Are We Really That Small? Why Science, Power, and Wonder Collide in Our Place in the Universe

I’m Gerd Dani, president and curator of FreeAstroScience, and this is the kind of question that keeps me up at night: Are we truly as insignificant as science says, or is there something quietly magnificent about our tiny place in the cosmos?

You know that iconic image—the Milky Way sprawled across the darkness, a tiny arrow pointing to a mere smudge labelled, “You are here”? It’s more than a meme. It’s a gut-punch of perspective, a reminder that our planet is a speck lost among hundreds of billions of stars. Every time I see it, I’m thrown into a spiral of reflection. And yet, here we are, every one of us strutting about as if the universe itself should care about our opinions.

Let’s get provocative for a moment. Some say science is just another opinion to be democratically voted on. Others believe humanity, in its arrogance, will inevitably destroy itself, and a third group insists our creativity is simply a nice distraction from our cosmic irrelevance. I reject all three. Science isn’t up for a vote; humanity’s end is not a foregone conclusion; and creativity is not a distraction—it’s the very thing that gives our smallness meaning.

Let’s unpack why.

The Humbling View from Nowhere

There’s a kind of beauty in seeing yourself as small. Imagine standing by the Norwegian sea at midnight, the sun refusing to set. The world glows in a way that feels unnatural, yet it’s just physics—our planet, its tilt, its endless dance around the sun. Shift your position a few kilometres, and the universe feels different. That’s what perspective does. It humbles you. It also invites you to look deeper.

We live on a rock that’s only 29% land, the rest drowned under oceans. Of that land, we claim tiny pieces—countries, cities, houses. Each of us is less than a grain of sand compared to the universe. It’s a fact that should quiet our egos, but it rarely does. Instead, we go about believing our problems are unique, our decisions all-important, our actions earth-shattering.

But here’s the twist: That’s not just arrogance—it’s also our unique gift. No other species has tried so hard to shape the world, to bend nature to its will, to dream up solutions and stories. Sometimes, that dreaming saves us. Sometimes, it almost destroys us.

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The Power—and Peril—of Human Decision

Here’s where things get weird. Humans have a knack for turning objective facts into matters of opinion. Take science: people treat it like it’s up for debate, like the speed of light could be changed by popular demand. But as Piero Angela wisely said, “Science is not democratic.” You don’t get to vote on gravity or decide the boiling point of water by committee.

Still, our history is littered with moments where power tries to bend science. One of the most surreal examples? The Vatican once declared the capybara—a giant South American rodent—a fish. Why? Because colonial rules said you could only eat fish during Lent, and local populations loved capybara meat. The Church, swayed by social, economic, and spiritual lobbying, simply redefined reality. The capybara swam into the category of “edible fish,” science be damned.

It’s not an isolated case. In 2022, California animal rights groups convinced the courts to classify bees as fish, just to fit them under environmental protection laws that only covered aquatic creatures. Once again, biology lost to bureaucracy. Was it a noble cause? Perhaps. Was it scientific? Absolutely not.

These stories aren’t just trivia—they’re cautionary tales. They show how power, culture, and necessity can bend facts, sometimes for good, sometimes for absurdity. And yet, they also point to something deeper: our relentless creativity in the face of limitation.

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Creativity: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword

So, what do we make of our bizarre ability to redefine the rules? Is it hubris, or is it hope?

Our creativity is a force of nature. It drives us to explore, to experiment, to ask questions no other animal would dream of. It’s the reason we put a man on the Moon, mapped the human genome, and built machines that can think. It’s also why we sometimes fudge the facts or twist the rules—sometimes to survive, sometimes to control, sometimes just because we can.

But this creativity is both our greatest resource and our deepest risk. The average species lasts four to five million years. Homo sapiens? We’ve been around for just two hundred thousand. In that blip of time, we’ve altered the planet more than any other creature. That’s both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

Will we be wiped out early by our own hand? It’s possible—if we let arrogance overrule understanding, if we try to vote away gravity or legislate the laws of nature. But if we harness our curiosity, our urge to learn and create, maybe—just maybe—we can stretch our time a little longer.

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Embracing Smallness, Claiming Wonder

Here’s the heart of it. When I look at that dot in the Milky Way, I don’t see insignificance. I see possibility. I see a species that, for all its flaws, never stops dreaming. Science isn’t just a set of facts. It’s a constant attempt at beauty—a way of making sense of the chaos, of finding our place and making it matter.

That’s what I try to do at FreeAstroScience. I want you to feel both the chill of our smallness and the thrill of our creativity. I want you to see that, yes, we’re a speck—but we’re a speck with imagination, with agency, and with the power to make meaning.

So, next time you see that little arrow—“You are here”—don’t shrink. Smile. Wonder. Ask what you’ll do with your brief moment in the sun. Will you bend the facts, or will you chase the truth? Will you impose, or will you imagine?

That’s the journey. That’s the adventure. And that’s why, in the end, maybe we’re not so small after all .

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Written for you by Gerd Dani, on FreeAstroScience—where we make sense of the universe, one curious question at a time.