You thought the stars were.....WHAT!?

G'day all, for my first post I give you this.

Click on this link

The scale of the universe

You Science people really do enjoy pointing out how superior to other people you (think you) are, don't you?

So she doesn't know what stars are. Never thought about it. That makes her a freak of nature for you to gawk and point fingers at? "Look at how stupid she is!"

Maybe she simply doesn't care. Ever thought of that? And why should she care? How will it benefit her life in the slightest degree to know the difference between a star and a nebula?

Only so she doesn't get made fun of by pompous jackasses who can't believe that other people don't find the same things in the world as interesting as they do. Or if she goes on a game show.

Other than that, it's useless information for the overwhelming majority of people on this planet.

a reply to: Shepard64

I was at a day job I had back when smart-phones first came out.
I downloaded Google Sky, and was looking for the moon and other areas of general interest to me.
I don't know a lot about astronomy, and a little about astrology. I'm learning tho and I thought it was a great app.

A religious type said "I don't wanna see that devil stuff!"
I was like, "Uh, how is looking at the HEAVENS 'devil stuff?'"
She just kinda huffed and walked off mad at her own inability to answer that.

I can't wait til they develop "Google Hollow Earth" lol.

One of the many reasons I keep quiet. A wise man keeps his own council.

My grandmother thinks the earth is flat and if you sail too far into the ocean you'll fall off the edge. Seriously though there are people that could care less about such things. Some people believe a 2000 year old book tells them all they need to know.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

You need to realize that people have more pressing concerns like their children or careers.

Which is exactly why our world is in its present state.

a reply to: skunkape23

Heh!

I could do a spin off line in high end gentleman's accessories! Little magnifying glass on a mount for the lighting of ones pipe, for instance! ALL HAIL THE CHAP!

a reply to: NthOther

Why care about stars, galaxies, and nebulae? To understand how large the existence is and where humanity fits within it.

It's so unfortunate that you think that way, many people do, and the world slowly becomes more and more materialistic only caring about the next pay-check instead of seeking to know more about the greater existence.

originally posted by: Shepard64
Have any of you met someone like this? Someone so ignorant of science and space? How did you deal with them?

All the time. On the whole, people are not getting smarter.
There are people out there that think that chemtrails/cloud seeding/weather modification is some sort of disney fairy tale that mentally ill people believe in. I'm not very sympathetic or understanding towards those sorts of people when I come across them. I just inform them that in this day and age there is no excuse for being so stupid, that there is this giant encyclopedia called "The Internet" and maybe they might have heard of it?

But I think it all depends on the individual person and whether they want to open their eyes to different possibilities or not. I ended up here at ATS because I was led here on one of those times I stayed up all night looking up information on things I wanted to educate myself about. I'm a very curious person, and it's gotten me in trouble more times than I can remember. But some people just want to watch crap tv and listen to crap music instead of expanding their horizons.
Meh. More world for me to enjoy.

Hopefully you also explained to her that some of the "stars" seen in the night sky are also planets such as Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.

Honestly, I think this sort of thing is much more common than we think...there have been times where I assumed stuff was common knowledge, but have come to find out it is apparently pretty common for people to not know it...weird...

There are lots of people like this ,I've come across a couple of people who think a falling star is literally a star falling,a lot of people don't realise the sun is a star and they seem to think that the universe is just the solar system.

originally posted by: Shepard64
At this point my heart was racing I almost burst out with half anger and half laughter.

That's how I get when people tell me they vote.

Where do you live?
By the way, Consumerism > Science

It's called idiocracy yeah we live in that world just watch the movie and tell me the difference between mainstream society and the society shown in the movie besides the exaggerated things it is a very real comparison of the state of humanity and where it is going. You think if people were actually smart we would be in the state of affairs we are in right now? Hell no the government and corporations have taken advantage of the ignorance of the masses since the beginning of time sadly..The difference now is people actually choose to be ignorant in this day and age which is so sad but then I don't care its seems humans enjoy suffering.

So much for our education system. reply to: skalla

a reply to: deerislander


Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

I had (sorta) the same thing when the knucklehead downstairs (me) was in the backyard with the telescope again, I was asked what could I actually see through the thing. A few mins later and we had done the Moon, other galaxies and a planet with rings around it. Worked up quite a crowd for an hour too.

Next week and back to being the weirdo downstairs though LOL

Salut

a reply to: ClydeBuilt

You can't earn money looking through a telescope in your spare time.

Stop being an outcast weirdo...

One day I heard someone tell me that she and her husband had a humorous argument about the sound of thunder and where it came from. I asked her, where did she think it came from? She says..."I always thought it was from clouds bumping into each other. And she was absolutely serious about it. So of course...I'm all like :0

I had never heard that before. And for a 33 year old woman to have gone her whole life like that? I had to know more.

So I went into the office and started polling people thinking "surely, people know where the sound of thunder comes from". There are 32 people in my work center. I asked about 25 of them where the sound of thunder comes from. 8 people said "clouds bumping into each other. 1 person said it came from outer space, and 4 people said they didn't know and never really thought about it. Less than half the people I asked knew the asnwer.

It's a simple thing really, no point in getting upset about. But I learned WAAAAYYYYYY back when I was in grade school, maybe younger, where the sound of thunder comes from. I'm still in awe at it...

I take it with a grain of salt. Not everyone is curious about the world around them and some are only interested in their mundane existence or what some celebrity is up to. They may be skilled with certain social skills that I might lack. They may have a ton of friends and see that as being superior to some smart guy with only a few friends. They could know how to cook some great food or how to make their friends happy and not know hardly a thing about the universe.

if some advanced alien species arrived here they might think even our brightest scientists were really stupid for not having much knowledge or insight into how our universe works. Afterall we are all still stuck on this tiny little planet in one star system in only one galaxy when there are billions of star systems in this galaxy and there are billions of galaxies out there. It makes us look pretty insignificant. Thinking about the universe is like one ant exploring my backyard amazed at other ants just going about their work not caring.

It does irk me a bit when someone like that wants to talk about a subject and instruct others on it when it's obvious they know very little about what they are saying. A priest at my church two or 3 times told everyone the stars are fixed in the sky. That just irked me that he told everyone that. You don't see them move relative to each other but they are not fixed. Do galaxies move? Yes they do. What are galaxies? Lots of stars and star systems. I thought about asking the priest if he ever heard about the Big Bang theory. If he said yes then I might say so all galaxies and stars are literally moving away from the center of the universe. If he thought that was all in the past I might give up on explaining any more.

I wondered if he understood that as the Earth rotates, stars will rise in the east and set in the west and they all move relative to us during the night. You can even tell time if you are familiar with the position of stars as they move like clock hands around the north star relative to our position. He did not say any of that. Just that stars are fixed. They don't move.