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It's funny that the Smithsonian article, at least right now, has a "We recommend" video right below it entitled "How a Single Asteroid Wiped Dinosaurs Off This Planet". Finding Earth-threatening asteroids and understanding their composition in order to prevent the same thing happening to us is something the observatories do on Mauna Kea.
The article is a little disingenuous as it doesn't provide context to my comment. It was about a letter written by Jim Albertini on the BIC trying to link the observatories to the military and industry. This was a typical argument against the TMT made back in 2011 on sites such as the BIC.
Unfortunately, since the BIC is currently down, I can't provide a direct link to the letter, but Google cached it here:
http://tinyurl.com/paoopke
Hope that link works.
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rainyjim - "I wouldn't expect to see such biased opinion coming out of the Smithsonian."
my impression as well ...though i was not entirely surprised.
found myself rolling my eyes at this generally familiar section:
"What is really at stake, however, is a conflict between two ways of knowing and being in the world. For many Native Hawaiians and other Indigenous peoples, sacredness is not merely a concept or label. It is a lived experience of oneness and connectedness with the natural and spiritual worlds. It is as common sense as believing in gravity.
...not to deny that spirituality can have value in all it's various forms or dismiss it's steady and prominent place in human history to present, but really... we are all pretty much shopping together here these decades at our stores of choice with all our modern conveniences in tow, beverages and snacks in hand. is there some lost population tucked away out there on the Big Island yet to be discovered by anthropologists, living from the land by traditional subsistence, carrying the mysterious traditions of magic? will we be able to understand them? (and no, Kalapana Seaview Estates does not quite count.)
actually i think it is quite common from the outside looking in to be seduced into the overly romantic appeal. something like - look kids, real live NATIVES. they are SO spiritual. isn't it fascinating! - can feel like being open minded and progressive, culturally sensitive. it's easy to exaggerate and get carried away with the esoteric from any side. in actuality it can end up a little reminiscent of the sentimentally idyllic "noble savage" concept of prejudice past.
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Western civilization has brought more health, wealth and happiness to the world than any other society thanks to one important discovery - science.
Sorry if anyone can't see that. Try living without it.
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east, west, people whoever.. virtually everybody is participating and innovating. credit good or bad is spread all around. but yeah, antibiotics, often can't live without em.
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dakine,
""It seems to me that it's an argument about returning to the stone age versus understanding our universe and it'll be interesting to see who wins in the end."
Oddly enough if this is a reference to the Hawaiians verse western civilization, my bet is on the westerners to throw us back to the stone age with their greedy abuse of the environment over anything the Hawaiians might or might not do. As far as I can tell western civilized first world man is the most creative destroyer of everything they touch as has ever been visited upon the Earth.""
As I hope you see now, my comment had nothing to do with Hawaiians or east, west, black, white or whatever you might come up with. It was about arguments against the TMT back in 2011 which claimed that the observatories had some military or industrial takeover connection, and Jim Albertini's letter was a typical example of what was happening at the time.
Incidentally, it's interesting the Smithsonian article is on a website littered with adverts. I'll let others draw their own conclusions about that.
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"Thanks Tom. It's incredible how much has been discovered about other worlds in the past decade with existing telescopes. First exoplanets, then exoplanets with earth like conditions. Now for the first time we're capable of finding those planets with their own reflected light. Who knows what the TMT may discover with it's ability to gather three times more light than most other telescopes.
When I was a kid I still believed there were big-eyed Martians living alongside their network of canals. We've come a long way."
Thank you HOTPE. I continue to be in awe of the incredible discoveries that have been made by the astronomy community during my career. We now know planets exist around other stars. We thought they would, but it's now confirmed. An accelerating expansion of the Universe? Now that was a surprise. Still have a hard time with one that but the evidence seems sound. Rovers on Mars and a probe nearing Pluto. And we can now land a probe on a comet, although we might need a little more practise.
The next big discovery might be life elsewhere in the universe. I don't think that's too far off now. It might be on Mars or somewhere else in our solar system, but might be in other planetary systems. Or maybe we really are alone. We won't know until we find out. And to add to the buzz, for a while I was the person who detected light from the most distant object in the universe (the record has since been broken).
And then there will be all the surprises we'll discover in the next few years.
Do some people really not want to be part of this?
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quote:
Originally posted by TomK
"[i]for a while I was the person who detected light from the most distant object in the universe (the record has since been broken).
Tom, that is truly awesome. (FWIW, I heard that the person who broke your record cheated by using eye-steroids and squinting really hard.)
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dakine, you're so much more pleasant when you're not telling people to shut up and go back where they came from.
Although, now I see you're accusing people of being stoned??
You make an excellent point - there are so many things people could be protesting against and yet they pick.. a telescope??
"as well as wanting a 'better opportunity for their children', and strive to get a 'higher education' and Hawaiians are no different"
One way of getting both these things is to encourage investment in the sciences, such as a $1.4B TMT on our island.
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Driving to Hilo yesterday and seeing Mauna Kea in the distance, it struck me that a very large portion of this island is on that mountain.
Is the whole of the Hamakua Coast a desecration? Or is only part of MK sacred? If so, where is the line?
And what about Mauna Loa? It's not as sacred? Is the whole of Hilo an abomination?
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The second letter today in the HTH today nearly convinced me to change my mind about the TMT, it was so well put:
http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/commenta...s-april-24
