Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from ...

4 BAD ASTRONOMY
who fully well knew what the Space Shuttle was doing, but what
the public saw was three respected journalists saying tacitly that
it’s okay to be ignorant about science.
It isn’t okay. In fact, it’s dangerous to be ignorant about science.
Our lives and our livelihoods depend on it. No one can doubt the
power of computers in today’s world, computers that rely on physics
to operate and improve their performance. Science is what makes
our houses warm, our cars go, and our cell phones ring. Medical
science progresses very rapidly, with new medicines, treatments,
and preventions coming out almost daily. We must understand the
science of medicine to be able to make informed decisions about
our health. In the United States, hundreds of billions of dollars are
spent every single year on science and technology, disciplines with
which the typical voting citizen has not even a passing familiarity.
That’s your money. You should understand not only how it’s being
spent but also why.
Unfortunately, getting reliable science information isn’t all that
easy. Science misconceptions and errors are propagated by the media
in all its forms. Unfortunately once again, the problem doesn’t stop
there.
Anyone who has gone outside on a clear, warm night and lain
down on a blanket to watch the stars may know the deep joy of
astronomy, but understanding astronomy is a different matter.
Unfortunately, astronomy—and science in general—has been under
attack lately. This isn’t anything new, really, but the recent publicity
has been a bit more obvious. From NASA budget cuts to state
school boards that promote antiscience, the atmosphere is more
hostile than it has been before. The modern consumer is bombarded
by pseudoscience at every turn. Most newspapers in the
country carry an astrology column, and some even have columns
by self-proclaimed psychics, but precious few devote even a single
page a week to a regular column about new scientific results. Conspiracy
theories abound that twist and pervert simple science into
ridiculous claims that are tissue-thin, yet are accepted wholesale by
hordes of believers. The World Wide Web propagates these theories
and a host of others at light speed around the world, making
it even harder to distinguish between what is real and what is fan-