When Science Goes Wrong: The Desire and Search For Truth

When we think that following science is a sure way to get to all the right answers, we misunderstand the nature and history of science; it can only get  closer to the truth by recognizing where and how it has gone wrong. Even Galileo’s revolution in science included some truly bizarre ideas of what the Earth looked like and how (and why) it was situated in the heavens. What can this tell us as we grapple today with dark matter and dark energy… and about the nature of the search for Truth itself?

Biography:

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ is the Director of the Vatican Observatory. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he earned undergraduate and masters' degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught university physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989. At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, in 2015 Pope Francis appointed Dr. Consolmagno director of the Vatican Observatory. 

Br. Guy’s research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies. He has observed Kuiper Belt objects with the Vatican's 1.8 meter telescope in Arizona, and measured meteorite physical properties to understand asteroid origins and structure. Along with more than 250 scientific publications, he is the author of a number of popular books including Turn Left at Orion (with Dan Davis), and Would You Baptize an Extraterrestial? (with Paul Mueller). In 2000, the IAU named asteroid 4597 Consolmagno in recognition of his work. In 2014 he received the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences for excellence in public communication in planetary sciences. He currently serves as chair of the IAU Mars Nomenclature Task Group and vice president of the Meteoritical Society.