From Science to Pseudo-Science

In the short space of 50 years we have come from an era full of the excitement of scientific promise and advance to a time when prophets like Al Gore, robed in scientific costume, monopolise the public imagination.

We remember vividly watching sputnik – or what we thought was the satellite- cross the prairie sky. [sputnik speaks]

There are a number of tributes and remembrances on the anniversary of this momentous achievement. But we noticed particularly these laments.

The Space Age is dead, it died of starvation and neglect, somewhere around 1980. Yes, we fed it and gave it money while it was young, and exciting, and sexy, while our love for it was bright and new, but when it got older, and needed more expensive care and more of our time and understanding we guided it to a comfy chair over on the far side of the room, made it a cup of tea, handed it a magazine and left it to look after itself instead of giving it something useful and stimulating to do. Time passed, and we didn’t hear its calls for help because we were too busy wooing anew Age, the Computer Age, and then quickly and fickly moved on to The InternetAge. And so when the Space Age started to look sick, and tired, we hoisted it into a wheelchair, put it in a corner, and left it to die while we went out partying with Yahoo, and Google, and Windows and iPods and all their fancy friends. The Space Age effectively died of abuse. Now it’s time to lower its creaking coffin into the ground, toss a handful of soil onto it, and walk away into the rain under our umbrellas, mourning its passing, wondering, in vain, What Might Have Been if Things Had Been Different, simply denying our own role in its shameful death. [more ]

Who and what will inspire the next generation? David Suzuki?

“Sputnik showed that going into space was something that was viable,” said Ed Weiler, an astronomer who now directs NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

“It inspired an entire generation of kids in this country to become scientists and engineers and it was that generation that gave us all the technology that we’re so happy to use today — communication satellites, Blackberries, computers, etc.,” Weiler said.

“The real fear is that our kids aren’t going into science and engineering like they used to — the rest of the world is, but we’re not,” he said. [more]

There is this heartfelt poem by Stuart Atkinson. We’ve copied only the last verse. Do read the rest at Cumbrian Sky.

Retreat …

I am ashamed of our Dunkirk retreat

from the solar system’s nearest beach;

afraid that in a thousand years

historians and scholars will sneer at us

and, hearing Armstrong speak

those famous New World words

will think our age absurd, and curse

our generation for its timid toe-dip

in the surf of the ocean of the night.

 

Science hasn’t stopped of course, although the space race has slowed to a crawl. Discoveries and advances are made every day. But people are fickle and the public has largely lost interest in real science. Perhaps they never understood it and so their passion can be easily captured by every charlatan that comes along.

 

 

Is there hope? Perhaps.

 

In an only slightly related vein, take a peek at this super pic of an Ecuadorean volcano backed by the seven sisters. h/t Universe today