Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. E arly in my academic career, I noticed that one of the most popular classes on campus was Introduction to Astronomy, a general-science course that anyone could take. The students all loved it—especially the non-science majors. I asked one of them, an economics student, why she enjoyed astronomy so much. She didn’t say anything about stars, but she did say something powerful about earthly