Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilisation

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Book has some dramatic insights, but mostly pedestrian observations. His forays into political science do not make it past middle school level lessons. He has a strange vendetta against the varied rationale of vegetarian/vegan lifestyles. This leads to some tortured logic of his own and pretty poor analogies in efforts to skewer these folks. In addition to dozens of professional publications, Dr. Tyson has written, and continues to write for the public. From 1995 to 2005, Tyson was a monthly essayist for Natural History magazine under the title Universe. And among Tyson’s fifteen books is his memoir The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist; and Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, co-written with Donald Goldsmith. Origins is the companion book to the PBS NOVA four-part mini-series Origins, in which Tyson served as on-camera host. The program premiered in September 2004. Tyson is also arguably the G.O.A.T when it comes to reducing complex scientific or mathematical issues to terms that "lay" individuals can understand. But I question his assertion that scientific principals can be easily applied to research in psychology, sociology or anthropology, thus making obvious what should be the "rational" decisions in these areas. Often, empirical studies in these fields can only go so far without confirmation bias and other systemic problems creeping in. And just for fun, because he’s accumulated enough gravitas that he can, Dr. Tyson with his approach to find common grounds and reason and to build bridges may just have pissed off every group we can think of:

The book is interesting, but I expected it to be more about science and less about random subjects. Still, Tyson is a smart, well-read, amusing guy and he provides tidbits you could use to sound smart at parties and gatherings. 🙂 Starry Messengeris a wake-up call to civilization. People no longer know who or what to trust. We sow hatred of others fueled by what we think is true, or what we want to be true, without regard to what is true. Cultural and political factions battle for the souls of communities and of nations. We’ve lost all sight of what distinguishes facts from opinions. We lob grenades at one another when we could be sharing beers in pubs.

Far beyond wine truths, and close cousins of personal truths, are political truths. These thoughts and ideas already resonate with your feelings but become unassailable truths from incessant repetition by forces of media that would have you believe them—a fundamental feature of propaganda. Such belief systems almost always insinuate or explicitly declare that who you are, or what you do, or how you do it, is superior to those you want to subjugate or conquer. It’s no secret that people will give their lives, or take the lives of others, in support of what they believe. Often the less actual evidence that exists in support of an ideology, the more likely a person is willing to die for the cause.” Nevertheless, I appreciate what the author is trying to do here. Because it is true that the farther you zoom out, the pettier most "problems" appear. It offers a different perspective. After all, we do get to smell flowers and watch sunsets that are nothing short of divine.

Isabelle Pantin. Sidereus Nuncius: Le Messager Celeste. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1992. ASIN B0028S7JLK. Mensaje de las estrellas es un ensayo que toca 10 temas de todo tipo y el autor los analiza desde su punto de vista y desde distintos hechos científicos. Está bien, en mi caso, no me aportó absolutamente nada nuevo. My brain needed the rational thoughts of Neil deGrasse Tyson, and his many thought experiments, especially at the moment. It was the best book I could have been reading the last two weeks.

El tema del racismo, por motivos lógicos, fue interesante porque en una parte dio argumentos científicos de porqué la raza blanca era inferior o más parecida a los simios. Como una especie de contraparte a los argumentos que décadas antes se daban, solo para demostrar lo absurdo que es esto de la superioridad de una raza por sobre otra. También fue el capítulo en el que más se explayó y dio datos históricos y otros científicos. I've liked Neil deGrasse Tyson for a long time. He's a scientist, married to another scientist, has served in the White House, is the director of the Hayden Planetarium, founded the department of astrophysics at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, hosted various TV programmes as well as his own podcast and more. He has an abundance of love and passion for science and it is infectious! He is also one hell of an educator (he himself considers himself more of an educator than a scientist) and has a wonderful way of breaking down the most complex topics so anyone can understand them. Moreover, he seems to consider it his mission to bring science to the masses. His books are usually serving exactly this purpose. More bacteria live and work in every centimeter of our lower colon than the sum of all humans who have ever lived."

In his drawings, Galileo used an open circle to represent Jupiter and asterisks to represent the four stars. He made this distinction to show that there was in fact a difference between these two types of celestial bodies. It is important to note that Galileo used the terms planet and star interchangeably, and "both words were correct usage within the prevailing Aristotelian terminology." [13] The first telescopes appeared in the Netherlands in 1608 when Middelburg spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey tried to obtain a patent on one. [5] By 1609 Galileo had heard about it and built his own improved version. He probably was not the first person to aim the new invention at the night sky [6] but his was the first systematic (and published) study of celestial bodies using one. [7] One of Galileo's first telescopes had 8x to 10x linear magnification and was made out of lenses that he had ground himself. [8] This was increased to 20x linear magnification in the improved telescope he used to make the observations in Sidereus Nuncius. [9] [3] Content [ edit ] Galileo's sketches of the Moon from Sidereus Nuncius. Sidereus Nuncius, in Latin in HTML format, or in Italian in pdf format or odt format. From LiberLiber. Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into believing that something is true when it is false, or that something is false when it is true."a b c d Mendillo, M. "The Appearance of the Medicean Moons in 17th Century Charts and Books—How Long Did It Take?", 2010. Proceedings Of The International Astronomical Union, 6(S269), 33. In observing the Moon, Galileo saw that the line separating lunar day from night (the terminator) was smooth where it crossed the darker regions of the Moon but quite irregular where it crossed the brighter areas. From this he deduced that the darker regions are flat, low-lying areas, and the brighter regions rough and mountainous. [3] Basing his estimate on the distance of sunlit mountaintops from the terminator, he judged, quite accurately, that the lunar mountains were at least four miles high. Galileo's engravings of the lunar surface provided a new form of visual representation, besides shaping the field of selenography, the study of physical features on the Moon. [2] Galileo's drawings of the Pleiades star cluster from Sidereus Nuncius. Image courtesy of the History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries. Stars [ edit ] When Galileo Galilei published Sidereus Nunciusin 1610, he brought to Earth cosmic truths that had been waiting since antiquity to descend upon human thought. Galileo’s freshly perfected telescope revealed a universe unlike anything people presumed to be true. Unlike anything people wanted to be true. Unlike anything people dared say was true. Sidereus Nunciuscontained his observations of the Sun, Moon, and stars, as well as the planets and the Milky Way. Two fast takeaways from his book: (1) human eyes alone are insufficient to reveal fundamental truths about the operations of nature, (2) Earth is not the center of all motion. It orbits the Sun as just one among the other known planets. I therefore concluded and decided unhesitatingly, that there are three stars in the heavens moving about Jupiter, as Venus and Mercury round the Sun; which at length was established as clear as daylight by numerous subsequent observations. These observations also established that there are not only three, but four, erratic sidereal bodies performing their revolutions round Jupiter...the revolutions are so swift that an observer may generally get differences of position every hour. [12] This book is a great example of how to bring facts and analysis to the task of solving problems while also debunking myths about stereotypes about people’s politics. And while science makes mistakes, the scientific process is geared towards challenging ideas so that those mistakes surface.

By 1626 knowledge of the telescope had spread to China when German Jesuit and astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell published Yuan jing shuo, (Explanation of the Telescope) in Chinese and Latin. He covers a range of topics, from religion, science, abortion, racism and genderism. He waxes poetic about the beauty of science and all the inventions and discoveries that have been made in its name. The aim of the book is to focus on dichotomies that tend to spark hostile conversations. He presents arguments for both sides, to shed light on the fact that personal truths we hold dear may not be correct, and that we should be open to discussion. Having your world vision shattered by subjective truth may bring discomfort, but it is still truth, nonetheless.

My brain thrills at thought experiments. I could read them all day. It is so exciting to see things in a new way, to flip around the way one thinks about something, to rationalize instead of accepting things emotionally.