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

INTRODUCTION 7
I won’t give away the answer here; you’ll find a whole chapter
about it later in this book. But I hope you see my point. If you
start with something already there in people’s heads, you can work
with it, play with it, make them think about it. Starting with a
known misconception is a wonderful hook that captures people’s
thinking, and it can be fun and highly rewarding to think critically
about these ideas. What do you know that you know wrong?
Some ideas are better than others. People remember movies,
right? Then why not start there? In Star Wars, Han Solo dodges
asteroids in the Millennium Falcon to escape Imperial fighters. In
Armageddon, the Earth prepares for the impact of an asteroid a
thousand miles across. In Deep Impact, a giant comet explodes
over the Earth, causing nothing more than a beautiful fireworks
display.
If you’ve seen these movies, these are scenes you’ll remember.
That makes them a great place to discuss real astronomy, and not
the fantasy represented by the movies. You can find out what
asteroids really are like; how easy it is to spot a big one and how
hard it is to move one; and just why they’re extraordinarily dangerous,
even after you blow one up.
My parents may have thought I was wasting my time as a kid
watching those bad science fiction movies. It turns out I was simply
laying the groundwork for my life’s work.
You can turn Bad Science into Good Science if you start in the
right place.
This book is my way of starting in that place. We’ll take a look
at a whole lot of bad astronomy. Some of the examples will sound
familiar, others likely won’t. But they’re all misconceptions I’ve run
across, and they’re all fun to talk about and even more fun to think
about.
We’ll uproot those brain weeds and plant healthy greenery yet.