Striving for ignorance

First, a caveat.  My struggles with writing this post in particular are a significant part of the reason for my absence from blogging for a while.  I started writing this in the middle of 2018, but never could get it to a state with which I was happy.  I still think it is not there; but I think also that this is an important and useful topic to get out there.  So, I'll post it now, and if I have further insights or thoughts on it, I'll post an addendum.  There are two distinct parts to this post.  Perhaps I should have broken this into two; but I felt the parallel between them was important.  Oh, well, enough rambling.....

I'm sure you've heard the canard many times: "Ignorance is bliss."  In a world that seems devoted to crushing even the most optimistic spirit, this phrase is often used to denigrate a person who seems overwhelmingly happy by suggesting that such a person is happy only because he or she is unaware of the evils that should be grinding them into dust.

Perhaps there is some truth to that.  I'm sure we can all imagine a time when bad news drove us to such distraction that we recognized how much more positive our outlook was before we heard the news.  Bliss is, according to most dictionaries: happiness, pleasure, joy, delight.  And in every experience we have with evil, we acutely feel that immediate loss of happiness that comes when our ignorance of that reality is abruptly removed.

Should we strive for such temporary, fleeting hedonism?  Shutting our eyes and ears to the evils of the world in order to preserve the things that make up the perfect picture of what we think we love about life?  While I think many of us do this on a daily basis, this is not what I mean.  But, it is surprisingly close.

You see, in today's society, all of those words associated with bliss are the same words often associated with love.  But that is because our modern society has a very limited view of love.  And, more importantly, a very flawed sense of the direction of love.

I recently read an article shared by a friend of mine in which the author lamented being unable to love a severely mentally disabled sibling.  In fact, the author argues that pre-natal screening and selective abortion of individuals identified to be likely to suffer from such developmental retardation is an acceptable and preferred course.

I can understand the frustration.  Here is an individual who is so under-developed mentally that he or she is possibly incapable of interacting with other human beings; at least other adult human beings.  Such a person might have the emotional development of a toddler, but the physical development of an adult.  Such an individual can -- and often does -- inflict great damage both physically and emotionally on friends, family, and even themselves.  But, such a person does so entirely out of ignorance.

When an alcoholic or other substance abuser causes pain for his or her friends and family while under the influence, do we recognize that the harms done are done out of ignorance, because the individual is suffering from his or her disease?  Do we not encourage that person to seek treatment and support?  We do not argue that it is better to identify those genetically disposed to alcoholism and terminate them in the womb.

Part of emotional maturity is recognizing that everybody is dealing with their own demons.  None of us is able to live a life on Earth of pure bliss.  And yet we dare to love our family members, our spouses, our friends, and neighbors.  But, to be truly loving of them is not to expect them to love you; but to extend that love to them, regardless of what they have done or might do to you.  If you think you are loving someone and expecting something in return, that is not love; that is a business transaction.

So, to strive for ignorance is to love someone who has done nothing to earn your love, and who has quite possibly done things out of their own ignorance to be seemingly less deserving of your love.  To strive for ignorance is to love someone as though you are ignorant of whatever evil he or she has done to you or to others.  It is to love someone as though you are ignorant of whether or not they express love toward you.

Now, I'm going to totally change gears on you and talk about how this relates just as well to scientific endeavours.(!)  What could all of this talk of love and bliss have to do with science?  Stick with me, dear reader, and maybe I can convince you.

In science, too, there is of late an argument growing for the advantage of ignorance.  No, not ignorance of the basis foe one's efforts; but rather the ignorance of the background and motivations of the work of others.  In science, review of our work by our peers is the cornerstone of our endeavour.  Without it, science is little more than idle chatter.  In science, we develop hypotheses, make observations to test those hypotheses, and revise them if necessary (or take more careful measurements).  Yet, none of this has any lasting meaning or value in the field if it is not read and reviewed by our peers and found by them to be of sufficient quality to represent a true advancement of knowledge.  Our past research is reviewed by our peers before it can be published; and our proposed research is reviewed by our peers in order to determine whether we will be awarded funding to complete our work.

But, peer review goes deeper than that.  A good reviewer of a research article or proposal is not seeking to torpedo the effort, she or he is seeking to improve the quality of an existing work.  The reviewer identifies the flaws that detract from the anticipated results, or the purported conclusions.  In most cases, following a reviewer's report, the author of a work is able to significantly improve it.  And, a good reviewer (yes, there are abundant "Reviewer Twos" out there, but most are good reviewers) will write his or her review with this intention of improving the existing work, whether a research article or a proposal.  Well, what is love but "to will the good of another."

Recently, there has been a movement in the scientific community (some subdisciplines have move more quickly than others) toward an ideal of what is called "double blind" reviews.  Currently -- at least in planetary science and astronomy, the fields with which I am most familiar -- most reviews are completed by anonymous referees who have access to information that identifies the author of the work to be reviewed, but who are unknown by the original author.  The idea is that anonymity allows a referee to comment truthfully and thoroughly on a work, withou fear of reprisal.  In a double blind review, the referee has access to the work, but not to the identify of author.  The idea is that a referee can perhaps be biased in his or her assessment of the work, perhaps as a result of the author's reputation (or lack thereof), or even as a result of past interactions with the author (at conferences, for example, or even social media).  In a sense, by moving more deliberately in this direction, the scientific community is recognizing the value of striving for ignorance in the assessment of our peers' efforts.

In a double blind review, we strip away everything that we might have known about the individual who has presented the work to be reviewed, and focus only on the merits (and demerits) of the current work itself.  The author again has a blank slate.  If the work is quality, it will stand; if it is not, it will fall.  It becomes that simple.  In the same way, we ought to strive for similar "double blind" ignorance in our dealings with our fellow humans.  It is hard to forget every harm or good another person may have done to us; but, in the moment, it can be helpful to consider the merits of what is being offered in the here and now.  It can be harder work than pre-judging a person based on your personal history with that person, or people like them (pre-judging... also known as prejudice or, more mildly, bias), but, in the long run, it is more fair to both you and the person with whom you are interacting.  It is vital to meet people where they are.  "Striving for Ignorance" helps us to do that.

Bright lights in the West; Get ready for the Big One!

I'm coming out of my work-induced blog-semi-retirement to let you know of some very important celestial events coming up.  If you've been looking to the West shortly after sunset for the last month, you've been seeing Jupiter gradually getting lower in the dusky sky.  If you have a low enough western horizon, you may have noticed Venus slowly approaching the giant planet.  This weekend, the two will be closest together in the sky, called "Conjunction."  Here is a sample view of what you might see if you have clear skies:

Screenshot from Stellarium 0.14.3

The time and position of the planets is set for Boulder, CO.  If you live in the northern hemisphere, you'll likely see something similar to this about 30 minutes after sunset.

Once it gets late enough that these two of the brightest night sky objects begin to pass over the horizon, take a moment to notice a third planet nearby.  Just a little above and to the left of the pair sits the Ringed planet, Saturn.  It may be a little more difficult to identify it, because it is nearly twice as far away as Jupiter and so is somewhat fainter.  But, in just two more weeks, it'll become much easier.  Because (with apologies to Sam Cooke) Venus sees Jupiter comin' and she'll just pass him by.  Venus continues her trek Eastward through the sky, and pays Saturn a visit on 10 December.  Here is a view of how that might look:

Screenshot from Stellarium 0.14.3

The time of day is about the same; but the sky is a little darker, because sunset is about five minutes earlier on 10 December (in fact, the earliest sunset of the year is usually very close to this date, for northern hemisphere mid-latitudes; maybe we'll talk about that in a future blog).  This image approximates the view about 45 minutes after sunset.

Now, you might think it is unusual to have two close conjunctions just a few weeks apart, and you'd be right.  And, in this case, it is a hint to an even more spectacular conjunction yet to come!

You see, Jupiter moves through the sky a little more quickly than Saturn because it is closer to the Sun, and so has a shorter year.  In fact, to the ancient Greeks and Romans, Saturn was the slowest planet in the sky, taking over 30 years to return to the same spot; so they named it after their god Cronus, a god of time (among other things).

Well, roughly every 19.5 years, Jupiter and Saturn, the two largest planets in our Solar System, team up for what is sometimes called the "Great Conjunction." We're due for the next one in about a year.  And, mirabile visu, what a conjunction this promises to be!  Next year, if you were to look West on the Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice at about half an hour after sunset, you'd see this:

Screenshot from Stellarium 0.14.3

Where's the conjunction, you say?  You see only one object?  Let's pull out our virtual telescope:

Screenshot from Stellarium 0.14.3

If you time it right, you will capture a view of Saturn and Jupiter so close together that it would appear as though Jupiter could be one of Saturn's moons!  In fact, some of the fainter objects in this view are moons of Saturn: Iapetus, Rhea, and Titan.  Saturn takes a few days to "pass though" the Jupiter system (I told you Saturn moved slowly through the sky).  Well, technically it is Jupiter that moves through the Saturn system as viewed in the sky, since it is moving faster.  So, you'll have a few days to see this spectacular conjunction. 

As an aside, these "Grand Conjunctions" have been viewed by Astrologers for millennia as harbingers of great change.  In fact, another Grand Conjunction about two thousand years ago was particularly noteworthy.  You might recall that about five years ago, Jupiter and Venus were aligned in such a way with the Earth that they performed an intricate and rare dance in the sky that resulted in three close conjunctions over the span of about a year.  This (with limited originality) is called a "triple conjunction."  Well, a little more than two thousand years ago, the Great Conjunction was similarly also a triple conjunction.  Over the course of about six months, Jupiter and Saturn came together three separate times in the constellation Pisces.  It has been suggested that this event, of which Astrologers of the era would have definitely taken notice, could be the "Star of Bethlehem," that the Magi in the Christmas narrative interpreted as a sign that a great leader had been born.

So, here is your one Jovian Synodic Period (13 months) Advance Warning: start making plans to be in a dark spot with climatologically clear evenings for Winter Solstice, 2020.  Don't miss your chance to see the Conjunction of the Century!