Scientists Look at 2012: Carrying on Margaret Mayall's Legacy of Debunking Pseudoscience (Abstract)

Volume 38 number 1 (2010)

Kristine Larsen

Abstract

(Abstract only) In 1941 Margaret Mayall, the future director of the AAVSO, and Harvard colleague Bart Bok authored a critical study of astrology and its impact on society entitled “Scientists Look at Astrology.” They chastised the scientific community for thinking the debunking of astrology to be “below the dignity of scientists.” In contrast, they opined that it is one of the duties of scientists to “inform the public about the nature and background of a current fad, such as astrology, even though to do so may be unpleasant.” Fast-forward 68 years in the future, and the astronomical community now faces a pseudoscientific enemy just as insidious as astrology, yet just as ignored by the general professional and amateur community as astrology had been when Mayall and Bok took up the charge in 1941. The pseudoscience in question is the well-publicized “prediction” that the Mayan calendar will end on December 21, 2012, causing the end of civilization in concert with one of a number of possible astronomical calamities, including (but not limited to) the gravitational pull of the center of the Milky Way (somehow enhanced by an “alignment” with our solar system), the near-approach by a mythical 10th planet (often named Nibiru), large-scale damage to the planet by solar flares larger than those ever recorded, or the shifting of the earth’s axis of rotation (often confused with a proposed sudden and catastrophic reversal of the earth’s magnetic polarity). As a scientific and educational organization, the AAVSO and its members have a responsibility to follow in Mayall’s footsteps, shining the light of reason and knowledge on the dark corners of ignorance which far too often permeate the Internet, radio and television programming, and recent films, most notably 2012. This talk will highlight some of the basic premises of the 2012 hysteria and suggest ways that the AAVSO and its members can use variable stars and the history of the AAVSO to counteract some of the astronomical misinformation which is increasingly promulgated by proponents of the 2012 pseudoscience.