9/3/2023 0 Comments Lowell observatory flagstaffWhen I am most in despair for this world, I am reminded of Galileo, that great scientist who dared to follow his data to an inconvenient truth, that radical idea that the earth was not the center of the universe, fixed and immovable, but instead moved around the sun in its orbit. These are dark days, but we have seen darker. It is no wonder that we sometimes feel dazed, in a world turned upside down. Yet every day these ideas are mocked, denigrated, cast aside! We live in a time when integrity has been replaced with irresponsibility, where falsehoods hold the same credence as facts. These are also the foundations of a civil society. Honesty, reliability, consistency, responsible conduct. We are passing through dark days for science. And that’s what scientists do! They are the friends who stand up and tell us the truth even when we don’t want to hear it!! It’s the one with the courage to stand up and tell me the truth even though I didn’t want to hear it. But one or two of my friends will take me aside and say “Tad, what are you doing? You’re acting crazy! You only have ten bucks! If you keep this up you’re heading for financial ruin!” Now we all know which one of those friends is the most valuable. ![]() And some of my friends will support me in ignoring my inconvenient truth because they like to ride in my car and drink my drinks and eat my food. But because of this magical piece of plastic called a credit card, I can buy a car, I can buy fancy food and delicious drinks. Let’s imagine that my inconvenient truth is that I only have $10 in my bank account. I have been trying to think of a simple analogy to help folks understand that important role of science, so let me try this out on you: This is an important role scientists play, and The cost of making sacrifices today so that our children and grandchildren can have a decent world to live in tomorrow. Truths that are inconvenient because they come with costs. And so scientists sometimes discover inconvenient truths, truths that make us have to question the way behave toward this earth, toward each other. Scientists follow data to whatever truth they may lead, regardless of the implications that truth may have. But there is another point about science that we have to make folks understand. The speakers who went before me articulated that very well. So we here in Flagstaff understand what science is, why it is important, and that we must help others understand the important role science plays in our lives. And that is why we stood here last year, and why we stand here today and why we will be here next year, and the year after that, and the year after that! Because that same passion, that same resolution, that scientists bring to doing science, scientists will also bring to defending science. That relentlessness, that dogged curiosity, is something folks who haven’t been around scientists may not realize, and as a result they may underestimate the power that stands here today. They are driven by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, by an insatiable hunger to understand the world. Scientists do what they do because they can’t help themselves. So we here all know that inside the breast of every scientist beats a heart as passionate, as driven, as that of any artist, musician or poet. It’s been said that you know you are a scientist when you wake up on a Saturday morning and think, “I could walk the dog, I could read the paper, I could go for a run, but what I really want to do is analyze that new data set, or sneak off to the lab for one more quick experiment.” And all your friends and families of scientists have seen that, you’ve seen them sneak out the door late at night or early in the morning. ![]() How many of you out there are scientists? How many the family or friends of a scientist? So I stand here as a scientist in a city of scientists. Up on Mars Hill there lies Lowell Observatory, to the north the Museum of Northern Arizona, the offices of the USGS, to the east and west the laboratories of GORE, to the south Northern Arizona University, the Rocky Mountain Research Station, TGen, the Naval Observatory, to mention but a few.
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