Pirated Ideas

Avast ye hearties! In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I thought I’d talk about some ideas pirated from popular culture about science, particularly astronomy.

The first one is that scientists, and particularly astronomers, don’t have a sense of humor or know how to have fun. My guess is that anybody who says this has never been to an astronomy meeting. You would be amazed at the fun time we have, particularly at the opening sessions where the refreshments loosen a few tongues. I think the most fun an astronomer can have is in combining science and socializing. In that vein, check out Bad Astronomer’s tale of a supernova discovery.

In the humor department, while it may be a bit intricate, go look up the thinking behind the two new solar system bodies Eris and Dysnomia. You can read more about THAT here.

Another stupid idea about science that I’m going to pirate from popular culture is that science is hard. Well. Yeah. So it is. But then again, so is raising a family. And learning a new job and balancing a budget. And running a country wisely and keeping peace among nations, and respecting each other’s intrinsic qualities in a diverse country. But aren’t we all supposed to work at those things, too? And what tools do those things take, if not a knowledge of logical, critical thinking and an understanding of how the world (and the cosmos) works?

Maybe there are relative levels of hardness among these tasks, but they all involve using the brain to solve problems. Which is, of course, what science is about. Everytime I think of the stupidity of the Barbie Doll makers making this doll say things like “Math is hard” I have to wonder just how much market research these folks did. Or maybe their market research was flawed because they thought math was hard.

My final rant about stupid ideas that I’m pirating from popular culture has to do with astronomers being total geeks. This sort of goes with the material above about having fun at astronomy meetings. Quite a few years back I was invited to give a talk at an amateur astronomy meeting in Florida. I went down and spent a few days with this enthusiastic group of observers and found out what a wide spread of jobs they held. There were several doctors, a couple of lawyers, some teachers, planetarium folk, bankers, truck drivers, and writers (to name a few of the professions present). Not one of them seemed geeky, but more like enthusiastic. Some of the dinnertime conversations got quite technical, but not any more so than if you had a bunch of NASCAR enthusiasts sitting around talking about the characteristics of their favorite race cars. And heavens, NOBODY would think of calling NASCAR folk geek, now would they? But, it’s all technology and science behind it.

One of the kids attending the meeting asked me how hard it would be to become an astronomer. I told her that she already was one because I’d watched her work on a mirror for her telescope, and she’d been out observing with her folks each night. She persisted in wanting to know about school. And I told her about the math and science requirements, waiting for her to wrinkle up her nose. She didn’t, which told me that she hadn’t subscribed to this society’s silly ideas about geeks and math and science. So, maybe someday I’ll go back to that star party and she’ll be there, PhD papers fresh in her hand, and giving a talk about whatever her research object was in college. I hope some kids pirate some good ideas from her, and all the others of us who go around showing the world that science and astronomy aren’t geeky… but a darned lot of fun, even if they do require us to use our brains!

Yarrr! Embrace the cosmos smartly! Ye have nothing to lose but yer fear of science!

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