As many of you know, I somehow managed to obtain “Professional” status at this year’s DragonCon, the largest sci-fi/fantasy convention in the world. Professional status is a step down from “Guest”, which is generally reserved for famous people. Note that “famous” is a relative term, especially when talking about a convention that represents a lot of fringe cultures/fandoms. Every year, DragonCon completely subsumes downtown Atlanta over Labor Day weekend, with 57,000+ attendees and events spread across 5 giant hotels. DragonCon is special in several ways. First, it is famous for cosplay, and really you could happily spend a few days just people-watching. Here’s my favorite costume from this year. Second, it’s a completely fan-organized event. No film studios or publishing companies control the Con. It’s an event shaped by its audience. Programming is organized into themed tracks. If a track is well-attended, it survives to see another Con. If not, it fades away. Third, and most importantly for my purposes, DragonCon has three tracks dedicated to science fact: the Science, Space, and Skeptic Tracks.
My part in this craziness was to co-host Live Astronomy in the Space Track: each night from around midnight until ~4 a.m., we remote controlled the SARA* 0.6m telescope in Chile and demonstrated to hundreds of folks what it is that astronomers do for a living. During the long periods of downtime that are associated with taking detailed astronomical images, we answered countless questions about all things astronomical.
It was astounding to me that, given the choice between a dozen or more amazing themed parties, hundreds of people will choose to watch two dudes sit on a stage and take 20 minute exposures of nebulae. I saw this throughout the daytime too: the fact-based Track rooms were packed! There is an important lesson to be learned here, both for my professional colleagues and for those who make decisions about outreach funding: there is an audience in the world that is starved for science. I talked to folks at DragonCon whose only live exposure to science is attending Space/Science Track events at DragonCon each year. They’ve found a place where they can have one-on-one access to scientists who are happy to answer any and all questions they have.
Last year in my seminar on pedagogy, I told my students that there were 3 takeaway messages that I hoped they would retain even if they remembered nothing else we discussed. The most important of those 3 was this: We are always teaching. As professional astronomers (heck, even as undergrads who have taken several astronomy courses) we hold a very limited and special knowledge in the world. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson famously says: there are around 6,000 professional astronomers in the world and 6 Billion people, so the odds of meeting one of us is one literally in a Million. As astronomers, this is a responsibility that we should take seriously.
Over the four days of DragonCon, between Live Astronomy, occasional loitering at the CosmoQuest booth, and general chatting with folks in the ubiquitous lines, I probably talked to 2,000 people. All of them were thrilled to have real live astronomers at the Con, and all were filled with questions. Many of them apologetically so, as if their questions were unimportant or they were wasting my time. I tried to convince them that the opposite is true: it’s my job, as it should be the job of all scientists, to answer their questions about science.
There’s a harsher truth here. All too many scientists (and academics in general) act as the gatekeepers to knowledge. We speak in jargon, we write the most boring prose, we speak in derisive, dismissive tones about religion or mysticism or Republicans. And every time we do so, we alienate people. We help create the people who are trepidatious to ask a question of an astronomer while standing in the 20 minute line for Caribou Coffee.
This is why I do what I do. I love astronomy and I want to share that with as many people as I can. If I’m lucky enough to be invited back to DragonCon again, I’ll pull out all the stops to show people how awesome astronomy can be, because every single person who meets a scientist and walks away with a positive impression is now an emissary for science in the world.
One last thought: perhaps my very favorite thing about DragonCon is the passion that people exhibit. I love walking through a hotel lobby and seeing an elaborate costume, one that you can tell took countless hours of work to produce, every detail recreated exactly as it is in the movie/game/comic. And you see this costume, you see the joy and pride of the person who crafted it, and you have no freaking clue what they’re supposed to be. This is an audience who can understand what it means to be a scientist better than any other. We obsess over the tiniest details in our data, make sure we understand all possible sources of uncertainty, and when we’re done, we have a 3% improvement on a previously measured value of the rotation rate of an object so obscure that it doesn’t have a proper name. And we love it. We’re excited about it. And if we’re really lucky, we can find an outlet to share our enthusiasm with the world.