Does it Hurt?

I got an email from a casual correspondent (not anyone I know well) a while back that has me shaking my head. While I haven’t written much about climate change here (even though I’m working on a climate change project for a museum right now), my note about preserving the Earth a few weeks back tripped a breaker in somebody’s mind and the lights went out.

So, the letter began by excoriating scientists who “believe” in global warming. Not even a “Hi, I read your entry and I have a few comments to make” opening. No, this person just plowed right in and began flinging poo. First, the writer listed a series of statements that he/she said were made by proponents of global warming that were (in the letter-writer’s opinion) false and made only to get more funding (the letter-writer’s interpretation). No, the person didn’t say WHY they were false. Apparently it was enough to just get out the world FALSE in big, black letters with lots of exclamation points after it.

The person did send me some links to “research” that he/she said disproved global warming. The first one on the list turned out to be a site that pretty said verbatim what was written in the email to me. At the bottom of the email message, the person suggested that scientists should be more “open to new ideas” and not closed-minded to people who disagree with them.

Okay, so I got the idea that this person doesn’t think that global warming is real. Fair enough — everybody’s entitled to their opinion. But, this person’s opinion wasn’t his/her own. It was basically a rehash of a website that he/she had read (and was graceless enough to point out to me as a “scientific source”). The site misquoted several scientists, actually putting words in their mouths they’d never said. Then it took them to task for what it claimed they said (rather than what they actually said).

And my letter-writer was whining about closed-mindedness on the part of scientists?

It was entertaining for about one minute. But, I have less patience these days with people who don’t use their heads or prefer to let others do their thinking for them, particularly when it comes to discussing science. Let me just say that the human mind is meant to be educated and exercised, not rented out or mismanaged by people whose degrees are in psychoceramics.

I was standing in the checkout line today at the grocery store and the title of one of those little pocketbooks caught my eye: Cat Astrology. And, I thought to myself, “I am in the wrong business. Here’s somebody making money selling completely inane stuff in supermarket checkouts.”

And I wondered just how many scruples I’d have to shed before I could actually write and sell such stuff. Too many, but obviously somebody without a shred of understanding of science and the laws of physics, gravitation, or (as my grandmother used to say) “a lick of sense” did check their scruples at the door when it came to writing something that makes absolutely no common sense, just in order to write a book for a few bucks.

When it comes to debunking astrology and all related nonsense, I turn to my old friend Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy for a clear explanation. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific also has a fine page on astrology debunking, as well as treatises and resource materials on such interesting (but hardly scientific) things as crop circles, UFOs, the Face on Mars, and so on.

There’s a lot of malarky out there in the “sphere of ideas” masquerading as “real science” or “truth” or “one true way” trains of thought. People who are interested in or work in science or public explanations of science do encourage questions. Most of us understand that we’re always going to get the “whack” questions, but if we’re good, we also understand that those questions do stem from a very real human need to understand what goes on around us in the universe.

Thus, our answers need to encourage people to understand science as a way to understand the physical universe. The questions that come up time and again about astrology and UFOs and energy rings and all the other nonsense that crops up again and again as “weird science” or “magic” or what have you, are grounded in ignorance of how things work in the cosmos.

There’s usually a good explanation about how things work (i.e. using the actual mechanics of planetary orbits and the inverse square law governing the force of gravity to explain why astrology doesn’t stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny). But, public misunderstanding of how things work, and even worse—the wilful promulgation of ideas that are physically incorrect and impossible under the current laws of physics that govern the universe—can get people into trouble. Serious, physical trouble. (And, don’t get me started on the harm that silly political and social ideas can do…)

Back when I was writing for a newspaper we had a woman write a letter to the editor about a nuclear weapons facility that had been shut down. There were a number of lakes in the region that had been contaminated with plutonium-laden runoff from the plant’s holding ponds, etc., and there was great concern that housing developments built in the areas of the lakes would stir up the plutonium dust in the soil and in the lakes (which would be particularly egregious if the lakes were drained in order to make room for more homes). The letter-writer sent in a note complaining disdainfully that the treehuggers who were so concerned about the environment were so stupid to worry about the lakes because, as everybody knew “plutonium is a heavy element, and that means its weight will make it sink to the bottom of the lakes.”

Never mind that a particle of plutonium-contaminated dust can travel on the wind, be inhaled into a lung and do great damage (and even cause death). This woman’s REAL problem started because she was SO ignorant of science that she confused atomic weight for the kind of weight you measure when you get on the scale (which is really the pull of gravity on your mass).

I often wondered if she ever tried to mix chlorine bleach and ammonia at home…

So, as you can see, most misconceptions about science stem from ignorance and misunderstanding. As students of science (hell, as students of life!) we all start out in a position of ignorance. That’s the nature of our minds. We have to learn how the cosmos works, all of which can be measured and explained scientifically. It’s certainly tempting to believe in magic, particularly at points in our lives when unicorns and UFOs and fairies and all sorts of other fantastical beings are attractive to us. That’s human nature. But, science isn’t about wishful thinking and astronomy isn’t about using imaginary powers of planets to explain why a cat shreds a carpet or nuzzles up against us when it’s hungry. It’s infinitely more exciting and wonderful than any fairy tales the folks who write books about cat astrology for sale at the checkout counter can tell.

I wish more people understood that about science.