Page 6
Wednesday, April 14,1999
The Pilot
Well-known astronomer visits campus
Andy Bailey
Pilot staff
The time was 7:00 p.m. on
March 15 and the place was
Hamrick Auditorium. The sub
ject was “ Extra-solar Planets
and the Potential for Other Life
On the Universe.” After a brief
introduction by Tom English,
Dr. Charles R. Tolbert started
his lecture, a “ hybrid of the
potential of life elsewhere in
the universe and the new extra
solar planets.” He had intended
to give a lecture on only the
possibility of other life, but had
been asked to discuss the extra
solar planets as well.
Tolbert attended the
University of Richmond, and
has a Doctorate from
Vanderbilt University. His
father grew up outside of
Lenore, and Tolbert lived “ in
the shadow” of Grandfather
Mountain for several years. He
came to GWU through the
Harlow Shapley Visiting
Lectureship program of the
American Astronomical
Society. He currently teaches
at UVA.
Until about eight years
ago, our sun (sol) was the only
star with known planets,
explained Tolbert. This was the
first time that technology was
advanced enough to speculate
the existence of planets.
Astronomers cannot directly
experiment on stars -they have
to rely on light. The color,
spectrum, and Doppler shift
depend on, respectively, tem
perature, composition, and
motion. The Doppler shift
effect gives stars the Red shift
(going further from us) and
Blue shift (coming closer to
us). It is also the Doppler shift
that allows us to speculate
about the existence of extra
solar planets. Dr. Tolbert said
that planets were discovered,
but they were strange. They
were orbiting pulsars, which is
the after -effect of a Super
Nova. No one knows how the
planets survived that close to
the star. Then, about 5 years
ago, newer technology led to
the discovery of planets around
sun-like stars. Tolbert held up a
list of stars with planets that
was six pages long. All of these
planets were three to five times
the mass of Jupiter (which is
300 times the mass of the
earth) and had orbits of as low
as three days. Eighty-four days
was the highest period he gave
(Mercury’s orbit is eighty-eight
days). The planets were big,
close to the stars, and fast; no
one understands how they
exist.
Tolbert moved on to the
possibility of other life in the
universe. He said we do not
know of any life without some
we should wait 5 years or so to
have a better idea about the
extra-solar planets.
Tolbert fielded questions
from the audience after he fin
ished his presentation. He
answered questions about Mars
rocks on earth, saying we are
not sure they come from Mars
(they just have the right com
position) and that the “bacte-
plate tectonics had taken over.
New data or reinterpretations
of old data change the status
quo. There are no discovered
truths. “Science tries to under
stand nature; better understand
ing leads to better theories.”
Science, according to Tolbert,
corrects itself from human mis
understanding.
Tolbert then focused on
“...science ignores reiigion, reiigion fights
science... You can always hear preaching
against modern science”
sort of liquid, so we look for
liquid before life. He also men
tioned that “the one way to find
out if something is alive is to
kill it.” He explained why the
moon is a “ bad” place for life,
although it is the easiest place
to look. Mars is second best,
but we have not been there yet,
and probably will not find any
thing when we go. “We must
go to other solar systems,” said
Tolbert. However, planets do
not equal life. We would first
have to receive a signal of some
sort—we have not so far. There
is absolutely no shred of evi
dence, so why do most scien
tists say there is other life in the
universe? Tolbert was going to
prove there was other life.
Using statistics and a rather
simple formula, you arrive at
either—optimistically - 10 mil
lion forms of life in our galaxy,
or—pessimistically—one in a
billion chances of life in this
galaxy. Taking into considera
tion 100 billion stars in our
galaxy, and even more galaxies
in the universe, there is a lot of
life out there. However,
Tolbert quickly added it would
take four and a half years for a
one- way communication to the
nearest star. (One light-year
equals one year for radio com
munication and our closest
neighbor is 4.5 light years
away.)
In conclusion, Tolbert stat
ed that extra-solar planets are
not what we expected; they are
not planets like earth. Our
solar system seems to be the
oddity. There is no life,
according to the evidence, but
there is life according to the
statistics. Tolbert said that-due
to the length of time for com
munication to take place-it
does not matter. He also said
ria” found in some Mars rocks
is almost too small to ever have
been alive. He also said that
meteoric material is very com
mon and can be found in near
ly all gutters and in dust,
because most meteorites bum
up in the atmosphere. Tolbert
also fielded a question about
Pluto being a planet. He said,
“Yes. There are nine planets:
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune, and Pluto. Therefore,
Pluto is a planet.”
During the lunch on March
16, Dr. Charles R. Tolbert gave
a speech Entitled “ Science and
Religion: One Scientist’s
Opinion.” Tolbert began his
speech saying there were
potential conflicts, and he was
going to give his take on why.
In his lecture, Tolbert used
what scholars would terrn an
Independence position. He
separated the “realms” of sci
ence and religion totally, in
some cases having them almost
come into conflict.
Tolbert began with the
story of Harlow Shapley who
engaged Hubert Curtis in a
debate about whether the spiral
nebulas (and distant objects in
general) were clusters of stars
on the edge of the Milky Way,
or other galaxies. Shapley,
defending the cluster position,
won based on the data he pre
sented. Three years later, a
paper was published with the
distances to various galaxies.
In 1920, clusters prevailed; in
1923, galaxies won. Tolbert
said it was a great example of
the flexibility of science. He
also gave an example concern
ing the Earth’s crust and how it
was once thought that the Earth
was shrinking and that led to
mountains. Within 10 years.
religion. He stated that religion
is generally based on “ancient
and revealed truth.” It becomes
tradition and helps to bolster
the converted and to recruit
new members. Religion,
according to Tolbert, often
incorporates science because
its leaders are educated and
usually know science. This is a
“time bomb” because religion
is left behind when science
changes. He gave the example
of Galileo. In his time, every
one thought the earth stood still
(“you could not feel it moving,
could you”?) and that every
thing else moved (“well, some
thing had to move!”) Tolbert
said that Galileo found stars
fainter than the naked eye
could see, which contradicted
the^j&cripture about the stars
being put in the sky as a sign to
man (“why were they there as
signs to man if man couldn’t
see them”?). The church did
three things: they quoted
Joshua 10:12, 13, where the
sun stands still, they tried to
ban and suppress him and they
had other scientists counter
him.
When the issue of evolu
tion came up, Tolbert remarked
that Catholics were okay with
it because they separated sci
ence and religion and relied on
the church to interpret scrip
ture. Protestants, relying on
individual readings with less
room for interpretation, tried
the previous three methods on
the theory of evolution. The
scientists merely quoted other
famous scientists who said the
earth was created by the second
law of thermodynamics, which
stated you cannot [naturally]
get order from chaos. Since no
experiments could be per
formed, they said evolution
was not a real science. They
were wrong, because the uni
verse is expanding constantly,
which negates the second law
of thermodynamics; you can
also perform experiments in
evolution. “If,” said Tolbert,
“you look at Australia,” you
will see an example of isolated
groups changing with still
“every niche habitable” filled
by a creature.
At the beginning of his
conclusion, Tolbert asked two
questions: did Adam have a
navel and did trees have growth
rings. His conclusion was that
God “created earth in a way
that looks fifteen billion -years-
old.” But, he did not have time
to defend his position on this
point. Tolbert added that while
science ignores religion, reli
gion fights science. “You can
always hear preaching against
modern science,” he said. As a
conclusion, he remarked, “ reli
gion and science stand side by
side if religion does not rely on
science, because science is
fickle.”
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