Neil DeGrasse Tyson's _Cosmos_

This was...good.

NatGeo reran the original series in marathon form all day leading up to the premiere tonight, and I may have gotten so reinvested in Sagan's series that I was hypercritical of Tyson's take. I'm just going to recalibrate how I watch, I guess.

This Slate take echoes what I thought watching it, at least the extended Bruno sequence -- not so much an attack on religion as an appeal for evangelicals to not see science as the enemy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2014/03/cosmos_tv_review_neil_degrasse_tyson_s_fox_reboot_of_carl_sagan_s_miniseries.html

>NatGeo reran the original series in marathon form all day leading up to the premiere tonight

damn wish I'd heard about this. are you enough of a fanatic to know whether they played the original edits or the recently remastered DVD versions? (the original musical score had a lot of incredible music they couldn't afford the mechanicals on when remastering the DVD set).

I don't know if it was the original original version they aired, but I seem to recall having seen a version that was rejigged with "modern" cgi at some point several years ago and this was not that. The copyright that came up at the end of each episode was 2001.

xp

Have you tried the podcast version MP? It is pretty far out and is available on i-tunes/disreputable sitez.

Caught this last night -- I enjoyed it, I kept placing myself back as a nine year old watching the original and I'd like to think I'd be just as enthused if not more so. I liked both the specific callbacks -- the same cliff location, the cosmic calendar, 'we are all made of star stuff' -- and the variations. (I remember the big human-scale historical sequence from the first episode was the Library of Alexandria; having it be Bruno's story raised the stakes in its own way.)

A friend disapproved of the 'Star Trek TNG CGI' approach to the visuals but given that Brannon Braga directed the episode and is apparently a producer on this, NOT surprising. And I didn't mind, you use the tools of the times. Per Milton's comment, the music was my major complaint-as-such -- Silvestri is no Jerry Goldsmith, say, and I would have LOVED if they'd gone full bore and done a modern electronic music equivalent to the original score. In some ways the timing couldn't be better for it. Anyway Silvestri's score not the end of the world but pretty been there/done that when it comes to 'romance of space!' approaches.

As mentioned in another thread, I got some major Mass Effect vibes from the CG.

I found this really hard to sit through but I love that it aired on Fox in primetime.

its ok but I will always prefer Sagan as I am and old timer

over at patheos (a generally pretty reasonable religion site) they are pretty up-in-arms about it

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2014/03/dishonestcosmos/

though their resident atheist columnist is like "well but Bruno was killed for his views"

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/10/science-writer-hank-campbell-alleges-that-cosmos-bungles-history-and-smacks-of-an-agenda/

I'm watching this, and it seems cool, but it's only 2 minutes in and I've been given terms I have to accept in order for the cosmos to be mine. I don't remember Carl Sagan pulling that kind of shit.

But NDT is great and this is a fun watch, just that felt like a weird way to open it up.

But yeah there's no anti-religion agenda in here. The big hero, Bruno, finds his vision of the universe in a spiritual revelation, and doesn't recant his faith even in the face of death.

a conservative friend of mine who refuses to watch because Obama introduced it (ridiculous) posted this which I thought was actually a reasonable criticism about the Bruno stuff:

http://www.science20.com/science_20/blog/cosmos_spacetime_odyssey_review-131240

I personally was surprised it took up so much of the episode when they could have talked about Copernicus and Galileo instead.

Adam,

If you refuse those terms it's your loss. You should just maybe weigh your options.

and fwiw, I thought it was a little weird that Obama introduced the series also, considering the NASA cutbacks. But I'm still optimistic.

It's weird that a sitting president can't do something non-political on tv anymore with everyone everywhere reading politics into it.

lol neil de ass tyson more like

Tangential, sorry, but I was reading about Edwin Hubble today and it's crazy to me that it hasn't even been a hundred years since astronomers established that there are other galaxies outside of our own, much less hundreds of billions. The idea of a single galaxy is so archaic it could almost be Aristotelian, yet there are people alive today who grew up in that vastly smaller known universe.

Well personally I don't mind those terms, but it's a bit baiting imo. And kind of pointless, since the whole Bruno sequence is about someone who has a religious revelation, no scientific method in sight.

Really interesting article, akm!

Tho yeah it is ridiculous to complain about the scientific method at the beginning of episode 1 of this science show. I don't mind being ridiculous from time to time.

yo caek,

how scientifically credible is the idea of a multiverse? or is it just a philosophical conjecture?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/03/10/_cosmos_carl_sagan_s_classic_program_is_updated_and_terrific.html

i was relieved but also disappointed the animation wasn't in bugeyed family guy style. also louie ck should be the historical science-martyr in every episode.
"geez guys, I'm just thinking aloud here, y'know, geez!"

FWIW a response to that Science 2.0 piece:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/10/science-writer-hank-campbell-alleges-that-cosmos-bungles-history-and-smacks-of-an-agenda/

(Though the author has missed it IS on Hulu, so.)

Also:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/why-em-cosmos-em-can-t-save-public-support-for-science/284355/

lol neil de ass tyson more like

caek will be hosting the 3.0 version. Oh it's true.

i didn't see the show, so i'm not sure which version of the multiverse he's talking about

if it's the idea that the universe extends beyond our horizon (in the sense that there are things further away than speed of light x age of universe) then yes, that's legit canonical big bang cosmology. these are not strictly other universes, but they are sometimes talked about that way because we can never in principle reach them or communicate with them.

if he's talking about string theory multiverses then lol 90s physics. no body hires string theorists any more.

if it's the idea that the universe extends beyond our horizon (in the sense that there are things further away than speed of light x age of universe) then yes, that's legit canonical big bang cosmology.

It was this one.

This was very well done and I'd love to see more!

I was sad to see eth shitty animation for historical narrative instead of shitty historical acting

Much prefer the animation to some history channel shit.

cosign

I was going to say, aesthetically I'm ALL about that.

The tribute to Sagan was very moving.

I went back and watched the original series (the remastered one with the overdubs, I knew something was off) after catching the new show, and I have to say there's a lot more *information* in the old series, if you compare the first 1980 ep to the new first ep. The new one looks gorgeous (the Jupiter flyby) but I can't believe they'll ever go into a story as detailed and nuanced as the original Kepler-Brahe drama later on. I also prefer the historical reenactments to the animation, which seems less human and more idealized ...

I'm enjoying the new show for sure, it's gorgeous, but it seems less intentionally hectoring and tenacious as the original run. Sagan was definitely telling you you'd fucked up and exhorted you to get your shit together, and peppered you with a ton of facts per minute.

This is all tossed off after one ep, though. It might get better.

if he's talking about string theory multiverses then lol 90s physics. no body hires string theorists any more.

― caek, Tuesday, March 11, 2014 6:29 PM (Yesterday)

lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mda_p1Sx1lE

the story about NDT meeting Sagan as a teenager was neat but it seemed out of place in the context of a 45min premiere ep, should have been a bonus online short or something

the CGI was gorgeous though, maybe my favorite CGI i've ever seen

The thing that's also inevitably different will be episode length -- full hour vs. 45 minutes.

Plus one would think that, scriptwise, 45 minutes straight through would be different from many brief segments that add up to 45 minutes

yeah ngdt reaches the right conclusions (imo) on string theory.

i just feel like he reaches them by being a stopped clock. he takes that ignorantly skeptical approach to other bits of astronomy and demonstrates pretty clearly that he either hasn't read or hasn't understood recent research.

Greene seems like a pretty chill dude

it seemed like allot of the material was the same as the sagan? I thought it would be new material - dicsoveries since the old one - some wild string theory shit

There are 12 episodes left.

are you saying these 12 other "episodes" will have "new material"???

I wouldn't bet a vital organ on it, but it's likely.

i'm sure they will get to the post-sagan stuff for which there is observational evidence (dark matter, dark energy, exoplanets, black holes, etc.)

string theory is not a part of astronomy or astrophysics.

the mass-extinction from an asteroid impact theory/discovery came after the original cosmos iirc

Yeah the Chicxulub crater wasn't properly identified until later in the 80's.

I hope stephens hawing comes flying in and rides of degreaasee toes and laughs

and the rand corporation as a matter of fact

Sagan would get super-blazed on quality weed and then personally drop bombs on kids in east timor iirc

well, this is America, so that all makes sense

carry on running the Old Guard Pelosi fanclub, Οὖτις

Cheerio old chap

it doesn't seem like sagan was too friendly w/ the pentagon by the 1980s at least:

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-03-15/news/mn-34986_1_nuclear-winter

i personally worked for the pentagon from 1999-2001 when i was at the scripps institution of oceanography, we were working under a navy grant, studying the effect that the titanium paint flaking off of the warships at naval air station alameda had on the dissolved oxygen / nitrate / phosphate / etc in the water

i even took a federal oath of loyalty as part of the job. at one point i was going to visit lawrence livermore national lab to work with some dudes who had designed a kind of fish-tank simulator of the ocean floor (we wanted to build our own version) but it was determined by them and us that it wouldn't be too much trouble to get a naturalized citizen from iran the necessary security clearance to even visit LLNL

TLDR: lots of scientists "work for the pentagon" and it doesn't really mean what you think, the military-industrial complex is complex, to say the least

would be too much trouble, not wouldn't be

or rather, it was determined it wouldn't be worth the effort

Clearly u are a war criminal

thanks for that, tlg -- v interesting

I'm sure it means you pause before saying "i wouldn't like to see a Space Force launched with the Grifter as the Cmdr-in-Chief"

xxp

not really sure what you're getting at, nobody really gives a fuck what i - and neil de grasse tyson for that matter - think of the space force

i guess he thought his Twitter followers would

i think JD had it right - he's not actually providing an expert opinion on space force, he's just using it to set up the "truth force" punchline

the military industrial complex's relationship with astronomy is complicated. it is basically impossible to do professional research astronomy in the US without using military infrastructure and/or receiving military money. it's something a lot of US astronomers feel conflicted about, but consider the price of admission. if you want the data, you join (or you leave the US and go to a country where astrophysics and space program are less synonymous).

but tyson doesn't do research astronomy, and hasn't done for 30 years. which makes his decision to work with them ... less complicated. he literally has no incentive reason to sit on boards like that other than his own ego.

tyson's fine as a science advocate. his style grates on me a little, but at least he gets some people to pay attention and learn something.

i'm not sure about his idea for a Truth Force, though. who's going to be in charge of determining the truth? jared kushner?

Advisory board issue #1 for 2018 - send Trump to mars

Two more women come forward

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/11/two-more-women-accuse-neil-degrasse-tyson-of-sexual-misconduct/

on the scale of this kind of thing that doesn't seem that horrible but it does sound p creepy and unpleasant, which is disappointing.

i would just like to note that i have been otm on this thread.

I miss Carl Sagan pic.twitter.com/jUKrBgFSFs

— Oedipa Maas (@bridgietherease) August 22, 2017

a friend retweeted that back then and i still think about that tweet all the damn time

i was at that AAS meeting. the "secret" after party thing was, well, "infamous" is the wrong word because these are huge dorks we're talking about. but it wasn't secret, and generally people who weren't either predators and/or colossally excitable nerds steered clear.

Boy Erased (2018) pic.twitter.com/RFYdplgtao

— Hayes Davenport (@hayesdavenport) December 14, 2018

https://www.amazon.com/Accessory-War-Unspoken-Alliance-Astrophysics/dp/0393064441

i saw someone reading this, immediately thought "oh i should read that" but then saw it was by NdT so nope, won't

all i can remember from the one about black holes are bad jokes (not like good bad jokes, like dad jokes, just bad bad jokes)

like all i remember from the chapter about the sun was this long setup where he talked for a few paragraphs (almost poetically) about how ridiculously long it takes photons to make their way from the inside to the outside of the sun, only to spoil it all w/ a lame "think about that next time you get a sunburn on your butt at the beach!" ending

I've been to an AAS meeting (honolulu). I am actually hanging at an astro conference right now. caek are you an active researcher?

i was until 2014

I am at the end of an AGN obscuration conf (whatever that means). I just tag along to these things 1-2 times a yr for the last 15 yrs when they are in nice locations (spouse).

nice! i was on a paper about that! (i did some of the modeling for it, but it was not my field and i very much did not understand the paper lol academic publishing.)

conference and observing travel is definitely one of the perks of the job in astronomy (relative to most other academic fields) that somewhat makes up for the precarious academic existence.

although this is real https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.3384

I won't try to guess which one you are. You did instrumentation? Yeah, all these guys publish a lot.

i wasn't on that paper. that's a weird one about how astronomers fly too much!

i was observation rather than instrumentation (although the AGN paper i was on used some wacky instrumentation i did not understand)

derp I was analyzing the names instead of reading the abstract. Almost everyone at the conf flew over 20 hours so this is true. I only had to fly 2 hours.

I just showed this to my spouse and he brought up that we spent a holiday in India for 3 weeks and went to Patagonia with the 8th author (which I totally missed, and he totally flies a lot too still).