2 comments:
steve simelsDecember 27, 2014 at 11:02 PM
Thus proving you completely missed Tyson's point.
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The Thought CriminalDecember 28, 2014 at 6:53 AM
Given a choice between getting a point from the Cable TV's and Seth Macfarland's idea of a genius and getting one from Isaac Newton, I'll take the opportunity to get the one from Newton.
Update: And I did get Tyson's point which was to make some neo-atheist click fodder using Isaac Newton without taking into account the inappropriateness of tacitly claiming a rather deep believer in God and The Bible as the property of atheists, entirely ignoring what he said on the subject because those moderny, sciency guys figure that things like historical and textual accuracy and relevance don't matter as compared to their ideological, attention-getting invective. Tyson's only point was to generate a tiny little fix of buzz about himself, not Newton. NdT is a minor figure in science who has made himself into a major figure in TV and is trying to further his media career by hitching his star to the clunky old junker of the old-new atheism.
Tyson's only improvement on Sagan is that Tyson admits he knows nothing about certain subjects.
ReplyDeleteSagan, like Dawkins, was very secure in his ignorance.
But by and large I discard all popularizing "scientists." Science is hard. Popularizing it is easy. Too easy.
I see Tyson pretty much the same way I did Sagan or Henry Morgan, for that matter, professional TV guests who used to do something else.
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