STRANGEUNIVERSE
BY BOB BERMAN
Apathy Now!
Would the discovery of extraterrestrial life
really change the world?
1 cm
A
re you ready for some
exciting news about
apathy?
Back when Dan
Goldin was
administrator of NASA, his
sister was one of my students.
She thoughtfully told me he
totally loved Discover magazine
— especially my astronomy
page. Pleased to hear it, I fol-
lowed him closely after that,
which is why I vividly remem-
ber August 6, 1996, when he
called a press conference to
make a jaw-dropping
announcement: NASA’s analy-
sis of the Antarctic martian
meteorite ALH84001 revealed
the possibility of life. Life on
Mars! It finally happened!
I quickly turned to my long-
suffering wife and yelled: “Now
we’ll find out!”
I’d long suspected that the
endlessly repeated adage that
“everything will change if we
find extraterrestrial life” was
wrong, that it gave our apathetic
citizenry too much credit, that
people wouldn’t care if geeky
scientists found evidence of
some microscopic or plantlike
organisms in a distant place.
Even today, that adage is still
repeated like a mantra. Bill Nye’s
December 3 op-ed piece in The
New York Times said the same
thing: finding extraterrestrial life
would profoundly alter our
everyday attitudes.
Goldin’s announcement
wasn’t about some distant exo-
planet. This was Mars. It was
next door. So I figured, now
we’ll finally know how the pub-
lic reacts.
I don’t want to say I told you
so. Actually, that’s not true. I do
want to say that. Because as I
paid close attention the next
day, nobody talked about the
life-on-Mars discovery. People
didn’t care. (That Goldin’s
announcement later proved too
optimistic isn’t relevant here.) It
was one more sign our culture
is scientifically apathetic.
Fast forward to 2017.
Someone in Sweden posted
gorgeous Facebook photos of
atmospheric ice crystal phe-
nomena. They showed halos,
the upper tangent arc, the par-
helic circle, and other cool stuff.
Then I read the comments.
“Wake up, folks,” wrote the
first guy. “Here’s proof the gov-
ernment is releasing metals
into the atmosphere!”
The next commentator
agreed. “Absolutely! Fifteen
years ago I saw a ring around
the Sun for the first time. Now
The meteorite ALH84001 is a 4.5 billion-year-old chunk of Mars’ crust that arrived
on Earth about 13,000 years ago. In 1996, NASA announced that the meteorite
might contain fossils of early martian life — a statement that didn’t have a major
impact on society or its view of science. NASA/JSC/STANFORD UNIVERSITY
When I was hired to run
astronomy programs at the big
2015 Wanderlust yoga festival
in Killington, Vermont, a staff
member met me at the office.
“Did you see the news?” she
asked. “The Earth is flat.”
“What? Earth isn’t flat.”
“Yes it is. They’ve proven it.
It’s all over the net.”
“You don’t have to believe
me,” I said. “Do you have any
friends in California?”
“Yes.”
“Then during the next sunset
here, phone your California
Ignorance of science
seems only to be growing.
I often see rings. The govern-
ment is poisoning the air.”
“You’re wrong,” I said to her
in my mind. “Early on, you
never noticed rings —which are
called halos, by the way —
because you didn’t watch the
sky and don’t know about
refraction phenomena. Now
you’re aware of rings, so you
see them because they’re com-
mon. And, incidentally, metal-
lic particles can’t refract light
and wouldn’t resemble ice crys-
tal effects. They wouldn’t form
halos in the first place.”
It’s no use. Ignorance of sci-
ence seems only to be growing.
friends. They’ll tell you their
Sun is halfway up the sky. Yet
it’s on the horizon here. So
Earth can’t be flat.”
Her face had a “don’t bother
me” expression. I get the rea-
soning: Our government lies. So
if it insists Earth is a ball, it
means Earth is flat.
Call it fake science or any-
thing you want. It’s spreading.
Climate change is not real. We
never went to the Moon. White
lines in the sky are from gov-
ernment programs. A planet
named Nibiru is on a collision
course with Earth. Armageddon
is coming. Aliens are already
BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Berman.
10
A ST R O N O M Y • MAY 2018
here. Astronomers are keeping
everything secret.
The problem lies deeper than
the sad reality that fewer teen-
agers are participating in out-
door hands-on nature hobbies
like astronomy, bird-watching,
or canoeing. Nonetheless, many
are glued to screens with the
potential to believe the fakery.
Our response? We mustn’t
try to bring young people into
real science too quickly.
Instead, reality should be intro-
duced incrementally. The first
step is a return to the situation
a decade ago, which was mere
indifference. That’s an achiev-
able objective. To help, we’re
offering a new bumper sticker:
“Apathy Now!”
We’ve founded NAP — the
National Apathy Promotion.
Our goal is to get 1 million
teenagers a year to say, “Don’t
bother me with astronomy.” If
you donate, my friends, we can
replace the current insistence
that Mars is a secret alien mili-
tary base and that congressmen
are reptilians (no joke, Google
it) with a return to the NASA
glory years of “I don’t care.”
It’s a lofty goal. But with
your help, we can succeed.
Join me and Pulse of the Planet’s
Jim Metzner in my new podcast,
Astounding Universe, at
http://astoundinguniverse.com.