I tried to post these comments on Thursday, and again on
Friday, but I think we were having server problems. Perhaps
this one will take...
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Dear Colleagues,
My institution, which is the science and operations center
for the Hubble Space Telescope, appropriately requires that
the communication of personal opinion be identified as such,
and as not representative of views held or endorsed by the
institution or its governors or sponsors. I hereby so
declare, and suspect that this message will testify to the
wisdom of that regulation!
A good number of months ago while in a bookstore I spotted a
book in the astronomy section entitled "The Privileged
Planet." (This is the book upon which the movie under
discussion is based.) One of the first things I do
when a book intrigues me is to see whether its dust jacket
contains an endorsement from anyone I know. I found these
two:
"This thoughtful, delightfully contrarian book will rile up
those who believe the 'Copernican principle' is an essential
philosophical component of modern science. Is our universe
designedly congenial to intelligent, observable life?
Passionate advocates for the search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (SETI) will find much to ponder in this
carefully documented analysis." - Owen Gingrich, Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
and
"Impressively researched and lucidly written, The Privileged
Planet will surely rattle if not dislodge a pet assumption
held by many interpreters of modern science: the so-called
Copernican Principle (which isn't actually very
Copernican!). But Gonzalez and Richards' argument, though
controversial, is so carefully and moderately presented that
any reasonable critique of it must itself address the
astonishing evidence which has for so long somehow escaped
our notice. I therefore expect this book to renew - and
to raise to a new level - the whole scientific and
philosophical debate about earth's cosmic significance. It
is a high class piece of work that deserves the widest
possible audience" - Dennis Danielson, Professor of English,
University of British Columbia.
Owen Gingrich is a respected historian of astronomy (and
please note his affiliation with a scholarly component of
the Smithsonian Institution) and has given invited talks to
our science staff as part of our academic colloquia series.
Dennis Danielson is the editor of an acclaimed anthology of
cosmological writings entitled "The Book of the Cosmos." He
was an invited lunchtime speaker at an American Astronomical
Society a few years ago, and subsequently was an invited
colloquium speaker here for a talk entitled "The Great
Copernican Cliché," a presentation that generated a more
spirited discussion afterwards than most that I have
experienced here.
When (still in the bookstore) I flipped through the book I
found hundreds of citations from the scientific literature,
respected journals such as the Astronomical Journal, the
Astrophysical Journal, and so on.
Since this promised to be the kind of science-related book
that I enjoy the most, one that endeavors to synthesize data
and advance an interesting point of view supported by that
data (in this instance, the point of view that there really
is something special about the earth), and since one of the
co-authors is a bona-fide university research astronomer (I
didn't know much about the Discovery Institute and its co-
author), I bought it and read it.
I read a lot of astronomy books and I found this one to be
more thought-provoking than many. The attributions by
Gingrich and Danielson were, on the whole, accurate; the
book is written in a humble tone and gives the reader a lot
to ponder. It's a rather gentle presentation of ideas and I
found the modesty and near-tentativeness of the authors'
tone ingratiating. I didn't detect anything that struck me
as particularly sinister or anti-science (there were no
appeals to the Bible, no appeals to god-of-the-gaps
miracles), although the book does promote a view that is
certainly not in line with fashionable philosophical
worldviews within academia. I did not find the arguments
overwhelmingly convincing -- it's more of a door-opener to
some new ideas -- but they certainly did cause me to
consider the difference between well-entrenched assumptions
in cosmology and conclusions supported by data. There were
literally dozens of moments in which I found myself
reacting "Hmm. hadn't thought of that before." (Example:
Could the fact that spiral galaxies have observed radial
metalicity gradients across their disks mean that there are
galactic 'habitable zones' (places where the proportion of
heavier elements enables the development of life) akin to
the 'habitable zones' thought to exist around stars (places
where the temperature and thermal stability are conducive to
life)? Interesting idea.)
The book does not deal (at least not to my recollection)
with the biological "Intelligent Design" dispute, but is
more an advancement of a point of view with respect to
the 'anthropic principle' in cosmology, and it could be
considered an extension and expansion of arguments put forth
by Ward and Brownlee in their book "Rare Earth." Perhaps one
could think of the book's subject as being a 'cousin' to ID
in that, like ID, it argues for the notion that intention or
purpose could be inferred from characteristics of nature.
Overall I'd say that the book deals with the kind of
questions that resonate greatly with the public: "OK, you've
collected lots of data, now tell me: What does it all mean?"
Perhaps it could be said to straddle the line between
physics and metaphysics. I enjoy books like that, even if I
don't necessarily settle into agreement with an author's
position. I would like to think that science museums could
be venues for interesting discussions about 'what the data
mean, or might mean.' So long as a discussion is clearly
identified as such, and properly distinguished from the data
itself, it could provide an invigorating reminder of one of
the reasons science is done.
I have not seen the video, and don't have any plans to, but
I do have a hard time imagining how the elaborated arguments
in the book could be reduced to that format. The book's
force depends on the gradual accumulation of a lot of
individually small ideas and observations and I don't see a
short video doing that nearly as well. (But of course I
could be wrong, having not seen it.)
Sincerely,
John Stoke
John M. Stoke
Manager, Informal Science Education
E/PO Lead, The James Webb Space Telescope
Office of Public Outreach
Space Telescope Science Institute
3700 San Martin Drive
Baltimore MD 21218
USA
Tel +1 410 338 4394
Fax +1 410 338 4579
[log in to unmask]
http://hubblesource.stsci.edu
http://jwstsite.stsci.edu/
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