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Correctly Predicting Failure
Posted in Thoughts
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Posted in Thoughts
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
Pine Boxes
Posted in Success & FailureThoughts
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Scientists Stuck Inside
Posted in For Your ConsiderationThoughts
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
After COVID’s First Wave
Posted in Success & FailureThoughts
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
COVID-19
Posted in Success & FailureThoughts
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
Great Deceiverism 101
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
One Step at a Time
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
The Mind’s Siren Call
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Being certain lights up our brains like a junkie’s next hit. Literally. Unfortunately, being certain and being right are two very, very different things.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Constrained Hallucinations
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
The unique worlds we each consciously inhabit – the only worlds we will ever experience – are constrained hallucinations, products of hypothesis testing by our predictive brains.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Entropy Redux
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
A month’s worth of sunlight could pay the entropy bill for a billion years of biological evolution. Entropy is evolution’s best friend.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Entropy’s Rainbow
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Entropy is often maligned as the enemy of order. In truth, without the inexorable march of entropy, the universe would be a very boring place.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
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Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Being certain lights up our brains like a junkie’s next hit. Literally. Unfortunately, being certain and being right are two very, very different things.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
The unique worlds we each consciously inhabit – the only worlds we will ever experience – are constrained hallucinations, products of hypothesis testing by our predictive brains.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
A month’s worth of sunlight could pay the entropy bill for a billion years of biological evolution. Entropy is evolution’s best friend.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Entropy is often maligned as the enemy of order. In truth, without the inexorable march of entropy, the universe would be a very boring place.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Over his 30 year career as an internationally known astrophysicist, Dr. Jeff Hester was a key member of the team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. With one foot always on the frontiers of knowledge, he has been mentor, coach, team leader, award-winning teacher, administrator and speaker, to name a few of the hats he has worn. His Hubble image, the Pillars of Creation, was chosen by Time Magazine as among the 100 most influential photographs in history.
Science, Art and Beauty
The Courage it Takes to Be Human
One of the commandments for TED speakers is “Thou shalt not trot out thy usual schtick.” There was little danger of that when I was asked to speak at a TEDx event dedicated to “Lifeblood: That Which Sustains Us.” I’m a hard scientist who helps people look at an often unforgiving reality without blinking. I seldom find myself on stage following a troupe of belly dancers!
Sustaining 101
So where to start? Webster defines “sustain” as “cause to continue or be prolonged for an extended period or without interruption.” Taking that definition in the most literal way possible, “that which sustains us” boils down to three fundamental imperatives. Thou shalt eat. Thou shalt avoid being eaten. And thou shalt reproduce. Omar Khayyam put it a bit more poetically; “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou.”
Poetry or not and all kidding aside, had our ancestors failed at these we wouldn’t be here talking about it. Of course, there were lots of other things out there doing their damnedest to “sustain” too. A lot of the competition was bigger, meaner, faster and in possession of sharper claws than were we.
How did humans climb to the top of the evolutionary ladder? Inventing beauty had a lot to do with it.
So how did we end up on top of the heap? Maybe they had bigger teeth, but we had bigger brains. While they were busy reacting to the world, we were busy understanding the world.
Beauty is serious business
Our nature is to seek out and even invent patterns in the midst of the complexity of the world. We can’t help it!
Like all animals, humans have a drive to reproduce. We have a drive to eat. But we are also driven to find pattern and meaning in what we see. That drive defines us as a species. It is the source of our power to shape the world to our own ends. It is the key to our success.
It would be nice to have a word that captures all of this; a word that sums up what we experience when we see the world not as chaos but as order. Actually we already have a word like that. We call that experience “beauty.”
A thoughtful scientist might describe the process of science as finding meaningful patterns in the world and communicating those patterns so that others can see their significance as well. Of course a thoughtful artist might describe her own calling in exactly the same way! Both the artist and the scientist seek beauty. Both scratch the same itch.
It’s not always in the eye of the beholder
Music, science, art, politics, economics, commerce; as with all that makes up our culture, each of these has its own beauty. More correctly, all of these are expressions of what someone sees as beautiful. But not all beauty is the same.
Sometimes beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the expression says. Which is the more beautiful painting? What do you value most in life? What does success mean to you? Your answers to those questions are yours and yours alone.
But some beauty is different. Will this airplane fly? Will this product sell? How best to treat this disease? Are human’s changing the climate? The world is as the world is, and the world will do what the world will do. Your opinions don’t change the answers to these questions. If you pretend that they do you could be in for a world of hurt.
Reliable answers to questions like these don’t come from clinging blindly to what worked last year or what we want to be true. Reliable answers to questions of this sort come instead from challenging everything, then holding on only to ideas that can stand the heat. In a rapidly changing world that takes courage. There is beauty in that, too.
I hope that you enjoy the talk!
Science, Art and Beauty ^ The Courage it Takes to Be Human ©
Dr. Jeff Hester
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