“We need to change”: Astronomers Admit Their Outsized Contribution to the Climate Crisis

Radio Telescope view at night with milky way in the sky

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

All those long flights to remote observatories ensure Astronomers have an outsized carbon footprint. And Astronomers keen to reduce their carbon footprints are being advised to abandon software languages like Python, in favour of compiled languages like C++.

‘We’re part of the problem.’ Astronomers confront their role in—and vulnerability to—climate change

By Daniel Clery
Oct. 7, 2020 , 11:30 AM

Astronomers have a climate problem. Not only is global warming increasing the frequency of wildfires and the strength of hurricanes that physically threaten observatories, but a changing climate could mar their views by bringing higher temperatures, humidity, and turbulent air closer to their mountaintop perches. Astronomers are also adding to the climate problem themselves, with long flights to remote facilities and meetings and heavy use of energy-hungry supercomputers for cosmic simulations. “We’re part of the problem, not of the solution,” says Leo Burtscher of Leiden University.

Those concerns were cast in sharp relief by six papers published last month in Nature Astronomy. One, on the carbon costs of meetings, emerged directly from the 2019 European Astronomical Society (EAS) meeting in France, which took place during a record-breaking heatwave when temperatures exceeded 45°C. “We were sitting with no air conditioning, sweating through all these interesting talks,” Burtscher says. Discussions turned to climate change and the carbon emitted getting everyone to the meeting, and they inspired Burtscher and his colleagues to size up the meeting’s travel emissions. They added up to nearly 1900 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent or about 1.5 tons per delegate—roughly the same as emitted by an average resident of India in a whole year.

Astronomers are now taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. In another of the six studies, Simon Portegies Zwart of Leiden University calls for changes in computing strategy. Astronomers should avoid traditional computers and instead use ones that rely on more efficient graphical processor units, Zwart says, although they are harder to program. Astronomers should also abandon popular programming languages such as Python in favor of efficient compiled languages. Languages such as Fortran and C++, Zwart calculates, are more than 100 times more carbon efficient than Python because they require fewer operations. Another option, says MPIA’s Knud Jahnke, is to set up supercomputers in Iceland, with its carbon-free geothermal power and cold climate, which reduces cooling needs, or in other countries with plentiful renewable energy.

This month, Lick workers cleared brush and trees around the site to lessen the risk of future fires. Astronomers need to take action, too, Burtscher says. It’s a moral decision—and a practical one, he says. “We need to change in order to continue our professions.

Read more: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/we-re-part-problem-astronomers-confront-their-role-and-vulnerability-climate-change

As a software developer who has worked with many people with academic qualifications in Astronomy, Physics and Mathematics, I feel qualified to comment on the advice to Astronomers to switch to C++. Just don’t.

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Old Retired Guy
October 10, 2020 6:07 am

As the first sentence is BS, why bother with the rest?

Charles Higley
Reply to  Old Retired Guy
October 10, 2020 7:08 am

“All those long flights to remote observatories ensure Astronomers have an outsized carbon footprint.”

Totally BS, as it is phrased to suggest that the long flights were purposely chosen to increase the carbon foot print. Long flights are determined by the need to locate these observatories at sites conducive to good astronomical observations.

Alan
Reply to  Charles Higley
October 10, 2020 7:34 am

Also, how many astronomers have private jets? If an astronomer flys from Europe or the U.S. to Australia or South America, most likely they are going to take a commercial flight that was going anyway. How is that significantly raising their carbon footprint? Compare astronomers to professional and major college sports, especially in the U.S. Most teams have private chartered jets. Rarely do they fly commercial.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Alan
October 10, 2020 9:07 am

Alan
Yes, the unstated assumption is that the commercial plane wouldn’t have flown unless the astronomers had been on board. In reality, most flights are (were) essentially full with some people who wanted to get on a flight already full. Therefore, the same amount of CO2 would have been generated whether astronomers were passengers or not.

MarkW
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
October 10, 2020 9:39 am

The number of flights scheduled and the types of planes flown are determined by the total expected traffic. Anything that increases the total number of passengers could result in either more flights, or larger planes on the same flights.
Of course the total number of astronomers flying is so low that it doesn’t even reach rounding error.
Also the amount of fuel burned by a plane increases as it’s weight increases. Though once again, the extra weight of a couple of astronomers and their luggage is once again, below the rounding error.

Bryan A
Reply to  Eric Worrall
October 10, 2020 8:29 am

Astronomers are also adding to the climate problem themselves, with long flights to remote facilities and meetings and heavy use of energy-hungry supercomputers for cosmic simulations. “We’re part of the problem, not of the solution,” says Leo Burtscher of Leiden University

HMMM…
Climate Researchers Astronomerss are also adding to the climate problem themselves, with long flights to exotic remote facilities and meetings and heavy use of energy-hungry supercomputers for climate cosmic simulations. “We’re part of the problem, not of the solution,” says Michael Mann Leo Burtscher of Penn State Leiden University
Fixed it

M Seward
Reply to  Eric Worrall
October 10, 2020 9:58 am

Eric, with climate phobia, no guilt trip is too crazy, too bizarre, too out there to be seen as over the top unfortunately. This craziness is just intellectual bulimia.

Reply to  M Seward
October 10, 2020 11:28 am

Do some people get a “high” out of confessing to sins that might not be considered shameful in a traditional sense?

Bryan A
Reply to  M Seward
October 10, 2020 1:00 pm

That amount of guilt would place belief in the Church of Climate Change akin to Belief in Catholicism
Big Guilt Trip

Bryan A
Reply to  M Seward
October 10, 2020 1:01 pm

Say 15 Our Michaels and 10 ReGretas and do the stations of the Hockey Stick

Newminster
Reply to  Old Retired Guy
October 10, 2020 8:08 am

+20

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  Old Retired Guy
October 10, 2020 8:22 am

The second sentence was worse.

PaulH
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
October 10, 2020 8:34 am

Yep. I stopped reading there, except for the highlighted bits, and skipped to the comments. 😉

GP Hanner
Reply to  Old Retired Guy
October 10, 2020 9:44 am

I view it as attack on science. Who is behind that load of crap? The Chinese?

Hokey Schtick
October 10, 2020 6:16 am

So smart, and yet, so stupid.

Carl Friis-Hansen
October 10, 2020 6:22 am

This smells of funding insurance in case Harris/Biden wins.

ResourceGuy
Reply to  Carl Friis-Hansen
October 10, 2020 12:02 pm

Bingo!!

October 10, 2020 6:30 am

“…advice to Astronomers to switch to C++. Just don’t…”

Fortran is good, however. It’s both faster and safer.

Reply to  Carlie Coats
October 10, 2020 8:42 am

What’s about Forth ?

Editor
Reply to  Krishna Gans
October 10, 2020 9:43 am

Forth is interpretive, so it should be much like Python during execution.

Reply to  Ric Werme
October 10, 2020 10:44 am

Forth was developed by Charles (Chuck) Moore in the early 1960s. Moore’s work with computers at MIT and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre left him dissatisfied. The
turn-round time for editing, compiling and running a program using the then current
generation of ALGOL and FORTRAN compilers was too slow. His solution to this was
to write a simple text interpreter in ALGOL which read in words (any printable
characters except space) and performed actions associated with them.

Source
If I remember well, Forth was often used by astromnmers.

Erik Magnuson
Reply to  Krishna Gans
October 10, 2020 9:46 pm

Forth was intended for control, not massive computational tasks. It was one of the first if not the first threaded interpretive language which made for very memory efficient programming, which was particularly useful with 8 bit microcomputers with 64KB maximum memory. OTOH, the threading took a bit hit on execution speed. One later use for Forth was in the Open Boot subsystem for Power PC based Mac’s and Sun Sparc workstations.

FORTRAN was designed to maximize computational throughput without having to resort to assembly language.

FWIW, I still have my copy of the “Forth” book.

Rich Davis
October 10, 2020 6:32 am

When we switch back to FORTRAN, do we need to use punch cards, too? Seems like that would maximize the desired inefficiency.

Amazing that they never seem to run out of absurd new things to talk about.

Bro. Steve
Reply to  Rich Davis
October 10, 2020 7:47 am

Oh, yes. The punch cards are paper, which is recyclable.

Now you just need an IBM-360!

fred250
Reply to  Rich Davis
October 10, 2020 1:25 pm

We use Intel® Parallel Studio XE, FORTRAN Compiler …… not FORTRAN 4

No, we don’t use punch cards.

We interface through a desktop computer and run time consuming programs on parallel processing architectures of UNIX servers.

Clyde Spencer
Reply to  Rich Davis
October 10, 2020 8:33 pm

The first FORTRAN program I attempted to compile was on a DDP-24 and it didn’t use punched cards. It used paper tape — I wish it had used cards! It would have been easier to correct errors.

Gene LeFave
October 10, 2020 6:39 am

” C++. Just don’t”

Now that is the best advice I’ve heard in a long time!!!

Joe Wagner
Reply to  Gene LeFave
October 10, 2020 7:58 am

Part of me is saying “You old farts just want to stick to your punch cards!!!” (disclaimer- I started coding right at the end of punch cards)
Another part- the part who recently worked with ‘Academics’ and their code: Preach it!
The last part- the part thats remembering that mining for Bitcoin and such uses more electricity than many nations- and that even the mathematically intense stuff they do is chickenfeed… is laughing

Speed
Reply to  Joe Wagner
October 10, 2020 9:13 am

I don’t think that even “old farts” want to have anything to do with punch cards.

taz1999
Reply to  Joe Wagner
October 10, 2020 12:01 pm

To my reading, true money will turn out to be a commodity (salt, gold, cigarettes) whatever. The commodity will have an intrinsic value regardless of what the commodity is trading at. I haven’t jumped the mental shark in regard to bitcoin. Proof a labor seems a bit Marxist to me. What economic value do I get for filling and re-digging a ditch regardless of how “hard” the labor.

And bitcoin valuation drops to 0 when the lights go out. Hope no one bites into that tulip.

Reply to  Gene LeFave
October 10, 2020 9:28 am

C++, well if you don’t count all the extra hours, coffee and the carbon emitted during long frustrated sighs you might end up with more efficient code. That has a subtle resource leak leaving your telescope pointed at your forehead instead of Alpha Centauri during some long late-night session.

Don’t the astronomers still use Forth? An interpreter, sure, but efficient still. Until someone other than the original coder needs to do some maintenance. Then you have to learn a whole new invented language to read the code, complete with the prejudices, misapprehensions and ignorance of the original coder built-in!

APL (“a programming language”), now there was an efficient language! Even the original coder can’t figure it out the next day. But you could do a five layer nested loop over multiple data sets in three or four characters. APL is no longer possible as far as I know, it makes intensive use of strike-over characters, like type Y, hit the backspace button on your Teledyne mechanical terminal and then hit the |. I guess there is an IBM Selectric that can do it…

I dunno, with modern processors and graphics coprocessors that can do millions of triangle calculations in a microsecond or something the concept of “more efficient code” is really ludicrous. In today’s coding world, with every line relying on thousands of lines of code by others, the readability, testability and maintainability aspects far outweigh any potential processing time considerations.

If you really pine for the days of optimized jump tables and trigonometric lookup tables, code it in DSP assembly. Use lots of cryptically labelled macros. Maybe it will eventually work, but for sure no one else will ever be able to read it! Job security!

Komerade Cube
Reply to  Bruce Ploetz
October 10, 2020 10:39 am

Great comments Bruce, thanks! I wanted to post something like this but couldn’t muster the energy in the face of such abject stupidity. You’ve done it better than I would have anyway. You made my day!

Paul Drahn
Reply to  Bruce Ploetz
October 10, 2020 12:31 pm

I had good laugh when the efficiency of FORTRAN was listed a a good programming language.
In the late 1960 and into 1970, I was the systems programmer for a large service bureau in Portland, Oregon. I had just taken a FORTRAN class at the local community college so was given the task of converting a new customers IBM 1130 FORTRAN to FORTRAN IV on our 36 model 40 machine. The 1130 was discontinued.

I will never forget the first test of the converted program. It read a punch card with the proper data on it. Nothing happened and I just had time to think “oh shit” when ALL the lights on the big console panel lit up, then the printer printed a line. The sequence of card reading, panel lighting and line printing continued for the rest of the job.

We ran 3 partitions on the computer. Only the BG with FORTRAN actually did anything. All the computer operators gather around to see the show.

I was never able to get it to run any faster. Fortunately, the program was for a stevedore company and told them how to load logs into a ship’s hold. They did this only a few times per year. That was the only FORTRAN job we ever ran.

Michael S. Kelly
Reply to  Paul Drahn
October 10, 2020 7:07 pm

They’re “punched cards”, not “punch cards.”

And FORTRAN is a perfectly serviceable language, still widely used today. There is a GNU version I use, Simply Fortran, available for $100. Or you could go with Leahy for $8,925.00. I’ll stick with GNU SF.

Reply to  Paul Drahn
October 11, 2020 3:46 am

For the moment I have no link,but wasn’t there a Harrys Read me” file smong the Climategate mails ?

Hashbang
Reply to  Bruce Ploetz
October 10, 2020 11:35 pm

It depends on the application. For trivial applications for which the processor barely raises a sweat coding/algorithmic efficiency doesn’t matter. On the other hand if the machine is being pushed to its limits then efficiency does matter.

Chuck in Houston
Reply to  Bruce Ploetz
October 12, 2020 2:49 pm

Bruce wrote – “APL (“a programming language”), now there was an efficient language! Even the original coder can’t figure it out the next day. ”

Perfect, just perfect.

Michael S. Kelly
Reply to  Gene LeFave
October 10, 2020 7:02 pm

I use the R language. I have a pirated copy, though. It’s called “Aarrr!”

Mike McMillan
Reply to  Michael S. Kelly
October 11, 2020 6:59 pm

+1

Dodgy Geezer
October 10, 2020 6:39 am

“….and heavy use of energy-hungry supercomputers for cosmic simulations…”

Has anyone compared total CO2 output from the (very few) supercomputers doing astro calculations with the total CO2 output from the (very large) number of porn transmissions over the net?

Maybe there’s the germ of a funded study here…?

Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
October 10, 2020 8:44 am

Super computers running climate models are CO2 free ?? 😀 😀

Komerade Cube
Reply to  Krishna Gans
October 10, 2020 10:53 am

The climate simulations only use windmill energy, they are programmed to reject all other forms of electricity.

fred250
Reply to  Dodgy Geezer
October 10, 2020 6:10 pm

I heard or read somewhere that modern communication systems use something like 10% of the world’s energy supply.

Don’t know if its correct.

Mickey Reno
October 10, 2020 6:45 am

On the other hand, some of the very worst FORTRAN code I have ever seen, was produced by Ph.D credentialed academics who were busily advising young graduate students on how to get THEIR Ph.Ds.

Oh, what a spaghetti mess we weave, when FORTRAN solves what we believe. Or something like that…

Lee L
Reply to  Mickey Reno
October 10, 2020 7:52 am

My guess is that if you dig deep into ‘climate’ models, you will find PhD student badly written Fortran errors buried in statistical libraries and other hard to see compiled places.

OldCynic
Reply to  Lee L
October 10, 2020 3:13 pm

Mickey, Lee – maybe your memories are better than mine, but in what language was the Imperial College epidemic modelling software written?

Was that (uncommented) Fortran, or am I just imagining it?

fred250
Reply to  OldCynic
October 10, 2020 6:13 pm

Point is, that it doesn’t matter what language/software you are using, it can only ever be as relevant, efficient and logically accurate as the person doing the programming.

oeman50
Reply to  Mickey Reno
October 10, 2020 8:30 am

And compare what the astronomers use to what Facebook uses for no practical output.

Chicago Vota
October 10, 2020 6:53 am

All of the power saved from switching to python would be needed to offset a couple of microwaves warming Hot Pockets.

Scissor
October 10, 2020 6:53 am

In their Marxist utopia, astronomers are not likely to be high on dear leader’s list of priorities, although light pollution is much less of a problem.

Terry Bixler
October 10, 2020 6:54 am

Gosh I thought that they should write in assembly. It has a much lower carbon footprint.

Reply to  Terry Bixler
October 10, 2020 7:49 am

Go one step further down for maximum speed (of execution), program directly in binary.

Terry Bixler
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
October 10, 2020 8:21 am

Assembly is still my language of preference. But I must admit it was my first computer language acquired around 1964.

Reply to  Terry Bixler
October 10, 2020 8:58 am

That’s a C9 hex to the past.

Reply to  Terry Bixler
October 10, 2020 9:08 am

In my first college class in computer programming—this was in 1973—the teacher gave this identical challenge to each person in the class: program IN BINARY the process of a taking two short integers, something like 7 and 13, reading them sequentially from a keyboard input register and putting them into registers and then adding them together and then storing the result (as binary) in a third register. He provided the binary addresses of the four registers (memory addresses to be used) and a list of the binary machine codes (operation:operand format) to perform all necessary processing steps, such as “store at” or “clear register”.

I was ultimately unsuccessful in writing out the sequence in binary . . . but it was a very humbling yet significant learning experience, and one that I have never forgotten.

IIRC, there was only one person in the class of about 25 that successfully met the challenge. We thought that classmate walked on water the remainder of that semester.

Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
October 10, 2020 11:27 am

I did learn to write some 8080 assembler on my first personal computer – a Sinclair ZX81. That involved writing instructions in hex rather than binary. I hope I would have been able to do the conversion from hex accurately.

Yirgach
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
October 10, 2020 3:26 pm

IN the late 70’s I used to teach a class on hardware, specifically integrating microprocessor with TTL chips. Always told the class that it was programming with wires. Found out that many of them , in BSCS 3rd year, were never taught binary arithmetic, so they could not understand assembler or higher level languages.

Years later I was consulting at a company using the BSD kernel deleoping a QOS appliance and they asked me “Why can’t you do this in C++ in the kernel?” When I stopped laughing, I patiently explained that was not possible due to the underlying kernel architecture relying on assembler and C which C++ had abstracted to a much higher level and could not be used at all in the kernel, let alone debugged at that level.
There was kernel space and there was user space. C++ did not live in kernel space.

Reply to  Terry Bixler
October 10, 2020 9:13 am

+1

Aussiebear
Reply to  Terry Bixler
October 10, 2020 4:59 pm

How about this old Dilbert comic?

https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-09-08

Love it!

October 10, 2020 6:59 am

CO2 output is a huge positive for the planet – plant growth – symbiotic oxygen production, and even a more benign climate!!!

This pandering to the CO2 reduction crowd needs to come to a screeching halt!!!

Clay Sanborn
Reply to  tomwys
October 10, 2020 7:22 am

tomwys, well said, and it’s really all that need be said, except that science and the data back you up.

Reply to  tomwys
October 10, 2020 8:11 am

There is no CO2 reduction crowd. It doesn’t exist anywhere.

The trillion dollar industry is based on talking about CO2 reduction and telling/mandating people to reduce CO2, with the latter being all phony too. It’s organized virtue-signaling but hey, it pays well.

Say what you want about the autistic kid, but she figured it out.

Reply to  tomwys
October 10, 2020 8:50 am

The CO2 crowd has drunk ‘the Koolaid’ of the climate cult and refuses use logic or to listen to reaon. They don’t even listen to the IPCC’s pet scientists and most of the ranting and raving in the media go beyond the contrived IPCC’s conclusions or political summaries (which frequently seem unrelated to and go beyond the ipcc pet science). Sorry, long story short: the monster has a life of its own! Media frequently trumpet doom that was never confirmed by the ipcc, like co2 increase will cuase more and stronger hurricanes or forest fires. The whole situation is out of control – has reached a tipping point! – and soon all those funding whores promoting climate stupidity to get research funding will soon start facing all kinds of restrictions on the perks of academia like conference travel.

BernieGoetz
Reply to  tomwys
October 10, 2020 11:32 am

IMHO CO2 is not the problem. What is meant by AGW is a man made rise in average ocean surface temperature. Water pollution (mostly from Asia) causes significant ocean temperature rise due to more sunlight absorption on 3/4 of the planet’s surface. Atmospheric CO2 has insignificant effect on raising ocean or land temperature. Human water pollution is off the charts and the effects are obvious along all coasts and particularly asian rivers. The oceans viewed from space show large algae blooms almost everywhere near human population or some industries. Algae blooms are caused by polluted water, not CO2. Clean water reflects most sunlight but algae evolved to absorb sunlight. Ocean dead zones are similar: The darker water absorbs more sunlight than clean water. Oceans are 75% of the planet surface and direct solar heating is the biggest effect on ocean temperature. The modern world uses the oceans as a convenient toilet. Now even the Ganges has dead zones. These dead zones are caused by water pollution, not CO2. Yet dead zones are typically blamed . Ocean surface temperature rise is just one symptom of water pollution.
Human water pollution consists of: human biological waste, farm waste, phosphates, nitrates, plastics, garbage, toxic industrial wastes from chemicals to oil, carcinogens, not nice, etc. This water pollution is what causes ocean oxygen depletion, dead zones, acidification, algae blooms, and artificial rising ocean temperature. More efficient treatment of sewage and agricultural runoff is needed even if the population is greatly reduced. Plus conscientious economic ways of handling industrial waste. Perhaps the worst untreatable stuff could go to some badlands if it doesn’t hurt the water table. Using the oceans generally as a toilet is the problem. Its a question of affordability.

Not Chicken Little
October 10, 2020 6:59 am

As an amateur astronomer since the 1960s I am saddened that the profession has succumbed to junk science, when once it was completely guided by data and observation. Oh, they do have some rather outlandish theories proposed occasionally but that’s more on the cosmology side…

Randle Dewees
October 10, 2020 7:03 am

Well, Python is OK to test something like a image processing scheme, but if you want to do that processing at 120 FPS in real time… c++.

Randle Dewees
Reply to  Randle Dewees
October 10, 2020 8:02 am

I’m not defending the stupidity of this astronomy hair shirting. Just saying there are software tools for different tasks. I continuously had to persuade young engineers and scientists to give up their favorite uni scripted holdovers (Python, Mathematica (brrrr)) and get real.

Editor
Reply to  Randle Dewees
October 10, 2020 9:52 am

That’s what scipy and numpy are meant for. they’re C++ libraries that are coded like Python code. Develop new user-centric code in Python, do the number crunching in numpy.

At a Python user group, a Python newbie joined us looking for pointers in doing a realtime radar collision avoidance program in Python for an automotive company. Ultimately, he did very well, and much better than we realized was possible.

I assume there are massively parallel variants that let people throw together efficient supercomputer applications in not very much time.

October 10, 2020 7:10 am

Switching from Python to C++ to reduce carbon emissions! You can’t make this stuff up!

Plonkers. They might consider engaging their brains at some point.

Barbara
Reply to  ThinkingScientist
October 10, 2020 7:48 am

You’re presuming they have brains.

Assumes facts not in evidence. >:-(

d
October 10, 2020 7:11 am

April first again? This either the funniest satire or the stupidest reporter on record — perhaps it is both. Social engagement and media account for millions of times more per minute computer power-generated carbon than all the astronomy ever.

Reply to  d
October 10, 2020 8:07 am

There is a rumor that cosmology-oriented astronomers have engaged one of the largest supercomputers ever built—along the lines of Deep Thought, running with the assistance of lab rats—to answer the ultimate question of, at least, the Universe.

Can anyone verify if this is true, and if so what its carbon footprint might be?

I would also like to know what programming language is being used.

Editor
Reply to  Gordon A. Dressler
October 10, 2020 9:57 am

Back in my supercomputer days, someone (I forget who) observed “I don’t know what language we will be using for supercomputers will look like, but I know it will be called Fortran.”

Sometime after I moved on I read an article about the next version of Fortran. One of the additions was Object Oriented Programming constructs.

Do it’s probably Fortran 42.

icisil
October 10, 2020 7:21 am

Thou art so sinful, knaves. Repent of thine vices and do better.

October 10, 2020 7:32 am

Any of us who haven’t learned an important lesson by know about academics and authority are probably never going to understand. As an academic and a physician myself, I know the problem well. We are credited with knowledge simply by our titles whether we are following scientific principles or not, whether we are more influenced by financial reward or the search for truth, and whether we have a clue what we are saying or are just making up convenient lies to sell ourselves. I tell my students not to believe anyone, myself included, unless they examine the evidence supporting conclusions for themselves and apply objective reasoning to their analysis.

The beginning of the argument above starts with claims about increasing wildfires and strengthening hurricanes that will be accepted as fact by many as they come from authority. The truth is they are unsupported and even contradicted claims when one looks at the long term objective measures of these events. We live in a world where, for a large segment of the population, image and belief are more valued that truth and reason.

Reply to  Andy Pattullo
October 10, 2020 8:05 am

Human societies have long been infused with cultural superstitions. It was only the hard edge of The Enlightenment that changed western society and put it on the path to scientific revolutions. The on-going political correctness and cancel culture phenomena that are consuming western science is a devolutionary process, an anti-enlightenment back back to beliefs in superstition and anthropocentric ideas in order to control the people that enlightenment set free.

icisil
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
October 10, 2020 8:18 am

Requirement to get a science degree (select one):
1) demonstrate ability to apply scientific knowledge in the rigorous execution of scientific method
2) pass multiple choice tests

Reply to  icisil
October 11, 2020 8:18 am

Great observation. There are many people with no scientific credentials who are more skilled at sifting through contradictory claims and evidence to get to a reasonable understanding of truth than a lot of those with PhD in their title. Our methods of selecting people for scientific fields are as reliable at finding the most qualified, as our our political processes in finding capable leaders. I believe I am a good physician (but don’t take my word on that), and I graduated near the top of my class, but I am very skilled at writing multiple choice exams. That skill may have counted for more than anything else.

commieBob
October 10, 2020 7:32 am

… abandon software languages like Python, in favour of compiled languages like C++.

They could be so much more efficient if they learned to program in Assembler. The elite could program in machine code.

There is a reason for every programming language. Suggesting C++ as a replacement for Python suggests a lack of sophistication.

Reply to  commieBob
October 10, 2020 9:16 am

Actually they should *all* be required to program in machine code. It would keep them so busy they wouldn’t have time to come up with the idiotic conclusions they provide now!

October 10, 2020 7:33 am

Will the switch come with a built-in “HarryReadMe” file?

October 10, 2020 7:39 am

Virtue signalling is a cosmically strong signal, unstudied by astronomers until this announcement…..

Ron Long
October 10, 2020 7:41 am

Yea, Eric, but what does Astrology have to do with climate change?

Reply to  Ron Long
October 10, 2020 8:14 am

“. . . what does Astrology have to do with climate change?”

Don’t you realize it is all predestined by the stars?

October 10, 2020 7:45 am

We stand together in stark witness to the destruction of any future credibility of statements coming from Messrs. Leo Burtscher and Simon Portegies Zwart.

October 10, 2020 7:54 am

They’re just channeling their inner Lysenkoism instincts, weaving politics into their science in hopes of finding success in the recognition of their science skills. Trofim Lysenko was not successful at dominating Soviet science because he had better science or scientifically sound ideas. He dominated and controlled Soviet biological and genetic science for 40 years by appealing to the class structure warfare mentality of Soviet communism styled under Stalin. He exploited the culture by wrapping himself in political power to gain standing in Soviet science academies. He did this by spewing the ideological lies of communism in with his biology. The same thing is now happening in too much of today’s western sciences.

From Wikipedia:
Lysenko’s political success was mostly due to his appeal to the Communist Party and Soviet ideology. Following the disastrous collectivization efforts of the late 1920s, Lysenko’s “new” methods were seen by Soviet officials as paving the way to an “agricultural revolution.” Lysenko himself was from a peasant family, and was an enthusiastic advocate of Leninism.[13][10] The Party-controlled newspapers applauded Lysenko’s “practical” efforts and questioned the motives of his critics.[13] Lysenko’s “revolution in agriculture” had a powerful propaganda advantage over the academics, who urged the patience and observation required for science.[14] Lysenko was admitted into the hierarchy of the Communist Party, and was put in charge of agricultural affairs. He used his position to denounce biologists as “fly-lovers and people haters”,[15] and to decry the “wreckers” in biology, who he claimed were trying to disable the Soviet economy and cause it to fail. Furthermore, he denied the distinction between theoretical and applied biology and concepts such as control groups and statistics in general:[16]“
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

Lysenko found scientific success not via his science ideas, which we know today were foundationally wrong. He found personal professional success in the Soviet science academy (at the time) via his political intertwining with his flawed theories, to the great detriment of all Soviet biological sciences, where actual science only advances via intellectual openness, curiosity, and willingness to abandon failed theories.

Western science is now entering a Dark Ages, an anti-Enlightenment Period where discriminatory diversity mandates, political correctness, and critical race theory, and other junk social ideas are being used to politicize and infuse the pursuit of science. Michael Crichton’s famous lecture on ”Aliens cause global warming is a realization by Dr Crichton of the beginning of a creeping anti-Enlightenment into Western sciences that is consuming all of the sciences now tiday, even in that those like astronomy that those scientists smugly thought themselves immune from such an intellectual cancer. Calling for useless and futile gestures like those that Eric highlights here happening in Astronomy, is a symptom of this intellectual cancer spreading through hard science disciplines that thought themselves immune to the political anti-Enlightenment. This is happening, because too many “scientists” are finding career success not in the rigor of their science, which is usually mediocre at best, but by wrapping themselves in the political culture of a politicized science that carries the favor of authoritarian political regime that is consuming a society like malignant cancer ravages a body. A prominent example of how a field has gotten consumed by this is climate science’s Michael Mann, where an individual continues to do this kind of wearing the Emperor’s new clothes political adornment to great career success.

Astronomy is very much part of the on-going crisis of failed Dark Matter theory. How can astronomers now distinguish themselves in this mess of a discipline drowning in paradigm failure and so many competing theories with no way for a young astronomer to know which avenue to pursue. The lure of politicizing oneself’s science work to find career success is the siren call to the rocks of despair. Climate science went down this path in the 1990’s. Will astronomy now too follow the siren call of political correctness onto the rocks of despair?

Megs
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
October 10, 2020 2:37 pm

Great post Joel.

Can I use it to try to dispell the leftist view of my family and friends that you can ‘trust the 97% of scientists’? I know that’s obsurd, but you say it so much better than I could. And of course, I’m not one of the 97%.

Reply to  Megs
October 10, 2020 8:25 pm

Of course. So many parallels between what Lysenko did 90 years ago in Soviet Russia to gain success in the Soviet science academies. The likes of Michael Mann and others are today pushing the Marxism of critical race theory and climate “justice” are claimed as reasons to support climate change policies that have nothing to do with climate. They do this for career advancement when their actual science achievements (publications) are fraudulent or based on superstitions. Just like Lysenko.

Megs
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 10, 2020 9:33 pm

Thanks Joel.

At least the scientists of today who dare to refute the likes of Mann and his cohorts aren’t being executed! Yet, although silence by journalism is pretty effective.

Scientists of integrity will regain their place once again. It’ll take a while for the general population to know who it is they’re supposed to trust though.

Jeff Labute
October 10, 2020 7:57 am

A compiled language executes faster.
Either way, if you have an accidental endless-loop in either language it will destroy the world, and C++ will get you there faster.

icisil
Reply to  Jeff Labute
October 10, 2020 8:27 am

It’s all the same. One is energy (and time) intensive before the other is.

icisil
Reply to  Jeff Labute
October 10, 2020 8:30 am

Oh n/m. I was thrown off by the word faster. Yes. compiled execution will be more efficient, long term.

Reply to  Jeff Labute
October 10, 2020 1:33 pm

A compiled language also requires two steps to debug.
Debug -> compile -> run -> debug-> compile -> run -> repeat until there are no more bugs. If the resultant program will be run millions of times per year, the debug time is a minor contribution to total run time.

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