Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilisation

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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. 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.

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. Moran, B. Sidereus-Nuncius, or the Sidereal Messenger - Galilei, G, n.d. Annals Of Science, 47(5), pp. 525-526.It's indisputable that humanity's understanding of the universe has undergone dramatic changes over time. An early example would be Galileo's observation in 1610 that Earth is NOT the center of all motion, that the Earth orbits the sun as just one of other known planets. For many people, this was an intolerable assertion, and it took time for this 'fact' to be widely accepted. More bacteria live and work in every centimeter of our lower colon than the sum of all humans who have ever lived." The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power. Albert Van Helden (Professor Emeritus of History at Rice University [19]); translation with introduction, conclusion and notes. Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius, or The Sidereal Messenger. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989. xiii + 127 pp. ISBN 978-0226279039.

I enjoyed reading the candour that he used. This book might rub people the wrong way, but science often does. He also drew in a bit of Biblical perspective, which I thought was super cool.Estuvo bien, no sabía qué esperar, esa es la verdad. Me gustó y disfruté de la forma de escribir de Neil. Sin embargo, salí del libro casi igual a como entré, no me aportó nada nuevo de información, de punto de vista ni de nada. De hecho, me habló de sus opiniones, pero con cuidado y siendo bastante políticamente correcto. Starry Messenger felt more like a summary of Neil's political worldview more than anything. Perhaps that's my fault for expecting a book on science/space etc. However, at one point, he tried to summarize the (very complicated) Israel & Palestine conflict in a few sentences. Much of what he said felt surface-level & unnecessary. He included myriad thought experiments to show the absurdity in stereotyping people (according to skin color, sexuality, political leanings, etc), and how lazy it is to simply plop a label on someone we don't even know, and decide we know everything about them. At the time of Sidereus Nuncius ' publication, Galileo was a mathematician at the University of Padua and had recently received a lifetime contract for his work in building more powerful telescopes. He desired to return to Florence, and in hopes of gaining patronage there, he dedicated Sidereus Nuncius to his former pupil, now the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de' Medici. In addition, he named his discovered four moons of Jupiter the "Medicean Stars," in honor of the four royal Medici brothers. [3] This helped him receive the position of Chief Mathematician and Philosopher to the Medici at the University of Pisa. [9] Ultimately, his effort at naming the moons failed, for they are now referred to as the "Galilean moons". One of the great features of a working democracy is that we get to disagree without killing one another. What happens when democracy fails? What happens when we hold no tolerance for views that differ from our own? Do we, instead, desire a dictatorship in which all views in the land agree with the dictator? Do we pine for a system where dissenting views are suppressed, buried, or burned?”

A dónde nos lleva esto? Quizá a ningún lugar, quizá a todos. En mi opinión, como humano, científico y residente de la Tierra, quizá lo más hermoso del universo es que es conocible. No se requieren mensajes escritos en tablas en el cielo para que esto sea así. Solo es. Para mí, este pináculo de verdad objetiva hace que el universo mismo sea lo más hermoso del universo" This book, additionally to educating us about how certain aspects of our current world work, teaches us to look at the world and see how far we've come. What we wouldn't have (creature comforts as well as the so-called bare necessities of modern life) if it wasn't for science and research. 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.Spiller, Elizabeth A. (2000). "Reading through Galileo's Telescope: Margaret Cavendish and the Experience of Reading". Renaissance Quarterly. 53 (1): 192–221. doi: 10.2307/2901537. JSTOR 2901537. S2CID 191407323. Between 1900 and 1930, the existence of atoms is confirmed; the range of flight extends from 120 feet to 5,218 miles; we learn to use radio waves as a source of information and entertainment; urban transportation shifts from horses to automobiles; cities are electrified; and cinema becomes a leading source of recreation. For example, in the chapters on race and gender, the author points to our desire to categorize -- into very coarse and imprecise categories -- as being at the heart of many of the challenges around bias we face today. This, combined with our tendency to think short term and locally means that we open do consider long range and broader impacts in our calls to action and our policy decisions. 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.”

Usually I reserve the whole month of October for horror/thrilller/crime books only, but I've been sitting on this one for a few weeks and I just couldn't wait any longer, I was too excited. 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. This selection of engravings, charts, diagrams, and texts reveals the furred and cratered faces, the portents and instruments in European observations of the heavens from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. Drawing in part on a recently acquired collection of early modern comet literature, these items explore the fascination and anxiety with the world, its state, and its possibilities of imperfection that infused the early modern European discussions of the stars. The ExhibitionI fully appreciate the importance of science educators and communicators. Their job is challenging in many ways. However, Neil deGrasse Tyson seems like the kind of guy who would show up at your grandmother's funeral and say (in a soothing, ethereal tone), "Did you know that in this season and climate, your grandmother's body would fully decompose in approximately four weeks time? Even with the embalming process briefly slowing decomposition, her enzymes and bacteria are already beginning the process of breaking down her body. It's all part of the cycle of life." Here's an example I'm familiar with: Are there health benefits to having pets in your home? Hard one to measure given confounds too extensive to list here, on top of which the researcher typically loves companion animals, as do the pet-owner participants in the study. It's easier to approach the question differently by evaluating the effects of interactions with pets under controlled circumstances (visits to residential facilities, e.g.) but even so, such studies are challenging to replicate while keeping all variables identical. So the theoretical question "Should pets be allowed in all shared residences such as apartment buildings because sharing a home with them bestows health benefits?" could not be answered on a rational basis. We really can't come up with a universal answer to that one. Moreover, personally, I also despair when I look at how little people nowadays actually KNOW. We have more access to more knowledge than any other human in the history of mankind, yet we are too lazy to LEARN. Why? Because we can always google it, I guess. *snorts* We have smartphones and know what button to press for what feature but we don't understand the tech itself. Most people don't even know that the computing power contained in a musical greeting card is all we had and all it took to take us to the Moon! Has the computing power of an iPhone gotten us to Mars? Nope! I feel stagnation and it's driving me up the walls.