The other day--the same day, in fact, that our President controversially won the Nobel Peace Prize--NASA bombed the moon.
The poet in me--and many others, from what I can gather--was wounded. How could you want to bomb that mystical night-rider, puller of tides, mysterious mover of hearts? How to bomb that pale smiling disk for which wolves howl and that once shone a ghostly gleam on the polished sides of the Great Pyramids at Gizeh? It was one thing to gently land, take some rocks, romp in big funny suits, and depart in a flash. Quite another to hit the soft body of the moon with a missile, expecting to "throw up a six-mile high plume" of debris, and then with a second projectile, take measurements. It seemed in a way ignominious and certainly disrespectful to--and I think we can all agree--a lady.
But the rationalist in me could barely squelch a cheer. It sure sounded exciting! And anyway, the moon, a celestial body like any other, is bombarded by projectiles hundreds of times a year. Look at those craters! They didn't get there because poets were worrying about the moon's complexion. Then there was the whole "looking for water" gambit, which also held promise. Does anyone really hate the idea of a sustainable moonbase? Are we supposed to be stuck here on this stinky old Earth forever, or what?
The best part of the whole thing, and my point in this post, was that it certainly appears that the moonbombing was a very public, much over-hyped flop. There was no visible plume. Who knows what happened? It made no sense. And that is what I love about science.
Unlike the more vulnerable constructions of the universe (for instance that of, say, the literal Christian religion), science (should I capitalize it?) can withstand repeated failures and still not fail as a system of inquiry. For as we all know, science is based on hypothesis, discovery, and inference. Science never claims to "know" anything--only to have observed what appears to be, and can be demonstrated again to be, cause and effect.
This ice-veined method has given us much in the way of sustenance and comfort. Rampant, it has also threatened our very existence. Clearly the scientific method holds awesome power and only the simplest or most obstinate would deny its benefits (or its potential for harm). But it is the ability to fail--this fearlessness of failure; in fact this self-invitation to failure such that one can learn from the failure--that is the heart and soul of the discipline.
While I am certain there were a few red faces around the table at NASA after the expected result(a big, visible plume of dust) failed to materialize (though they claim to have caused enough disturbance to make a study in any case), the event certainly did not, despite not having lived up to expectations, deter a single scientist from belief in the usefulness of the discipline or even the mission itself.
And unlike the baseless, harebrained claims made by adherents to other belief systems (the world will end in 2012, the world was going to end in 1999, the world will end when the righteous are pulled up to heaven in the Rapture), science can continue to make considered predictions, have them fail, dust itself off, and try again. It does not claim to have "known" anything. It just keeps trying, and trying, and trying. And eventually, by all evidence, it will somehow succeed.
And as opposed to the spurious certitudes of seers and priests, how can you not love that about science?
