Diary Entry, 20th May 2024

The news from America today fills me with profound unease. The President speaks of obliterating Iran’s infrastructure “in one night,” and worse, dismisses concerns over the legality - nay, the morality - of such actions with a cavalier wave. I cannot help but think of the astronomical observations I have made over the years: the careful calibration of instruments, the painstaking documentation of conditions, the scrupulous avoidance of bias. In matters of war, as in science, one must first establish the provenance of the claim. What intelligence supports this threat? Under what conditions was it gathered? By what means?

And yet, here we have a man who speaks of destruction as though it were a simple matter of pressing a lever, with no accounting for the systematic errors of human judgment - the biases of pride, the drift of unchecked power. A telescope poorly mounted will yield false stars; a leader unchecked by reason or restraint will yield false victories. The gaps in his reasoning are vast - what of the aftermath? What of the civilian cost? These are not mere footnotes, but central to any sound conclusion.

I am reminded of my father’s work on Uranus - how meticulous care revealed a planet where others saw only a wandering star. If only statesmen applied such rigor to their decisions! Instead, we are given bluster, unmoored from evidence, untested by peer review. A declaration without data is not policy - it is recklessness. And recklessness, in science or statecraft, is the surest path to catastrophe. - J.F.W. Herschel