Murrumbateman, amateur or expert?

Sometimes I wonder what impact I can have on changing the way that people think about how we effect the world we live in. Then along comes Anthony Wesley, Murrumbatemanian amateur astronomer who captures evidence of a massive impact on Jupiter (his image on the left). According to Leigh Fletcher (in Scientific American), including the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact, "these are the only two occurrences of an impact being viewed on Jupiter," Fletcher says. "To be able to view another one in our lifetime is extremely exciting." That excitement made possible by an amateur Anthony. So where were all the experts? Writing articles for peer-reviewed publication at their desks?

This reminded me of the article in SFGate by Cameron Scott that outlines the strategy of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) for using "experts" to discredit the idea that recent climate change is caused by human activities. The nature of scientific inquiry and its non-falsifiable proposition opens up the possibilities for competing theories, leading to the need for further research, until an expert finds the one theory that no one can prove false. That’s many years away when it comes to an undeniable scientific “consensus” on what exactly is causing global warming and climatic change. In the meantime that perceived lack of consensus facilitates a wide variety of claims from purported “experts” that have traction because of the nature of scientific inquiry itself. How as a scientist do you prove your point if you have to admit that there is the remote possibility that you might not be right?

Returning to Jupiter and the experts that study that sort of thing, “astronomers admit they might never know for sure what hit Jupiter. “It’s like throwing a stone on the pond,” explained Dr. Fletcher. “You see the splash, but lose the stone. It’s the splash we can study” (NY Times). That’s an honest assessment of what scientists don’t know - all good scientists are the first to admit that they don’t know everything – that quest to know is what drives them. But do we really want to wait for the experts to agree unequivocally that human activities are the primary drivers behind climate change before we change our unsustainable lifestyles? Do we really want to wait to study the impact of that climatic “splash?”

Returning to Earth, Anthony Wesley’s discovery is a chance for everyone to be reminded that our oft-times over-reliance on experts can keep us from acknowledging and acting on our own knowledge. If he hadn’t been using his own knowledge to observe Jupiter the impacts might have never been observed by anyone at all, let alone the experts. Opportunities for discovery start at home, Anthony is a perfect example of that. That’s also how I answer my own questions about whether what I do as an individual makes a difference.