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Personally, I think that's a silly and overreaching claim and likely a journalist just finding something to say
...
Finding the balance between cultural rights, and science is forthcoming
I agree the closing statement was a stretch, but I don't believe it was meant to be taken literally. I thought it was a writer waxing poetic in an attempt to create a narrative pulling together disparate occurrences.
When we look at the many astronomical discoveries we've made in the last few centuries, it does leave you with a sense of awe, and wonder. New planets, photographic visions of the distant past, perhaps not exactly sacred in the religious sense, but metaphorically as a universe larger than ourselves has been revealed.
ophikao makes a good point too. We can find comparisons between the Portuguese site with Mauna Kea, how they both shared the study of the heavens and the uniquely human characteristic of assembling a resting place for our dead, sometimes even with great difficulty in a remote location. As our history shows, there are instances where we have a shared purpose, or an overlap of practices, and the key is the balance between them.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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You know, I agree with both HOTPE and Opihikao's opinion, but still dislike the idea of calling modern observatories or telescopes as sacred. It's just not compatible with what they stand for or what they do.
In any case, this is a minor detail and not one worth pursuing in my opinion, albeit interesting to read people's different views.
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Thanks for the link Tom. It always amazes me just how big it all is. It always causes me to ask how can there not be other life out there?
Cant wait to live in Puna!
Cant wait to live in Puna!
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My pleasure, Vic. In all the years I've worked in astronomy I have yet to meet an astronomer that doesn't think there is life elsewhere in the universe. The problem is finding evidence of that other life. I suspect that may well come in the next decade or two though. It may not be intelligent life, that's unlikely during that time period, but some form of life instead. There are hints that suggest some kind of bacterial life might exist on Mars; methane has been detected when it really ought not to be there, but there might also be a geological explanation for that.
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I have read Contact many times over since I first read it as a star struck Middle Schooler. Sagan understood so much; I believed then and still do....he was a man a generation or two ahead of his time.
I wish people would look about and see just how small we really are. A Dandelion puff. How vast and grand our astronomical surroundings are. I still satellite hunt and found out last Month that a fellow pilot friend of mine is a closet "space geek." Last week we hunted and found an Iridium flare together, it was amazing. Watching the flick, flack, fares of the heavens glint off the multifaceted wings of a long dead satellite. I could almost hear Carl saying "billions and billions" in my ear.
I trundle along in the shallow part of the heavens. I envy those who get to play in the deep end!
AKpilot
We're all here, because we're not all there!
We're all here, because we're not all there!
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I always enjoyed Sagan's
Pale Blue Dot. And our tools for science aren't anything special or temples, that's just silly.
And I love his famous speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PN5JJDh78I
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And our tools for science aren't anything special or temples, that's just silly.
Each profession has tools at their disposal which allow them to do what they do in the best manner possible. Scientists publish their findings in a way that can be unintelligible to many readers. A good non-fiction writer will use metaphor, simile, allegory, analogy, symbolism, imagery etc, to describe and compare their subject matter sometimes with the familiar to explain and offer a way to understand the unfamiliar.
That's why we discuss Carl Sagan here, and not one of the thousands of scientists who write scientific papers. Millions of people have seen/read the movie/book Contact. How many people read scientific journals? Millions have viewed the photo known as the Pale Blue Dot. Sagan has the ability to bring the infinite and unknowable to the masses.
Is the Pale Blue Dot really in it's strictest definition, merely a dot? Or an entire planet? Would your imagination be captivated in the same way if Carl Sagan had called it A Medium Size Rocky Planet As Seen From A Distance Of 6 Billion Kilometers, The Actual Blue Color Faded Due To The Gap Between Objects and Photographic Limitations?
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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It's what we do with those tools that makes it special whether it is writing or imaging the sky. Sagan's pen is just a pen. A telescope is just a telescope.
I would discuss papers and scientific topics, but I don't think others here would care because it is too specialized, unlike Sagan's pop-science which has broad appeal.
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It's what we do with those tools that makes it special
Yes, that's also what I'm trying to say.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
