Onion Eater
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2008
- Messages
- 65
What if there was an organization called the Post-Autistic Astronomy Network? They would denounce black holes as an example of “imaginary worlds” and anybody who mentioned them as “autistic.” Then, a few years later, they would change their name to Real World Astronomy to be more politically correct, though everybody would know what the “A” in their initials and in the URL of their website stood for.
Observatories would only be allowed to point their telescopes at “real worlds” like the moon. The founder of Post-Autistic Astronomy would create a blacklist of books that we are not allowed to read called Toxic Textbooks, though cravenly not printing his name anywhere on his website (Hint: It’s Edward Fullbrook).
Prediction in astronomy would consist of statements like, “five of the last nine craters we have observed were over 100 meters deep; therefore the next one probably will be to.” Discovery in astronomy would consist of finding a crater on the moon that nobody had written about yet, describing it and then naming it after oneself. The only difference between popular essays and refereed journal articles would be that the latter would include statistics, like the average depth of a crater measured at various points in its interior.
If Stephen Hawking asked to have a telescope pointed into deep space so that he could look for evidence of black holes, he would be banned for life from the observatory. Real-world astronomers would point at him behind his back, whisper the word “autistic” and make snarky comments about him on the internet.
Observatories would only be allowed to point their telescopes at “real worlds” like the moon. The founder of Post-Autistic Astronomy would create a blacklist of books that we are not allowed to read called Toxic Textbooks, though cravenly not printing his name anywhere on his website (Hint: It’s Edward Fullbrook).
Prediction in astronomy would consist of statements like, “five of the last nine craters we have observed were over 100 meters deep; therefore the next one probably will be to.” Discovery in astronomy would consist of finding a crater on the moon that nobody had written about yet, describing it and then naming it after oneself. The only difference between popular essays and refereed journal articles would be that the latter would include statistics, like the average depth of a crater measured at various points in its interior.
If Stephen Hawking asked to have a telescope pointed into deep space so that he could look for evidence of black holes, he would be banned for life from the observatory. Real-world astronomers would point at him behind his back, whisper the word “autistic” and make snarky comments about him on the internet.
