Letter, sent as an answer to a prominent biologist claiming that Astronomy is not a respectable science because it deals with things we can’t even touch, makes hypotheses we can’t test, and asks questions that are really unanswerable and should be part of metaphysics or religion, such as “how did the Universe begin”. (University of Edinburgh assignment, hence fake letter)
Dear New Scientist,
Congratulations to all of the team involved in the magazine. I am writing to you in reply to one of your articles written by the well known biologist, Dr Rosie Greenleaf. Firstly, I want to point out that I admire and respect all of her work. However, I am going to challenge her statement about Astronomy not being a respectable science, as it is a view that I strongly object to.
Science, coming from the Latin word “scienta” means knowledge.[1] However, in order to be considered seriously, it should provide models/theories which can explain and predict phenomena and most importantly be testable and verifiable by observations or tests.[2] Dr Greenleaf is partly correct when she states that in Astronomy we cannot really test our models. Although we literally cannot control the heavens and actively carry out experiments, we can instead just observe the universe doing all this on its own. In fact the egocentric need of a feeling of control is diminished as soon as the predictions are observed. When observations occur and we get answers, little do we care if we had controlled the “experiment” or not. So in a sense, we do can test but in a rather indirect and passive way.
For instance, we measure the distance of Earth and Venus not by a huge ruler but by measuring the time needed for radio-wave signals emitted from our ground and reflected back from Venus. Using this and some trigonometry we can calculate numerous distances of galactic objects.[3] Currently, we cannot force a star to explode and examine its aftermath. However we can make use of powerful telescopes and scan the vast vicinity of our sky for very luminous bursts of light. We would then witness a so-called supernova, like the explosion of a star in the Large Maggelanic Cloud observed in 1987.[4]
Moreover, one of Astronomy’s biggest tools is Spectroscopy. In this area of Physics we study and extract astonishing information from radiation coming from distant objects, be it stars, galaxies or super-clusters. Radiation carries characteristic features of the source which it has been emitted from, such as Radiative Flux, frequency spectrum and Doppler shift. These can be used along with the laws of Physics to determine the temperature of an object, its size, its relative speed and even the ingredients that it consists of.[5] Indeed, it is true that we cannot “touch” the stellar bodies (yet) but using the pre-mentioned systematic and scientific approaches we gain a lot of the required information needed for us to comprehend their nature. So should we really trust what is observed and calculated? Is it really, real?
As well conjectured by Dr S. W. Hawking, “one cannot determine what is real”.[6] Reality is subjective and is manifested in the perception of each individual. A goldfish would observe a total different world from us in its point of view due to the refraction of light caused by the spherical bowl that it was inside of. Nevertheless, it would have been able to construct its own physical laws and it would have been able to make verifiable predictions as we do.[7] Hence, asking what is real is simply pointless. It is like asking what the real speed of Earth is. According to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity it depends on which frame of reference we use.[8] In fact, our tiny Earth revolves around Sun which in turn revolves around our galaxy’s center, which in turn moves in relative motion through a group of galaxies and so on.[9]
What is really useful to do, is to accept our current and local reality as it is, construct verifiable laws and theories to explain them and use them to predict other events in order to improve our life and comprehend the cosmos as much as we can. As stated by Dr R. K. Galloway’s words: “…we are looking for utility, not truth”.[10] And this is what we do in Astronomy; we construct models, we test them (passively) and if verified we move on. If not, we adjust, modify or even discard them and construct new ones and move on again. The basic ingredient of Astronomy is that it never stops seeking for answers since nothing is absolutely certain in science.[11] As Einstein once said: “a single experiment can prove me wrong”. However, this does not imply that everything we do is in vain. It is exactly the opposite. We should never cease in trying to understand our universe; never give up.
At this point a contradiction emerges; a clash of religion and metaphysics with science. As opposite to science, in religion everything is already sorted out, answered and explained whereas in metaphysics, lots of theories fluctuate around without any solid proof [12]. Actually, hundreds or even thousands of different explanations were and still are interpreting the cosmos in their own way. I am walking on a fine line now, but by definition religion/metaphysics and science are polar opposites. All the claimed observations, if so, are either non-repetitive and hence their validity cannot be checked, or they are misinterpreted physical phenomena. In particular, for thousands of years now, religion used to fill the gaps of knowledge. Anything that was unexplainable was immediately said to be the result of divine action. In Greek mythology, for instance, it was believed that the God Zeus was throwing lightning from the sky.[13] Centuries later it was eventually explained that it was the result of the discharging of clouds.[14] Hence, science has been gradually filling all these gaps and by extrapolating the trend it seems that they will eventually diminish. So I strongly refute Dr Greenleaf’s view as it is mentally cowardly of us to rely on metaphysics or religion to give unproven answers for our origins.
Powerful evidence is now provided by Astronomy which supports the current Big Bang model. An undoubted example is the expansion of the Universe as indicated by the astronomical Doppler shift (redshift) of line spectra of galaxies.[15] In addition, the omnipresence of background radiation (“black body” radiation) indicates a largely redshifted radiation emitted a very long time ago by an extremely hot object i.e. our young and small Universe.[16] Currently, lots of theories show common characteristics or “dualities” in explaining our origins under different perspectives (5 String Theories and 11-dimensional Supergravity). Thus, it seems that we are on the right track as they all seem to express a yet-to-be understood, larger, theory named “M-Theory”.[17]
What’s more, science makes tremendous efforts in order to test all these theories, and using the well known “Large Hadron Collider “ (LHC) will hopefully give us more answers. [18] As Dr R. P. Feynman once said: “… the special stories about our relationships with the rest of the universe …they seem to be too local, too provincial”.[19] Indeed, we are part of the Universe, not its center. Refusing to accept current physical laws is no different than refusing to apply the mathematics needed to calculate how many eggs there are in ten hundred dozens but instead trying to count them one by one. These same laws now point towards answers yet to be fully understood. Let us not simply try to guess the number of these eggs, but rather let us persist in trying to calculate this value.
Kindest Regards
Petros Panagi
References:
[1] The Essential Cosmic Perspective,5th edition, J. Bennett et al., page 71
[2] Astronomy The Evolving Universe,8th edition, M. Zeilik, page26-27
[3] The Essential Cosmic Perspective,5th edition, J. Bennett et al., page 352
[4] The Essential Cosmic Perspective,5th edition, J. Bennett et al., page 422
[5] Astronomy The Evolving Universe,8th edition, M. Zeilik, page84-100
[6] Universe In a Nutshell, S. W. Hawking, page 54
[7] The Grand Design, S. W. Hawking et al, page 51-58
[8] Fundamentals of Physics, 8th edition extended, Halliday et al. page 1023-1024
[9] The Essential Cosmic Perspective,5th edition, J. Bennett et al., page 3
[10] Dr R. K. Galloway, Teaching Development officer, University of Edinburgh, during a Physics 1B lecture in 2012
[11] Our Cosmic Origins, from the Big Bang to the Emergence of Life and Intelligence, A. Delsemme, page xv
[12] Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, (The Rise of Modern Paganism), pg 132-141
[13] Classical Myth, New jersey, Powell, B.B.(2004), page 141
[14] Lightning Physics and effects 2003, Vladimir A. Rakov and Martin A. Uman, page 4-5
[15] A Brief History of Time, Chapter 3, page 2-3
[16] Galaxies and Cosmology, F. Combes et al., page 364
[17] Universe In a Nutshell, S. W. Hawking, page 56
[18] European Organization for Nuclear Research, http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/lhc-en.html
[19] BBC interview of R. P. Feynman, 1981, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSiZgjry8Gw
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