By Pangeaprogress.com
His response was, in a nutshell, that science has the power to redeem and inspire, and that casting our eyes to the stars can unite every human on Earth. Then he echoed a sentiment I’d heard a day earlier: Keep writing about science. It’s important, and it’s inspiring.
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“There’s a unifying beauty to it–you can appreciate the stars and planets whether you’re Sunni, Shia, Hindu, Christian, Jew, atheist or Wiccan,” Kareem said. “Finding new things to discover, wondering at what could be up there, us being the universe contemplating itself, setting our sights at conquering a new frontier, that’s what we should be doing.”
It’s true. We can all walk outside and look up and admire the same stars, regardless of the stories we inscribe upon them. Kareem went on to describe how watching Venus cross the face of our sun helped bring him closer to his dad, and to the threads that connect our planet with the cosmos.
“I was in college and wanted to see the Venus transit but couldn’t find any filters to use on my telescope,” he recalled. So, his dad went out and found a welding mask that would let Kareem safely observe the sun. As he peered through the mask and into the eyepiece, Kareem saw Earth’s sister
marching across the great golden disk that powers life on our planet.
“Venus was just a speck in my feeble excuse of a telescope, but it was gorgeous,” he said. “Seeing it as a tiny fleck against the sun was sort of like the pale blue dot idea—of how fragile and vulnerable the thread is—and now, thinking back to it, it drives home how insignificant our differences are in the grand scheme of things.”
I’m not an optimist by nature—“realist” is the description I prefer—but I’d like to think that he’s right, that sharing the wonder of science, exploration and adventure can be an antidote, in some small measure, to suffering and destruction.
In retrospect, I should have known this all along. Finding solace in the sights and patterns of the natural world has been a part of me since year one: Before I was old enough to walk or talk, my family discovered that showing me the shimmering moon was often the only way to calm me down.
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