Question: Do any of you know if there is a
relationship between Dr. Owen Gingrich and Newt
Gingrich of political fame and ignominy?
--- John Stoke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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...
>
> **************************
> 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/
>
Indigo Nights
[log in to unmask]
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