Dear friends of my space blog,
This year, instead of getting a review of achievements in 2023, I give you my first ever new year speech. It’s written from my heart and it is from me to you. Brace yourself, because you are about to get a rare insight to the thoughts that are bouncing around the engine room of Astronomicca.
First of all, I want to thank the thousands and thousands of readers that stopped by my space blog this year. I am truly grateful for each and every one of you who decide to read the words I write and follow the sporadic space posts I publish here, the monthly posts on my Patreon and the work I do for researchers around the world.
I care a lot about science and science communication. I care about making people interested in science and sharing whatever nerdy stuff that goes on in the labs and outside Earth’s atmosphere. Science is not an independent topic or hobby. It’s not a field that we can give attention if we want. Science is the foundation of everything we have and do in a modern society and it’s inevitable to engage with it, one way or another. When you go to the doctor or type an update on social media you always use science and its outcome to fulfill your mission. I think this inclusion and acceptance of science being in and around us will make us not only better at understanding how the world works, but I do believe it also makes us better decision makers in general, because it helps shape our ways of critical thinking and reasoning to be increasingly based on facts and knowledge more so than guessing and fake news.
I am also a firm believer in listening to our gut feeling. I think this is a superpower in all of us. Some people argue that listening to a gut feeling and making scientific-based decision are mutually exclusive. This could not be more wrong, from my viewpoint. Having a gut feeling about a situation is not the same as guessing or denying facts. It simply means that you listen to yourself. But balancing the load of intuition and facts -as opposed to viewing them as competitors- I believe is the key to good critical thinking that indeed makes us better at navigating through the life we were handed here on this tiny planet.
*takes a sip of my coffee*
Accepting that doubt and intuition are not the enemies of scientific thinking will bring us closer to each other. Several of the blog readers that reach out to me have bad experiences from school, physics class in particular. They remember physics and science in general as something that made them feel dumb or less bright than their class mates. And I understand why. Science in school can be very exclusive for those who are not in tune with the teacher. But that is not the fault of science – that is the fault of the teacher. Even for those students, who has zero interest in how a capacitor works (because let’s face it, do any of us?) nothing is justified that they should feel less included than those who have. I think this early establishment of science being a swing-door that either welcomes you in or pushes you out is one of the main reasons why we as adults are either interested or not. Who wants to engage with a topic that previously made them feel excluded or even dumb? Nobody.
My main focus is and has always been to reach those who always thought science is not for them. Those who express that they never thought they would be able to understand what the CMB is or why the universe is both infinite and finite, but now they understand how it works. At least to the extent that it’s possible without being an actual researcher. I want to break down that wall of exclusion that is raised between those who felt included and those who did not. Because space is for all of us and the universe is beautiful and fascinating and it should be enjoyed by anyone who lives in it.
Understanding the universe and seeing the stars and galaxies above our heads put our entire existence into perspective. It makes us humble and thoughtful, and it broadens our horizon. Let’s not make it only for those who felt included in the classroom. Space is yours and mine. Always.
Happy new year!
Kh Majken
