It’s a Place of Science Learning, John, Not Uninformed Posturing

So, last week there was a kerfuffle, as they like to say, over a U.S. presidential candidate’s using planetarium funding as a weapon against his opponent. It was silly and, in my opinion, made the guy who complained about the funding look pretty foolish and ignorant (and, as Phil Plait suspected, anti-science). I suppose you could conclude that the candidate hates science education, but I suspect in reality, he had no clue of what he was talking about and just grabbed the first thing he could think of to throw back in his opponent’s face. It backfired, as it should have. Sensible teachers routinely flunk students who wing it like that, particularly in science where there’s little tolerance for making up facts to suit an argument. There’s no reason we should put up with a candidate for president of the U.S. who doesn’t do his homework.

I don’t want to get into the various specifics of the argument, mostly because we already hashed it out over at Phil’s Bad Astronomy Blog. I’d rather talk about what good planetariums are.

I’ve been involved in planetarium show production for a long time, both as a lecturer and as a content creator. To me, a planetarium is a great gateway into the world of science. Astronomy itself is a great entry into other sciences. Point yourself in any direction in the sky and the list of sciences you can use to explain what you see is a long one:  physics, astrophysics, chemistry, biology, atmospheric science, planetary science, geology… just to name a few. And, the beauty of a planetarium is that you can teach all that stuff on the dome, simply by looking at stars, planets, and galaxies.

Sure, you might not end up in astronomy as a career, but a number of scientists cite their first visit to a planetarium as something that got them started in science. In fact, it goes beyond scientists — I recently read about an environmental lawyer who fertilized his interest in science by lecturing at his local planetarium. I guarantee you that a good planetarium production will ignite your interest in astronomy, an interest you can take with you wherever you go.

I remember MY first visit to one when I was in 7th grade. I couldn’t believe such a cool place existed. It took a few years before I got back to one, and even a bit longer before I got into creating shows for such places. I spent some time just before graduate school lecturing in one, sometimes several times a day. It never failed to amaze me how cool the visitors thought the experience was. Oh sure, there were always a few slouches who came in and tried to be disruptive. But, for the most part, the visitors were thrilled to be there and learn something about astronomy.

In the U.S., we need more and better science education — it leads to critical thinking and better-informed citizens, methinks (which, come to think of it, might scare a certain subset of politicians (and others) who thrive on having ignorant voters…)

If a planetarium can help spur kids into studying science and having fun with it, it ADDS to taxpayer literacy in our country, and money spent on education (if done wisely) can come back to us in the form of better educated teachers, more scientists, and involved, engaged citizens. So, I kind of have to wonder: what’s so bad about that?  And, why is attacking a planetarium’s funding (which was a very small amount of money compared to the money that the attacker has wasted or misspent through his actions over the decades as a senator, and certainly is well below the amount he has sunk into all his seven or eight homes) somehow a sign of political virtue?  Especially since there are bigger budgetary oxen to be gored. I just don’t see how huffing and puffing about a planetarium is anything but a nonstarter, unless the candidate is a supporter of decreasing science literacy for all of us.