Re: [Fwd: A Curious Article in Mercury]

[jg <jg@jgws.freeisp.co.uk>]

B Yen quoted:

...

> "I maintain that, as a whole, modern-day amateur astronomers in the U.S. &
> Canada perform dismally compare to those in several other parts of the
> world... .. Yet  if amateurs want to be taken seriously by professionals they
> must perform to PROFESSIONAL standards. These standards involve no just the
> act of observing, but a moderately QUANTITATIVE understanding of what an
> observation means and how to make it connect to other informaion that may be
> available.  Such work requires more scientific literacy than many North
> American amateurs seem to possess"
> -- Sky & Telescope, Nov 1988, Dr. Brian Marsden, Harvard-Smithsonian Center
> for Astrophysics
> 
> "Unfortunately, my experience is that many professional astronomers do look
> down somewhat on amateurs.  They see amateurs as trying to do "real"
> astronomy but not having the background and understanding."
> -- Mike Simmons, Medical researcher, UCLA (Mt. Wilson Observatory Assn)
> 
> "The authors are themselves amateurs, and when they venture into
> scientific topics their information is limited & sometimes outright wrong.."
> -- Harold Zirin, Astrophysicist, Caltech (Sky & Telescope, March 1997, p. 64)

and some other stuff in a similar vein.


(Can't comment on regional differences re educational standards.)

I must confress that my egress from lurkdom and ingress into posting on
mailing lists of a pro-am nature a coupla years ago was primarily a
consequence of noting that professional scientists can be quite willing
to pontificate on topics off their specialised subjects, or worse be
quite dogmatic about a theory within their specialized subject whilst
being quite indifferent to any contradictory evidence that would appear
from time to time.

After all, I thought, if such people can manage to be continually paid
money for consistently talking out of their arses, what embarrassment
need I fear should any comment I make turn out to be grossly naive.  At
least I'd have an excuse as an amateur :þ .

What B Yen quotes from professionals contains a great deal of truth, but
it is somewhat typical of the present day professional community in
general to suffer a selection effect when considering such matters (ie
they exclude themselves from the analysis).

Heck, a goodly number of diametrically opposed concepts in astronomy,
even until recently, have been fueled more by mutual personal dislike
amongst the main protagonists (probably still true in some cases) than
by new data.  Progress in the field sometimes only kicks in when these
people either retire or die.  Contrary to popular belief, and despite
very successful aspects like celestial mechanics, astronomy is not a
hard science. Mostly because it is nearly always seriously short of
(good) data.  This leaves plenty of room for anybody to make an idiot of
themselves, whether paid for the privilege or not.

Cheers

John G.


PS This ain't a bash against professionals, in case I've emphasized it
wrong.  I've had good and useful help from said on numerous occasions. 
Some, incidentally, who turn out to be either on and/or monitor this
list ;)