History and Propaganda in Astronomy

Abstract

‘History is Bunk’ said Henry Ford. He was exaggerating but it is well recognized that the connection between history and truth is tenuous. Even very recent history dependent on human memory is notoriously unreliable despite the intention of the historian to tell the truth.In radio astronomy we are fortunate in having a dedicated historian-astronomer by the name of Woody Sullivan who has spent years in interviewing and reinterviewing astronomers to find out the real facts about the early years of the subject. Because of Sullivan’s work (e.g. Sullivan 1988) and because so many of my former colleagues have written histories of the period I felt very doubtful about adding my piece to the saga when asked to do so. However, I did accept the invitation to do so after I had read a statement about radio astronomy written by our usually very well informed Minister for Science, Barry Jones (Jones 1987). This statement which I shall quote later is an example of what we may call popular history.