Neil Degrasse Tyson does Cosmos

Someone really doesn't like this scientist.
 
faethor said:
Of course science does. But statements are ones of politic not science. Yeah he got a pen story wrong. - Again not science.
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Pen story was one of those "common knowledge" things like the $10 grand armed forces toilet seat or the million dollar air force hammer - oft repeated, rarely checked because it has a verisimilitude to (government bashing Republicans usually love this kind of story so interesting to the Federalist and PJ Media jumping in) with a good bit of low tech common sense beats high faluting "science" kind of angle (also a popular theme on the right). If a preacher had said this there would be a chorus of hallelujahs.

But I think what this is about is not science, the critics aren't looking for better science, they are trying to smear the messenger in order to smear science itself - and who would be motivated to do that? The bronze age Christians who find the bright light of science proving that there is no god under the bed (or in the closet or wherever the next dark corner is) to be a threat to their own delusions and to those who hoped to inculcate these delusions in others so they could gain personal power by manipulating them.

This is not about Neil, it's just another Christian attack on science.
 
metalman said:
Five Things Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Cosmos” Gets Wrong
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1. Venus Was Not Caused By Global Warming
Tyson assures us right away that we are to “question everything” so we have to ask why he thinks Venus is the way it is due to the greenhouse effect — which is another way of saying global warming.

Did you see it? Did you catch the bait and switch? He's built a strawman from a false equivalence. The greenhouse effect was recognized back in the early 1800s and is the reason the earth isn't frozen. Further Hank seems to be unaware that an oxygen rich atmosphere is the anomaly and that CO2 and methane rich atmospheres are nearer the norm. And ... whatever happened to "that nuclear winter" - I'm not sure if Hank has noticed but we haven't had a nuclear war ... yet.

This reads like it is written by someone who is being dishonest for a purpose or is a total moron.

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Oh crap! Just read #5. That clinches it for me - Moron.

(though I suppose it's just possible that it is an ironic parody on Christian thinking, in which case - still moron - because they won't get it.)
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Pen story was one of those "common knowledge" things like the $10 grand armed forces toilet seat or the million dollar air force hammer - oft repeated, rarely checked because it has a verisimilitude

But I think what this is about is not science, the critics aren't looking for better science, they are trying to smear the messenger in order to smear science itself - and who would be motivated to do that?
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Exactly. Lawyers say attack the law and if the law isn't on your side attack the person. Same thing here. Science is NOT on the side of a very large minority of Americans, especially when it comes to creationism and global warming. Since Science is against them their next line of defense is to attack the person.

Oh crap! Just read #5. That clinches it for me
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I'm with you. On #5 the author really 'jumped the shark'. Perhaps the author is Drax the Destroyer?
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
1. Venus Was Not Caused By Global Warming
Tyson assures us right away that we are to “question everything” so we have to ask why he thinks Venus is the way it is due to the greenhouse effect — which is another way of saying global warming.
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The earth has the water ( & nitrogen ) from Venus, not because of global warming, but because Venus has no magnetic field to hold the lighter elements of an atmosphere

The earth also has the water from mars, because it has only a very weak magnetic field

Earth is the anomaly, it has captured the lightest elements from the atmospheres from the two nearest planets
 
That previous post of 5 items you made is in no way worthy of Tyson's response. They are fairly worthless.

Now the statement on penguins is something semi-scientific, not to the level of global warming or evolution mind you. But, something that Tyson could be scientific related which he's wrong. We should always question everything a scientist says. The proof isn't with Tyson here and 100% of free penguins are not south of the boarder.

This game will be a long one as we must check each scientific thing on it's own and see if it stands up to the credit. As we know just because Linus Pauling was so very wrong that he was his own evidence against his beliefs in the curative powers of Vitamin C that he was spot on concerning chemical bonds.
 
metalman said:
When people say "I love science!" what they really mean is "magic"
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I like the article for it's stance that soft science (psychology, sociology, economics, etc.) isn't science. Though the use of calling science, magic, isn't well developed here. I think the author might be trying to rely on Clarke's idea 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'? In trying to assign credit for why/how people make the mistake in accepting 'scientists' say as some sort of religious dictate.

The paragraph on scientists making God irrevelant is a mess. I haven't read all Dawkins but it's not Dawkins uses science to disprove God. Instead he shows the concept religions have of their God is mistaken. And religions aren't concerned with the ultimate causes of things. Religion is the body of dictates and rules. It doesn't investigate the ultimate cause. It is involved in enforcing the rules and regulations that it's belief in the ultimate cause has a vested interest in it's followers lives.
 
faethor said:
That previous post of 5 items you made is in no way worthy of Tyson's response. They are fairly worthless.
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Tyson makes up"quotes" to stroke his own ego while he simultaneously strokes the egos of his "I love science sexually" groupies

On a scale of 1 to "I don't like cooking because following directions is hard and hot things are scary," how much do you love science?
 
faethor said:
I like the article for it's stance that soft science (psychology, sociology, economics, etc.) isn't science. Though the use of calling science, magic, isn't well developed here. I think the author might be trying to rely on Clarke's idea 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'?
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For most of the "I love science"groupies, science became magic once they started putting letters into math equations
 
metalman said:
:lol:
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Yay. Because he wasn't completely accurate, you learned something. Now learn something else.

If you add up the populations of the Macaroni penguin and the Chinstrap and Adélie and Magellanic and Rockhopper and Royal and Gentoo and Emperor (etc.) Penguins (and be careful because population estimates are often listed as breeding pairs) and remain conservative it comes out to about 40 million birds. The highest estimate I found for the Galapagos penguins was 15000 birds.

That comes to 0.04% of penguins don't live south of the equator. Most estimates I've seen put them below 3000 so less than 0.01% Saddly for the endangered Galapagos penguin it's entirely reasonable to round them out.
 
metalman said:
For most of the "I love science"groupies, science became magic once they started putting letters into math equations
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Equations always had letters in them. The equals sign was invented in the early 1500s and the first known instance of its use included letters in the equation. But science isn't equations. That's Mathematics (or a branch of it). Mathematics is a useful tool in science but it's not science in and of itself.
 
metalman said:
Yes
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Perhaps he should clean up his anecdotes and get rid of his jokes. His talks might be less entertaining but at least then people who didn't like the science would have to address the science rather than pick apart the asides - but they'd still find something else to talk about - maybe his shoes, who knows.
 
metalman said:
The earth has the water ( & nitrogen ) from Venus, not because of global warming, but because Venus has no magnetic field to hold the lighter elements of an atmosphere

The earth also has the water from mars, because it has only a very weak magnetic field

Earth is the anomaly, it has captured the lightest elements from the atmospheres from the two nearest planets
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The earth has it's own water and nitrogen though a small amount of it may have been originally venusian. Mars has lost much of its atmosphere and water because, as you say, it has a weak magnetic field. Nonetheless the atmosphere it has left is mostly carbon dioxide and the average temperature at the surface of mars is higher than it would be without that atmosphere because of the greenhouse effect.

The temperature on Venus is also much higher than it would be without an atmosphere because of the greenhouse effect.

Furthermore, earth is hotter than it would be without it's atmosphere because of ... the greenhouse effect.

And none of that is controversial (in science at least). However, you are following the lead of the looney columnist who substituted the words "global warming" for "greenhouse effect". Venus and Mars aren't currently changing the composition of their atmospheres the way we are changing the atmosphere of the earth. Either he doesn't realize that he has mixed these terms up or he knows perfectly well and is pulling a fast one on numpties who will parrot him thinking him S.M.R.T. (as Homer spells it).
 
metalman said:
I {bleep} love Science!!
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I disagree with his contrasting pictrues (Not Science, Science). Both of his "Science" ones aren't very science as far as I can see, more logistical. I'd say that the fun ones are more like science that the seminars on management and equipment advertised their. By analogy in the field of culinary arts I would say that pictures of people enjoying food would be more relevant than pictures of frying pans or plates. The fruits of both are more important than the rather more tedious process of production.
 
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