UM author challenges heavenly misbeliefs

HEAVENLY ERRORS: MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE REAL NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE, by Neil F. Comins, Columbia University Press, New York, 2001.

If you don’t know the correct scientific explanation for Earth’s changing seasons, take comfort in this: All but two of 23 Harvard faculty and graduating seniors interviewed for a 1988 television documentary got the answer “dead” wrong.

But don’t get too comfortable. Neil Comins wants us to do better.

In “Heavenly Errors,” the University of Maine professor of physics and astronomy offers a compilation of common astronomy misconceptions, a detailed analysis of why they exist, and remedies to repair the damage and prevent incorrect beliefs in the future.

Who cares? Well, Comins is understandably challenged by students who think Wiley Coyote really does hang suspended in midair before plummeting to the ground, or that dinosaurs and humans coexisted a la “The Flintstones,” or that aliens landed in Area 51, or that faster-than-light space travel is possible.

More seriously, he feels strongly that the flawed thought processes – often rooted in common sense and emotion – that perpetuate such harmless misconceptions can have major implications for public policy and scientific progress when applied to complex issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, and evolution.

“Common sense helps us survive, but not understand the universe around us,” Comins writes. “The more scientifically correct information we believe, the better we are able to judge the impact of a wide variety of issues on our lives … [and] to decide as a society where to go and what to do.”

Ever enthusiastic about the benefits of science to humankind, he adds: “I find it especially remarkable how seemingly bizarre and counterintuitive the laws of nature are compared to even the wildest flights of human fancy. … The more we learn about such fields as genetics, quantum mechanics, general relativity, astrophysics and superstring theory, the more fantastic things we learn about how nature works.”

Comins is widely known as a researcher, educator, and popularizer of astronomy, through his 1994 book, “What If The Moon Didn’t Exist,” numerous articles in Astronomy Magazine and radio and television appearances. He is also author of a best-selling introductory astronomy textbook, “Discovering the Universe.”

The most entertaining, accessible part of “Heavenly Errors” is the author’s cheerful refutation of astronomy misconceptions, from errors about our own solar system to misunderstandings about deep-space exotica like black holes and pulsars. With the help of thousands of students in his introductory astronomy classes over the years, Comins has identified more than 1,700 misconceptions and “other common incorrect beliefs.” All are listed on his Web Site, http://www.umephy.maine.edu/ncomins/.

Examples of common misconceptions: Earth’s seasons are caused by changing distance from the sun. (No. The seasons result from the tilt of the spinning Earth on its axis as our planet orbits the sun). Mercury, closest planet to the sun, is therefore hottest. (No. Venus is hottest because the second closest planet has a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere that creates an intense greenhouse effect). The asteroid belt is so dense that spacecraft are threatened with collision, as in “Star Wars” movies. (No. The average separation between asteroids is 3 million miles).

Comins’ book also takes an exhaustive look at why misconceptions exist, and here the lay reader may begin to feel overwhelmed by his or her scientific shortcomings.

In “External Origins of Incorrect Beliefs,” we learn how cartoons, science fiction, the Internet, textbook errors, ill-informed teachers and peers and the news media can lead us astray. Even words themselves can be enemies – black holes are neither black nor holes, pulsars aren’t like distant lighthouses, and cosmology isn’t the practice of hair design.

Astrology doesn’t fare well at all, nor do our misguided beliefs in “the presence of aliens from other worlds on Earth, the possibility of travel backward in time, angels, ghosts, demons, creationism, telepathy, extrasensory perception, magic, channeling and other methods of communicating with the dead, and homeopathic medicine, to name but a few.”

In “Internal and Mixed Origins of Incorrect Beliefs,” our traitorous senses are blamed for incorrectly informing us that the sun is yellow and that stars twinkle. Comins traces incorrect beliefs to such human frailties as overgeneralization, unreliable eyewitness accounts, incorrect logic, anthropomorphizing, finding patterns where they don’t exist, and choosing the first or simplest explanation for something.

This is not written without humor or pity for the average math-challenged Homo sapiens. Comins calls himself a science fiction fan and he can willingly suspend disbelief to watch a magic show. He even admits that astronomers are subject to incorrect beliefs, as illustrated by his whirlwind history of cosmology and the way cherished theories have been reluctantly abandoned, one by one, in the face of new scientific evidence, from Ptolemy’s Earth-centered universe to the “Big Crunch” theory.

But those picking up “Heavenly Errors” with the expectation of another lively read like “What If The Moon Didn’t Exist” may be disappointed. One reviewer described it as “an elegant tutorial on scientific thought.” Comins ultimately seems to be speaking to educators like himself, on the front lines in dealing with students’ misconceptions and trying to impart factual information and make it stick.

This is particularly true of “Unlearning Misconceptions” and “How to Avoid Future Misconceptions,” and the very people who should read these chapters – including our elected leaders – probably won’t. Among Comins’ 21 “guidelines” to help develop critical thinking are “Question authority” and “Keep an open mind when conflicting ideas exist, but not so open that your brain falls out.”

If one might reasonably argue that today’s earthlings have the fewest misconceptions about science of any generation in history, that doesn’t take away from Comins’ impassioned efforts to improve the situation and to share his boundless faith in the scientific method.

It can’t hurt, as long as there’s always room for the Road Runner.

Luther Young, a scientific grant writer at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, is a former science journalist for the Baltimore Sun and co-author of the 1996 book, “Dinosaurs of the East Coast.”