All Over the Map

9/9/07 - 9/15/07
by C. Zaitz

I write about astronomy. At least, that’s what I say I’m writing about. But I tend to be all over the map with my topics. I’ve talked about Jamestown, Dinosaurs, Snorkeling and even the weather. It’s not because I have Attention Deficit Disorder, it’s because Astronomy can be all over the map too.

Astronomy encompasses a lot of other sciences, leading down a road that passes through towns like physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and it even goes to territories like philosophy and religion. Forgive my extended metaphor, but astronomy is rather like a path or a trail that leads to many different places. Of course, the vehicle driving astronomy is curiosity, the same thing that drives all the sciences. Curiosity, and the desire to make our lives better and easier.

Take Google Earth, for example. You can download a program to your computer that allows you to zoom in on practically any place on earth, as if you were orbiting our planet and had an amazing zoom lens that allowed you to see, in some cases, who planted a new tree or where dirty water is pouring into our streams. That sounds like science fiction, but it’s not; it’s easy, fun and useful as well. Curious to see what Madagascar looks like? You can, and not just a colored blotch on a world map; you can see the actual landscape from a bird’s eye view. You can visit the Coliseum in Rome, and see the four presidents at Mount Rushmore. And thanks to scientific technology, it’s available to anyone who can use a computer.

Scientific knowledge allows us to keep satellites in space to take the pictures, and it allows us to understand optics and information storage. Scientific inquiry allows us to use quantum tunneling in our electronics, and allows the global sharing of information. It’s pretty incredible when you think about it. But some people may feel like it’s an invasion of privacy, or feel the Orwellian “Big Brother is watching us” uneasiness.

Perhaps it’s our ability, or maybe our need, to be curious and question things that is important, especially now when it’s difficult to accept what science is telling us about global warming and climate change. We have the data that tells us that our world is changing. Information is coming to us from all over the map. But we cannot forget that it is ultimately our interpretation of information that matters.

Interpretation comes from our background knowledge, such as from our education, our experiences, and what we’ve heard, read, or seen on TV. And that can truly be a mish mosh of ideas, of reality and faux reality. But the more we get information from reputable sources, from primary and authoritative sources, the better informed we can be in our interpretations. Science allows us to rely on experiments and observations to try to explain things. But many areas of science are open to interpretation, and misinterpretation, if we’re not discerning.

Information may seem to be all over the map, but we can use all of the tools at our disposal to interpret and synthesize it. And the best tools we have are the sciences. They may be disparate areas of study, but they all stem from our attempt to understand our universe, and ourselves.

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view.