LINK Best of Neil deGrasse Tyson Amazing Arguments And Clever Comebacks Part 1 - YouTube
Love Neil. The man is a national treasure.
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Sagan's critics were wary of pop science. Would the need to entertain come before rigor and accuracy? And those fears were realized with Neil deGrasse Tyson, possibly the sloppiest, most inaccurate pop science celebrity who ever lived.
Neil will study a subject with half his attention and then build a story around it. Which is usually entertaining but often wrong.
That he mangles his flashy pop science is merely annoying. Much worse is when he uses his poor memory and powerful imagination to invent histories. And then uses his bad history to support his political talking points.
There are many examples. I'll talk about his account of President Bush's 9-11 speech. According to Tyson, Bush's speech as an "attempt to distinguish we from they". That's what Republican presidents do, right? Use tragedy to sow division and whip up fear and hatred. Unfortunately for Tyson Bush's actual speech was a call for tolerance and inclusion, exactly the opposite of the xenophobe demagogue Tyson describes.
It turns out Tyson conflated Bush's 9-11 speech with his eulogy for the Space Shuttle Columbia astronauts. However in neither speech did Bush try to set Christians above Muslims. For my source I'll use Adler's column from the Washington post.
Source:
HollisterDavid
Level 2
Apr 20, 2019
2
Actually, I use people's position on religion as a litmus test for being next level. NeildeGasseBagTysonChicken doesn't gain my respect. Not that religion is the only area I believe he's vulnerable. I'm sorry, not a big fan of Hawking either. But, they both have more intersectional points than I have, so they have that. By the way, if anyone's curious, I find the rule works on both sides of the religion aisle. Probably need to go back to work, I'm getting snarky.
chuckpo
Level 8
Apr 19, 2019
2
I watched it to be fair to the OP. It started out pretty well, but he lost me at the end with some pretty dubious claims that disregard things we actually think we know now. But, there were some cases earlier in the video where his points were reasonable.
exposure to religion! What was that like? Did you pick one or pick none? @ephiroll, wow, I really like your thinking. I'd like to read more, but I get it. If you ever want to have that conversation, message me. I'm a believing-leaning agnostic, btw. I've argued for years the only defensible position on God for science is agnosticism. I get so frustrated when atheists misuse science to beat down on religious people. That's NOT what science is for. Anyway, great comments.
By the way again, I don't know why that thumbsdown sign went into my post. Completely unintended. Oh, I put an (!n!) without the exclamation points after heckuva. That must be the bbcode for that emoji. Okay, whatever--I tried 3 different delimiters to write that bleeding sentence...
He is obviously smart but he is also a dick to people of faith. Many, many, many scientists in our history were people of faith and many of them were a whole lot smarter than this arrogant jackass. OK, now that I got that off my chest.....my atheist brother, whom I love dearly, is a big fan of Neil. We watch his videos. He is smart, arrogant, an entertainer and loves to poke religious folks in the eye. I do get why you and my brother like him. I hope you guys get why I don’t
Clammypollack
Level 7
Apr 19, 2019
1
I'm fine with criticizing religion if it's fact based criticism. However Tyson's cautionary tales against religion are based on invented histories.
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