"The Universe was a PhD thesis that God was unable to successfully defend."
- James Morrow, "Only Begotten Daughter"
Anyone who hasn't read Morrow's novel "Only Begotten Daughter", get yourself a copy. The Creation Museum, and the death of Jerry Falwell, both bring to mind the chapter where an army of fundies, armed with weedwhackers and hedgeclippers, massacres the infidels of Atlantic City, NJ.
Anyone yet visited the new, $27M delusionland known as the Creation Museum?
Bad Astronomy alerts us to a planned peaceful protest by rationalists.
According to the NYT, the museum includes "a planetarium paying tribute to God’s glory while exploring the nature of galaxies." Now, sure, the point of a planetarium show is to revel in the vast, beautiful complexity of our Universe. But how can you show a photo of ANY other galaxy yet claim the universe is only 6K yrs old? Our nearest neighbor, the LMC, is ~150,000 light-years away -- if the creationists are right, we can't photograph it, because the light hasn't arrived yet! Let alone every other, more distant galaxy in the Universe.
Last time I team-taught Astro 100, we started every class with the Astronomy Picture of the Day. We wanted to excite them, and hoped a few of our students might adopt the daily ritual of visiting APOD. That astronomy might become a small part of their daily lives.
In that spirit, here's our Galaxy from APOD, seen from the southern hemisphere, featuring the Coal Sack nebula and Southern Cross.
The legacy of Astro 100 came up twice during my recent trip to a Chilean observatory:
First, on the Dallas intra-airport train -- 2 terminals to go, my collaborator's at the gate trying to hold the plane for me. The next guy over asks why I'm going to Chile. He's impressed, but it's another passenger who pounces. "So, what the heck is dark matter, anyway? And is there really an anti-gravity pushing the universe apart?" So in 30 seconds, as the train accelerates toward my terminal, I explain Dark Energy, and try to convey both the solidity of the evidence and the nuttiness of the concordance universe. Train pulls up, I make apologies and take off running, make it to the gate with a minute to spare.
Second, on the light rail journey home, jet--lagged, I start talking with the 40-ish businessman next to me. Turns out he took a college astronomy class from George Abell -- he not only remembered not only his professor's name, but that he'd discovered important clusters of something. I laughed, said something about Abell clusters of galaxies being among the most massive bound objects in the universe, and that I'd just finished observing four of them.
Despite travel exhaustion, I need to remember that astronomy evangelism is part of my job, and usually great fun.
scientiae-carnival
Check out science reporter Joel Achenbach's article in today's Washington post -- it's a Tigger-like bouncy relishment of this Golden Age of telescopes in which we find ourselves. Good to see NASA's internal science vs. moon/mars budget tension getting publicity. And despite a few factual errors, it's a great example of how to communicate science to the public concisely and enthusiastically, w/o dumbing it down too far.
Why'm I reading the Post at 2 am? I'm clouded out at the telescope, of course! (No one told the weather about that golden age thing.)
Feeling great today! Was just awarded telescope time to do some very exciting projects, and I'm finishing up a big project that's consumed much of my scientific life for the last year. Time to take a break and sew my SCIENCE MERIT BADGES onto my astronomer sash. The badges are courtesy the Science Scouts. What a trip!
What? You don't have an astronomer sash? Or science merit badges? You'd better get 'em, pronto.
scientiae-carnival
Interesting article in today's NYT: a statistical analysis of NBA officiating (by 2 economists).
The bottom line: "We find that black players receive around 0.12-0.20 more fouls per 48 minutes played (an increase of 2.5-4.5%) when the number of white referees officiating a game increases from zero to three.”
It's rather fantastic that one can quantify prejudice.
