Friday, April 3, 2009

Warning:  Book Review

Cosmos by Carl Sagan
copyright 1980

I was a little sad when I started reading this book, I was enormously disappointed that I hadn't read this book many years earlier.!  It was written four years before I was born and I'm just now finishing it!  Well, that can't be helped.  

Sagan succinctly sums up everything.  By everything, I mean everything literally.  I'm not a physicist or an astronomer, but I easily understood and learned quite a bit about space and space/time.  The main focus throughout most chapters was the existense and change of the universe and its components and how those components interact (aka everything).  Now,  the universe, its components, and their interactions would have to be the most important things to study, right?  In fact, those are the only things available to study.

Think about this:
I asked my college freshmen students if they thought science was important.  Most said yes. 
"Why?"
"So scientists can figure stuff out.  And invent stuff."

"Do you like learning about science," I asked.  "Are you interested in science?  Do you have a responsibility to understand science."

"No."  Was their adamant and unanimous answer.

Go figure.  I tried to convince them that ordinary everyday people like us can and should understand science, and even use it.  I even told them it would be easier than memorizing sports stats.  I must've done something wrong, they didn't become enthusiastic.

I think most folks share this attitude.  Honestly, it's hard for me to believe it, but I bet most people are turned off by science or at best, indifferent.

Sagan disagrees with me.  He says that the general public could learn to love science but scientists have been doing a bad job of promoting their work as important.  Evidence for this is summed up with the example of the Library of Alexandria in the first century AD.  

This was the birthplace of the scientific method.  It was a research institution where early scientists made breathtaking and awe inspiring discoveries.  The precise size of the earth was calculated, the nature of the movements of planets was deduced, evolutionary theory was proposed, the atom as the basis of matter theorized.  Who knows what else was discovered nearly two millenia ago?!  The vast majority of the library's scrolls were burned probably in accordance with a decree from Pope Theophilus to destroy this "pagan" building.  This knowledge had to be rediscovered, and due to a lengthy period called the Dark Ages, not much real science happened until 1500 AD or so.

What was lost?  How much did the ancients learn?  How much different would things be today if that knowledge had been preserved?  Will we learn from this?  Who will come with torches to burn down the new library?

I'm sure that the same science that has taught us that we are insignificant masses of atoms huddled together on a mote of dust in a near infinite vastness is the same science that will be our only tool in establishing our true significance in the universe.

The adventure is in its infancy.  Man's footprints are no longer confined to Earth.  But to ensure that we voyage again, our first priority should be resisting the urges to destroy this planet....and we only get one chance at that.

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