Science through the telescope - when will deniers look?

Most of us don’t think of science as a story. If we think of it at all, science is a series of discoveries made by a few geniuses whose insights somehow changed our lives.

Science deniers 

By Ephrat Livn published in the (a) History News Network and published in (b) Quartz

A new book aims to transform that perception, turning it into a tale the whole world is writing together—a fable involving heroes and villains, triumphs and tragedies, and very high stakes for humanity and the planet.

Robert Crease, a science historian and chairman of the philosophy department at Stony Brook University in New York, is the author of this upcoming book, The Workshop and the World.

Crease is concerned about science deniers, especially people in positions of authority, who discount evidence that human activity is changing life on Earth for the worse, driving climate change and disrupting the delicate balance that all living things rely upon on our interconnected planet. He believes that by understanding the history of science, we can “keep the world from falling apart,” in his words.

This might sound like a very tall order. But in Crease’s view, each of us has a stake in making the world better. We may not be great thinkers ourselves, but our participation in telling the tale of science is crucial, he argues.

Beginning with Francis Bacon in the 17th century and ending with Hannah Arendt in the 20th century, the philosopher lays out the story of the scientific workshop—which is his shorthand for the process of scientific thinking and the actual experiments scientists conduct. In his book, Crease provides examples of 10 great thinkers in history who saw possibilities, confronted authority, and took action, advancing unconventional ideas for their time that directly or indirectly improved our lives today. Their efforts provide examples of how to respond to people and institutions who ignore scientific evidence when it’s convenient for them, despite relying on science in other areas.

Denier in chief

One prime example of this hypocrisy that Crease points to is US president Donald Trump. The philosopher notes that Trump denies climate change and has installed science deniers in leadership positions in his administration, dismantling the scientific infrastructure that makes it possible to do the very things he claims to want to do, such as “unlock the mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and to harness the energies, industries, and technologies of tomorrow.”

As Crease points out, you can’t just select evidence that suits you and discard or ignore what’s uncomfortable or difficult to deal with.

He writes:  Something strange has happened. Workshop findings can dazzle human beings, making the surrounding world—the one in which we make friendships, breathe and suffer, hope and fear—appear to recede in importance…The deep structure of the workshop and its tie to the lifeworld is lost. You think you can pick and choose your scientific findings. You think scientific findings are opinions.

During the discoveries made by Galileo, the science deniers of his era refused to look into his telescope!

To counter this selective approach, individual citizens must know and tell the story of science, Crease argues. Practically speaking, Crease says, it makes no sense to just denounce science deniers, moralize, expose, or even provide scientific evidence that shows how the workshop works for the world. We must understand the mentality behind the denial and be able to tell the story of science with its failures and triumphs, so that the deniers’ story changes, too.

Moral of the story

In Crease’s view, science denial stems from a mistrust of knowledge that’s necessarily not common. Because science has its own secret language, some people dismiss it as elitist or politically-driven and unnatural, contradicting human values.

Ironically, scientists themselves aren’t particularly well-equipped for this storytelling job that Crease thinks is so critical because they are inside the workshop, working on developing knowledge, solving specific problems. Crease calls them “operators of a machine that is useful for some tasks.”

But “controlling the crisis” of loss of faith in facts actually depends on “individuals who are able to reflect on the possibility and necessity of such machines.” And by that, he means us, the people out there in the world who believe in the workshop’s activities and want to support scientific infrastructure.

The story we have to tell, he argues, is one of scientific successes and vulnerabilities. 

For example, in the early 17th century, Galileo Galilei, the father of observational astronomy, created a telescope that brought the stars into view. Those in power who feared his creation simply refused to look through it, denouncing its creator rather than acknowledging the observations the tool allowed. The early science deniers, who were religious, saw the telescope as a political threat and ignored the facts it brought to light.

Crease likens today’s climate change deniers to those who refused to look through the telescope. Understanding the past and the present mentality of those who denounce evidence, he argues, can help us overcome resistance to new information.

Denial of global warming and extra terrestrial life

Astrophysicists are reporting the possibility of finding life in the universe within the next 20 years. 

If so, will science deniers believe it? 

Right wing extremists are cemented in their wrong minded anti science beliefs. They don't believe in "global warming" even though the earth's temperatures continue to rise at a rapid rate. It occurs to me, these same science deniers would probably completely freak out if astrophysicists happen to find proof of extra terrestrial life in the universe. In Briefing, an article published in The Week, November 28, 2014, optimism is reported about finding some form of life in the universe within the next 20 years. 

Suppose life outside of earth is discovered? Will anti-science right wing extremists believe the scientists who make this discovery? Science history would indicate otherwise.

It's entirely possible right wind extremists could behave like the middle ages religious philosophers who didn't believe in a round earth. Moreover, when the Italian physicist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) proved the earth was a planet, rather than the center of the universe, he was put  under house arrest for the remainder of his life because his discovery was declared to be heretical.  

I suspect climate change deniers, along with right wing religious extremists who fundamentally believe in the Biblcal description of the earth's creation, won't believe scientists who find evidence of life outside of earth.

Nevertheless, scientists are tracking information from data collected about earth "like" planets where the potential for life forms are possible.  November 28, 2014: The Week

The search for E.T.

Buoyed by recent discoveries, NASA now boldly predicts we’ll find alien life within the next 20 years.
Why are scientists so optimistic?

The Kepler space telescope gets much of the credit. 

 

Before it was launched into orbit in 2009, astronomers couldn’t be sure whether planets existed outside our solar system. 

 

The search for extraterrestrial life was mostly focused on our own solar system—on Mars and a number of moons around Jupiter and Saturn—and on an intergalactic eavesdropping project known as SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). For 50 years, SETI has been using radio telescopes to listen for signals from an alien civilization somewhere out there in the cosmos, with no “Hello there!” detected thus far. But when Kepler began scrutinizing the stars from its perch beyond the atmosphere, its unprecedented resolution gave scientists a tool to detect the relatively dim planets circling them. Using the telescope’s data, scientists now estimate there are more than 100 billion exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) in the Milky Way galaxy alone. One in every five stars, they’ve concluded, has a planet that is habitable, and Kepler can help pinpoint which ones to examine for signs of life. “It’s within our grasp to pull off a discovery that will change the world forever,” says telescope scientist Matt Mountain.
How does Kepler work?

Trained on a patch of sky containing about 100,000 stars, the telescope studies the light emitted by each star to look for telltale dips in brightness. The periodic dips are a sign of a partial eclipse, caused as a planet transits in front of its star’s surface during orbit. From that one patch of universe, Kepler has used the “transit method” to confirm the existence of at least 2,000 exoplanets—from rocky spheres smaller than Earth to gaseous giants larger than Jupiter. The next challenge, says MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager, is to identify exoplanets that live within their star’s so-called Goldilocks zone—neither too near nor too far from their star so that their environment is “not too hot, not too cold—just right for life.” Astrobiologists believe they’ve already identified 86 Earth-like exoplanets that exist in this habitable zone and are now studying them for signs of life.
What kind of signs?

The traditional marker of life is liquid water. “Life needs a liquid; even the driest desert plant on Earth needs water for its metabolism to work,” says MIT astrobiologist William Bains. So if an exoplanet contains liquid water, the planet might be home to an alien life-form, whether it’s a simple bacterium or a complex and intelligent creature. A watery planet could be detected by the chemical signatures of water in its atmosphere. Some scientists think it’s possible that aliens are more different than we can imagine and have evolved to exist on methane or other chemicals instead of water. “The things we can conceive of are probably a very small set of the possibilities that are out there,” says biogeochemist Ariel Anbar. “We know we’re going to be surprised.” 

What else would indicate life?
NASA also plans to use its telescopes to search for certain “biosignatures” in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. A large amount of oxygen is one such biosignature: As a highly reactive element, oxygen needs to be consistently renewed by a biological process like photosynthesis in order to exist in large quantities. Another tip-off would be a carbon footprint that we’ve developed on our own planet: i.e., air pollution.  “You’d know that’s an inhabited world, not just a habitable world,” says Jill Tarter for the SETI Institute. “And then you can ask the question, Did they develop any technology we might detect?” 

Could we contact any aliens we find?
 

Perhaps, but not easily. The biggest barrier for astronomers is the time lag involved in communicating with planets located trillions of miles away. Suppose NASA decided to try to communicate with Kepler-186f, an Earth-like planet about 500 light-years away (or 2,939,249,910,000,000 miles): Given the planet’s distance, it would take half a millennium for a message to reach its inhabitants, and another 500 years for their response to be received. Either our civilization or theirs could perish during that time, rendering the communication moot. This assumes, of course, that the alien life is intelligent and can communicate; there will be no return signal from silent microbes in an ice-capped lake. 

What if we do find life?

Legendary astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes we’re taking a big risk just by looking for it. He has warned that any signals we send out could invite the visit of a far superior alien civilization intent on our colonization or destruction. But even the discovery of friendly, intelligent aliens—or primitive life-forms—could have a mind-blowing effect on humanity. Traditional religious teachings about man’s central role in creation would be overturned, and our species would be forced to redefine itself in the knowledge that we’ve got company—perhaps plenty of company—in the universe. “Soon, we’re going to have an existential shock,” says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. “Even if we find a fossil, a DNA strand from another species, that would be absolutely staggering.”

Finding a marker of civilization 

 
As astrobiologists search for biosignatures in a planet’s atmosphere, they’ll now also be looking for a telltale indication of an advanced civilization: pollutants like those found in our own atmosphere. Astronomers will look for industrial pollutants such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the chemicals found in aerosols and refrigeration units, which have helped to eat a hole in Earth’s ozone layer. These chemicals aren’t known to occur in atmospheres naturally, so they would be a helpful indicator that an industrial civilization once existed on that planet—though because they take approximately 100,000 years to disappear, those aliens may long be extinct. The irony is that “aliens are often referred to as green little creatures,” says theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb, but “detectable CFC-rich civilizations would not be ‘green,’ since they are environmentally unfriendly.” 

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(Well, this would be interesting. If global warming deniers don't believe in climate science, maybe they'd actually find a reason to like extra terrestrials, who could be environmentally unfriendly.)

 

Regardless of what kind of life is discovered in the universe, my prediction is the anti-science right wing extremists will behave just like their middle age predecessors, whenever the disclosure is affirmed. Any astrophysicist should think twice before claiming to be the first to proclaim the discovery of extra terrestrial life. Stephen Hawkings should worry less about the dangers of the extra terrestrials and more about those who will deny the discovery. Indeed, we might worry about the response from those who will claim the "life" discovery to be false.  

 

"We have met the enemy and it is us." (Pogo)