As the astrophysicists wax lyrical, “The Gadfly” columnist ROBERT MACKLIN wonders if knowing more about the universe makes any difference to life on our tiny blue planet.

ALL the great astrophysicists of the world are marvelling at the insights that will flow from the gorgeous pictures provided by the James Webb space telescope. Undoubtedly, they’re fully justified. 

But will it change the way we approach life on our own tiny blue planet tucked away in a corner of the giant conglomerate?

Alas, if the past is any indicator, it’s not looking good.

I remember the surge of expectation that swept the world when Neil Armstrong stepped on to the surface of the moon. This surely would weld us together as the custodians of our precious globe, and nationalistic nonsense would be the loser. That was 1969. Just think of the lives lost in the obscenity of war – and climate change – since then.

I recall the Voyager spacecraft that gave us a couple of taxi rides through the solar system, and the possibilities they raised of “life” on Jupiter’s moon Europa or beneath the surface of Mars.

I vividly recollect the wonder of the great Hadron collider, the discovery of Higgs Boson and how it gave vital clues to the possibility of a grand unified theory of the forces of nature. Indeed, only the other week I devoured a four-page article in “New Scientist” without understanding a single concept, but the newly minted “hope” for the latest theory.

I, too, stared wide-eyed at the great Hubble pictures with the same optimism that they would lead us to jettison a few ancient absurdities such as a “Heaven” somewhere up there for the followers of some orthodoxy.

So, I really can’t help but fear that the astonishing vistas provided by the James Webb pix will make not a jot of difference. Indeed, the scientists themselves are a case in point. Some 2000 of them have signed a petition to “cancel” James Webb himself on suspicion that he was prejudiced against people whose sexual preference differed from his own.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that Putin will keep firing his artillery across the Ukraine border to smash more apartment blocks (and their residents) to pieces. Rugby League players will still look up to the night sky when they score the winning try to acknowledge some ancestor whom they firmly believe just witnessed their achievement. Millions of American Christian evangelicals will still vote for a liar and borderline psychopath in the next presidential election. The Pope will still draw the crowds to St Peter’s Square to be “blessed” by waving his hand in some saintly manner.

And politicians everywhere (with the possible exception of NZ) will inevitably fall prey to the “Canberra Bubble” disease that has them believing that “what’s good for me, is good for the nation”.

But hope springs eternal. Maybe the new telescope will help uncover what happened before the Big Bang. Maybe it will discover life on hundreds or thousands of planets like our own. 

And they might well have solved the one big, outstanding scientific mystery – the 69 per cent or 96 per cent (no one knows which) of Dark Matter and/or Dark Energy, which we know is there, but that to date has eluded our instruments. That could really change the world. 

And it could happen anytime, perhaps even next week! 

Gosh, I’d better check my horoscope in the back pages of my favourite “CityNews” magazine.

robert@robertmacklin.com