The Young "Astrologer"

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

My first scientific interest as a child was astronomy, after a flirtation with geology. Not surprisingly, a favorite Christmas gift of mine was a telescope. Both interests were kindled by children's books I'd received as holiday gifts. (The interest in rocks started with a copy of the very book pictured at right, which arrived one year in an Easter basket.) The astronomy book of the same Golden series soon followed. Not long after, my parents bought a set of World Book encyclopedias, which I would devour.

I recalled this today when I got a call from my youngest brother for advice on selecting a telescope for his older son for Christmas. That conversation brought back various formative memories, some pleasant like the ones above and others not so pleasant, but no less formative. All the experiences shaped my intellectual development.

No less important than the excitement of learning about the world was discovering the limitations of those in authority over me. Two products of my voracious reading were that I knew lots of things that many adults did not, and that I had a reputation as someone who did. Both led me early on to develop a highly skeptical view of anyone holding himself out as an authority, benevolent or not.

In sixth grade, our teacher posed us the question of how many moons Jupiter had. Some time between the poor girl's college education and my entering her care, several additional moons had been discovered. I gave the correct number -- at least according to the available knowledge at the time -- and was told that I was wrong. I stuck to my guns anyway, to the point that she looked it up. To her credit, she admitted I was right. From then on, I was acutely aware that a teacher can be mistaken about his material.

Around the same time, our parish priest, obviously trying to be friendly, unintentionally embarrassed me in front of my classmates by referring to me as someone who liked "astrology" -- which I thought even then to be silly. I now suspect that the man simply didn't know the difference between astronomy and astrology, but back then, I assumed that he did. I corrected him, but was perplexed by the fact that the correction seemed to make no difference one way or the other to him. Once again, an authority figure believed something I knew to be false. But it would take me a long time to realize that some adults did not care that they were wrong. That wouldn't come until high school.

During high school my other brother and I ran a paper route for spending money, and one of the more annoying duties was to collect unpaid monthly subscription fees door to door. Mostly, people had simply forgotten and would pay right away, but one time, a guy got several months behind. The possibility didn't occur to me at the time, but he was probably hammered when I showed up to collect. (It was my turn to do the rounds that month.)

The man gave me a hostile rant about all kinds of absurd deficiencies in our service. He rode a bicycle, but we lazily drove cars. He rolled the papers up, but we lazily folded them. Et cetera, et cetera. He refused to pay and eventually became so belligerent that I seized on the first opportunity to leave.

I ended his subscription without notice the next day, and thought that was the end of it until my supervisor mildly scolded me about a complaint from the man's address about a week's worth of "misses." I informed him of my decision and learned that it wasn't mine to make. The man was reinstated as a customer of the paper and I had to resume deliveries at his address, although at least my supervisor would collect from him from now on.

My father, probably because I did not adequately convey how rude and abusive this person was (or because the customer successfully made me look like a jerk), told me that I had been rude and that adults deserved respect. That was the first time I ever found myself disagreeing with my father about a matter of opinion. I kept it to myself, though, because I knew my father to be someone who was conscientious about learning whet he needed to know and forming his opinions. I differed with him, but still respected him -- but I still felt no respect for the deadbeat subscriber. I decided then that respect, or at least my respect, was something that had to be earned. (To be fair, I also suspect my father would agree with such a sentiment.)

And yet, I was hardly a rebellious kid. This was in large part due to the fact that my parents were a foil of honesty against which many other adults of my acquaintance came up short. But it was also due to the fact that I never allowed someone's say-so to override my knowledge, which I always noticed came from various sources, rather than from on high. I consider myself very privileged to have grown up in the kind of stable environment that allowed my mind to develop a normal relationship with reality, rather than atrophy from a constant barrage of such mental abuse as, "Do as I say!" or "What do you know, kid?" or "Who are you to judge?"

I am very grateful to both of them.

-- CAV

6 comments:

Steve D said...

My first scientific interest as a child was astronomy, after a flirtation with geology.
No, no it’s supposed to be astronomy first and then geology. You also forgot to mention archeology. Oh wait, I see you are talking about your interests.

I think the only think I ever wanted to be even for a brief time that wasn’t a scientist was astronaut. Even that was mainly about the rocks.

“but was perplexed by the fact that the correction seemed to make no difference one way or the other to him.”

This type of response still bugs me. I would much rather have hostility or anger than indifference. It basically means that it is impossible to make any sort of progress. In this case though, perhaps the priest was simply embarrassed by his mistake and just wanted to move on quickly. I know I would be embarrassed if I got those two subjects mixed up.

“many other adults of my acquaintance came up short.”

I don’t think I had a huge problem with real dishonesty. Of course I didn’t really pay much attention to other people as a kid since I was generally in my own little world. My general impression then as now of most people is positive. Most people want to be good people, but some level of laziness, evasion or apathy prevents this (is that pragmatism again?). What I did notice about most adults is that they never really had any good answers. I started reading to see what I could find. I happened upon some philosophy books by Mortimer Adler which led me to Plato Aristotle and I finally realized that at least some questions had answers.

““Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.” Some of Adler’s quotes like this sparked my interest in thinking hard and getting to the root of all ideas.

“several additional moons had been discovered.”

The truth answer then and now is that the total number of moons of Jupiter is unknown.

Gus Van Horn said...

"What I did notice about most adults is that they never really had any good answers."

This is really probably a better description of what I noticed most of the time.

Regarding your last sentence: I lost count long ago. That gives me another reason to sympathize with my sixth grade teacher as an adult!

Snedcat said...

Yo, Gus, you write: "My first scientific interest as a child was astronomy, after a flirtation with geology." I first wanted to be an ambulance driver (or so my mother recalls), then an astronaut, but by the age of 8 I had decided I would be a scientist; I first wanted to be an astronomer, then a chemist, then a physicist.

"In sixth grade, our teacher posed us the question of how many moons Jupiter had. Some time between the poor girl's college education and my entering her care, several additional moons had been discovered. I gave the correct number -- at least according to the available knowledge at the time -- and was told that I was wrong."

Heh, I remember the time in 5th grade when our science teacher referred to "infrared radiation"--as if it were radiation that has undergone infraring, whatever that is. It didn't go over well, my correcting her pronunciation!

"Around the same time, our parish priest, obviously trying to be friendly, unintentionally embarrassed me in front of my classmates by referring to me as someone who liked "astrology" -- which I thought even then to be silly. I now suspect that the man simply didn't know the difference between astronomy and astrology, but back then, I assumed that he did."

Heh again! The classic scene from Roxanne (always a great date movie):

A: Who is that?
B: That is Roxanne. She studies astronomy or astrology...
A: Is there a difference?

Gus Van Horn said...

Snedcat,

Wow! "Infrar'd." That's one for the books!

The Roxanne quote both suggests to me that I ought to see it already and reminds me of a line in a similar vein from an entirely different movie:

"We play both kinds of music -- country and western!"

Gus

Anonymous said...

In fifth grade, I too experienced the embarrassment of a clueless teacher. Once during a recess, I was on the floor with tablet and pencil showing a friend how to calculate a certain, large number. When the teacher entered the room and asked what we were up to, I said, "We're figuring out how many miles are in a lightyear." With a great flourish, he ripped a 5-foot length of 3-foot wide wrapping paper off a roll, saying, "Here, you'll need this!" He wasn't joking.

Gus Van Horn said...

Wow!