Air University Review , November-December 1980

The Irrational Astronomers

When I was a college freshman, I desperately wanted someone to explain the mysteries of the universe to me. What I wanted was a small, understandable book complete with color photos, which would lend some perspective to the bewildering collection of theories and hypotheses offered in my astrophysics text. Instead, it was one set of formulas after another. The parts were understandable, but the whole was not. Somehow, in the melee of conjecture about nebulae, quasars, eclipsing binaries, and intergalactic dust, astronomy in the 1960s had not yet developed a comprehensive or definitive theory about the question that troubles us most: How did it all begin?

IN God and the Astronomerst* Robert Jastrow does what I wish physicists had done years ago-he speaks to us in English. His remarkable little book details the substance of several theories of cosmic origin, including the now widely accepted "Big Bang" theory. Using the theoretical writings of Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, as well as the empirical measurements of Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, Jastrow explains how twentieth-century astronomers slowly came to realize that the elements in our enormous universe are expanding, many of them at speeds up to one hundred million miles an hour.

*Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1978, $7.95), 136 pages.

The odd thing about Jastrow's book is that the material on which his explanations are based has been available for quite some time. Many in the scientific community, however, were unwilling to accept as fact those findings that have been known for much of this century. The scientific theory of Genesis began in 1913 when Vesto Slipher, looking for something else, discovered that "about a dozen galaxies in our vicinity were moving away from the earth at very high speeds, ranging up to two million miles per hour." Slipher's discovery, according to Jastrow, was the first hint that the universe was expanding. Young Albert Einstein, seeking to explain phenomena of a different sort, published his equations of general relativity four years later in 1917. But it was William de Sitter, a Dutch astronomer, who found a solution that predicted an exploding universe, in which galaxies move rapidly away from one another. This, of course, is just what Slipher had observed.

Other astronomers, including Edwin P. Hubble and Arthur Eddington, picked up de Sitter's work and began to accumulate more precise measurements with more accurate equipment. The majority of the members of the scientific community, however, steadfastly refused to accept the logical conclusions drawn from de Sitter, Hubble, and Eddington. Why? Because they seemed to have profound theological implications; and by the mid-twentieth century, science was not yet ready to acknowledge the presence of a supreme being. Jastrow also thinks part of the answer lies in the fact that "scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money."

Science, according to British astronomer Paul Davies, brings several important contributions to the subject of cosmology.* It brings, first of all, concrete information about the world from careful experiment and observation. Second, it injects precision into what might otherwise be a rather vague collection of ideas. Third, and perhaps most important, science furnishes the theoretical foundation for the study and understanding of the observations that have been made. Science seems to have its limitations, however, in dealing with questions of a metaphysical nature.

*Paul Davies, The Runaway Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1978, $11.95), 205 pages.

While Davies and Italian astronomer Paolo Maffei** have no apparent trouble accepting the idea of an expanding and, hence, a dying universe, many cosmologists have been slow to join them. "This circumstance [of an expanding universe] irritates me," said Albert Einstein. In a letter about the expansion theory, he wrote: "To admit such possibilities seems senseless." Astronomer Robert Herman, in discussing his early theoretical work on the expanding universe, said recently, "There was no doubt that we had a very interesting result, but the reaction of the astronomical community ranged from skeptical to hostile."

**Paolo Maffei, Beyond the Moon (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1978, $10.00), 377 pages.

Robert Jastrow notes that theologians generally are delighted with proof that the universe had a beginning, but astronomers have been curiously upset. "Their reactions," he writes, "provide an interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind-supposedly a very objective mind-when evidence uncovered by science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in our profession." It turns out, he observes, that the scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in conflict with the evidence. We become irritated, we pretend the conflict does not exist, or we paper it over with meaningless phrases.

Philosophy Professor Ronald Munson of the University of Missouri lectures widely on the topic of "Science Fictions," in which he expresses a frustration with scientists similar to Jastrow's. "We accept science as reliable, objective, and reality-revealing," he says, "but what is the source of our confidence? Until recently, the standard view was that it comes from the method of testing hypotheses against observations. However, actual cases show that hypotheses are not always accepted when confirmed by substantial evidence. Furthermore," he writes, "observation reports and 'facts' seem to be tied to theories. "

The work of British astronomers Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle seems to be a case in point. For a number of years, they have argued in favor of a steady-state theory: a view which holds that continuous creation is taking place, replenishing the dispersing matter throughout the universe at a steady rate. Mounting evidence to the contrary has not convinced them and their adherents that the universe is not, in fact, in a steady state, but in an inexorable state of expansion and decline. Recent radio-source counts, the discovery of quasars, and the background heat-radiation discoveries of Penzias and Wilson point conclusively in the direction of an enormous primeval explosion.

Both Jastrow and Davies seem wil1ing to accept such a theory and prod us to revise our beliefs in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary. The model of an expanding universe derived by Alexander Friedmann led to the publication of Hubble's law on expansion. Concurrently, there has been a great deal of discussion about the fact that the second law of thermodynamics, applied to the cosmos, indicates the universe is running down like a clock. And if it is running down, says Jastrow, there must have been a time when it was fully wound up.

When asked in 1921 if he believed in God, Einstein replied, "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists." Einstein and others within the scientific community resisted de Sitter's theory for many years, but Hubble's observations on the speeds and distances of the galaxies finally convinced him that the theory was correct. And shortly before his death, according to Jastrow, Einstein told a visitor that he fully accepted the idea of "a beginning." Others, however, continue to resist.

The reason for such reluctance seems to be a dependence on what Professor Munson calls the "scientific paradigm. " And the problem with the paradigm view is that it makes science an "irrational, subjective enterprise." Scientists and laymen alike seem irrationally tied to theoretical beliefs when their conceptual underpinnings have long since been swept away by newer, more precise observations. Such is the case with the expanding universe.

DAVIES, in The Runaway Universe, says, "The language which is used to convey these ideas already assumes familiar, fundamental concepts of space and time, and it tends to have a strong philosophical or even religious connotation. Perhaps," he says, "it is expecting too much of science to provide clear answers to them." Jastrow thinks not. Science, he says, in God and the Astronomers, if viewed with the cool rationality and open-mindedness of the philosopher, can bridge the gap between astrophysics and metaphysics. But a blind faith in the tenets of science, he says, renders us incapable of escaping the confines of our own narrow perspectives.

Captain James S. O’Rourke IV (B.B.A., Notre Dame; M.S., Temple University; M.A., University of New Mexico; Ph.D., Syracuse University) is Assistant Professor of English, United States Air Force Academy. He has served as a public information officer and station commander for the America Forces Radio and Television Service. Captain O’Rourke has published in Journalism History and is a previous contributor to the Review.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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