do astronomers have any idea what they are talking about?

Question

i know i'm not one to challenge someone who obtained a doctorate in astronomy, but i mean do any of them really know what the hell they are talking about. they study things that are millions and billions of light-years away or so they say. you see they really don't know, because not many things in astronomy have ever had concrete proof. am i right?

Answer 1

You are 100% correct!

Astronomy is a discipline in science where one does not perform experiments because of the large scale of what ones studies. Spectroscopy might be the lone exception to this rule, but mostly this assertion is true. Astronomers cannot normally *test* hypotheses like most other scientists!

Instead in astronomy, the "truth" about a particular phenomena observed through telescopes is arrived at by a peer review process and some sort of a scientific consensus among highly educated people. This does not make the arrived at conclusion correct however. It just increases the probability that it is correct.

Also, there is a principle in science called occam's razor. It posulates that the mechanisms in nature are both simple and elegant. If a mechanism proposed by a scientist( be it a normal scientist or an astronomer) is too strange and weird then it probably is not the correct answer.

So basically this is how astronomers arrive at what is a reasonable proof of what they hold to be the "truth" !

Imagine how our grandchildren will throw everything we know about the universe out the window after they get more information about the real truth!

This is how the journey of knoweldge has progressed for mankind
for eons through guesses and later corrected guesses and so
on!

Answer 2

ALL sciences are like that. No science really knows for sure, facts are always best guesses. Astronomy suffers a little more sometimes because it is so hard to test theories (it's not like you can go into the jungle and observe supernovae up close :) )

Most astronomers know very well what they are talking about... as well as what they aren't. What I mean there is that they tend to study a wide variety of fields from physics to biology to complicated mathematics. It is, in fact, somewhat intimidating to think of the schooling they have to go through. I took my first astrophysics class last year and it was the hardest class in any subject I've ever taken... I just have a few more years plus some doctorate work in it though, haha.

The point is, none of them claim to know for sure in the first place. Astronomers also are (or should be) very good at admitting they are wrong or that things should change (like the status of a comet that we've been calling a planet).

Answer 3

Some of them do. Some don't. Education is a tool. It is not a measurement of intelligence. If a person doesn't have the logical thought capabilities to use their education, it does no good. Like everyone else, Astronomers are influenced, some more, some less, by what their peers think and say. A theory can become widely accepted because of an outspoken and very visible few. The decision to reclassify Pluto, for instance, was made by a very small group of 850 people that don't even represent 10% of their community.

Just over 700,000 doctors in the U.S. accidentally kill just over 120,000 people per year. Obviously, there are more than a few incompetent doctors in the U.S. You will find the same types of things in any field. Some lawyers, judges, pharmacists, veterinarians, engineers, dentists, mayors, senators, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc. just don't know what they are doing.

Don't assume that some one knows what they are doing because they have an education. It is your responsibility to challenge them.

Answer 4

No, you're not right. Astronomy is an exact science (not alike astrology). Offcourse, there are many that speculate. As within EVERY science!! And most of those won't say their speculations are the real truth. They will however tell what they think is likely. As within other sciences.
They can, for example, analyze the light of stars far away and tell this way what kind of elements are present there. And that's thousands of lightyears away! They can, for example, measure how much light is bend and thus calculate masses. They can, for example, find new planets/moons which we can use to populate so that we can expand humanity into our solar system and beyond. They can analyze impact craters and then tell things about how some heavenly bodies/elements were created/formed. Etc.
And there are way more methods/things like that. Many things are proven scientificly (unless you set aside the whole scientific method. In that case, all other sciences are also just 'bullocks' (and the earth then is still flat)).

Answer 5

I understand where you're coming from. When you get into all the nitty gritty details, astronomy, like any other science, becomes quite complex. As a result, when communicating their research, astronomers must simplify things. Often the first thing to get simplified (or left out all together) is the uncertainties. In reality, astronomers have a very good handle on the limitations of their research - it's just very hard to communicate this effectively without it sounding like they really know nothing at all.

You are right to keep an open mind when it comes to scientific results, just be careful not to dismiss things too quickly, either. Critical thinking is vital to science.

Answer 6

You can tell a lot about the physical properties of something just by looking at light from the object. Not being able to experiment with the objects of study in the traditional sense (have a control and something with a variable you fiddle with and see how they turn out differently) does make the field more challenging, and also less accurate. (For many quantities in astronomy, precision beyond one or two significant figures is pure fantasy.)

One metaphor often used in astronomy classes is imagine being a bug with a 24 hour life span in a forest full of trees. Can you come up with some information on the life cycle and growth of trees without watching them change? Sure you can. You see some sprouting seeds, some small shoots, some bigger saplings, mature trees, and fallen trees in various states of decay. It is a puzzle, but not impossible to imagine putting the order together and making up theories that adequately explain the gaps and even predict things like how long trees live. The same concept applies to humans studying stars.

In spite of the challenges, the field does make predictions that later observations support. That alone demonstrates we know what we are talking about at least some of the time.

Beware of people who are too sure of themselves, who can' explain their answers, or who never say "I don't know/we don't know." Most of the time, even when I don't know, I at least can think of a way to find out, but that is different than just spitting out pat answers without a moments thought.

Good for you for demanding explanations and not taking ANYTHING for granted.

Answer 7

Most astronomers do know what they talk about. Astronomy is a very competitive field and if any of them goes off on a tangent without strong evidence they will be whipped back into shape quickly. This is so because so few of us understand what they are saying and if they allowed extravagant ideas to be thrown around without strong evidence or logic to support them they wouldn't last long and we would grow weary of hearing them talk. Speaking for myself, I hear a new idea and listen and watch for others of their rank to answer them either by arguing against or for the proposition. I then draw my own conclusions.

Answer 8

Of course they do; they make conclusions strictly upon what they observe. They are within the mindset such that allows them to strictly think on the basis of logic, deducing what they see before them and coming to rational conclusions--just like ANY science. Theories derive from there, from exerimentation (just like in any other science), and they go from there.

The fact that astronomers focus around objects which lie billions of light years away from us doesn't mean that what they conclude about them is a bunch of poppycock. As long as the radiation those object emit is detectable to them, they take what they can and make use of it. You may think that because their explanations and what they (claim) to know about the universe is so extravagant and detailed that what's being said as of today could be as false as saying the sky is yellow, but that would simply reflect how little faith you have in humans in general. You might as well be tearing down the biologist who says that all human beings contain red blood cells.

Catch my drift?