This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Objective truths don’t come from any seated authority, nor from any single research paper. The press, in an attempt to break a story, may mislead the public’s awareness of how science works by headlining a just-published scientific paper as the truth, perhaps also touting the academic pedigrees of the authors. When drawn from the frontier of thought, the truth still churns. Research can wander until experiments converge in one direction or another – or in no direction, a warning flag of no phenomenon at all. These crucial checks and balances commonly take years, which hardly ever counts as “breaking news.”” – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chapter One: Truth & Beauty, Page 8
“With systems in place to disseminate thought, such as scientific conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and patent filings, every next generation can use discoveries of the previous generation as fresh starting points. No reinventing the wheel. No wasted efforts. This blunt and obvious fact carries profound consequences. It means knowledge grows exponentially, not linearly, rendering our brains hopeless in our attempts to predict the future based on the past.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chapter Two: Exploration & Discovery, Page 29
“Hidden bias can cause a persistent urge to see all that
agrees with you and ignore all that does not, even when countervailing examples
abound. Among the many categories of how
to fool oneself, the more pernicious is confirmation bias: you remember the
hits and forget the misses. It affects
us all, at one level or another. The
antidote? Dispassionate rational
analysis.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chapter Four: Conflict & Resolution, Page
80
Is This An Overview?
People have different experiences, values, and priorities. Differences that cause division and conflict. With tribes formed by those who agree and share the same values. A method to overcome the division and conflict would be to change how to think about the ideas. To think about the ideas from above, a cosmic perspective. Science and rational thinking provides that perspective. Many disagreements disappear when data about the ideas is introduced. Scientists are after the data, rather than opinions.
While scientific
tools overcome human sensory frailties, scientists are taught to think
rationally rather than emotionally. Truth
comes from repeated and consistent results, not based on authority nor on a
single research paper. Changing how
ideas are interpreted based on tests and experiments. Knowledge grows exponentially as previous
research is used to develop new understanding.
While science seeks to change behavior through voluntary consensus,
behavior on social media tends to coerce agreement.
Caveats?
This book is on applications of science across diverse topics. Various topics that include those that are socially sensitive. Some topics have been developed further by specialists within the topics, who have different interpretations of the claims.
There is an idealism about science and scientists. There is a recognition that scientists can corrupt research, but that the community can self-regulate. The problem in thinking of the community as an ideal, can prevent scientists from considering how science can be corrupted, which exacerbates the corruption. Ideally, scientists remove their emotions from their claims, but emotions provide logic with value. Scientists are people, who have emotions. Emotions that influence how data is interpreted. The want to remove emotions, does not prevent emotions, but rather hides them. Creating the hidden biases that the author recognizes corrupt science.
The subtitle is a bit deceptive. The cosmic reference is not about
astrophysics, but about science. Science
is the cosmic perspective. There are
some references on astrophysics, but that is not the purpose of this book.
