming.  Or both.

    Yes, clearly we need to stand up and no longer tolerate this crap.

  13. October 12, 2008 at 21:49 | #13

    Does anyone else think it’s absurd there is a notion one can “believe in evolution”? I wonder if these same people believe in gravity

    It’s depressing that Palin has made it this far and people still stand behind her. Can’t really add any more than that.

  14. October 15, 2008 at 09:11 | #14

    I find the entire evolution debate absolutely astounding! Antibiotic resistant bacterium are a good example of how evolution effects most of our lives. Antibiotics work by helping the body fight bacterium that are causing an infection. If any of the bacterium survive the course of antibiotics they will will evolve and be resistant to that generation of antibiotic. A similar problem occurs in plants as they become resistant to herbicides (often within one season). These are just two examples of very significant problems that will most probably effect most of us at some stage whether we are religious, agnostic or atheists.

  15. Janet
    October 15, 2008 at 09:36 | #15

    Well, this engineer’s explanation included that sort of example, only s/he used chicken breeds as the example.  S/he insisted that all of the variety, or traits, of all possible chicken breeds already resided in every single chicken, and that all mutations are harmful and usually cause the chicken to die.  S/he also had some awful, distorted reasoning behind the origin of fins of fish…. 

    The problem is that when you encounter someone who refuses to learn and accept even the basics on this, there isn’t a single thing you can do. So you just have to give up, really, and put your energy elsewhere.

    In an area of sparse population like where I live, you have to remain mum much of the time—that is, if you want to get your driveway plowed in winter or if you want your neighbor to take you to the hospital when you might need it. You just learn to get along, and not judge too much.  Ignorance does indeed seem to be bliss to many people, and sometimes you need to let it go.

    Robert Frost said something like, “I’d rather be lost in the woods than found in a church.”  Brave man.

  16. October 15, 2008 at 16:44 | #16

    Agreed Janet, wise words. I moved from an education organization doing IT work, to doing IT work for a Fortune 100 (likely 50) company. Basically I found out how to listen more rather than speak up all the time. It’s about all I can do.

  17. October 17, 2008 at 23:02 | #17

    Got the pictures of the planetarium!  The director gave me a very nice tour.

  18. zilch
    October 18, 2008 at 09:02 | #18

    Hey, what’s the big deal?  Planetaria are overhead projectors: they project overhead, okay?  And planaria are flatworms: they’re worms, and they’re flat, okay?  And arias are operatic solos: their in operas, and they’re sung alone, okay?  And….

    Sorry….

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