Neil DeGrasse Tyson's _Cosmos_

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

I much prefer NDT to the simpering contemptible shit Cox, he is very likeable and doesn't make me want to kick the tv.

gr80 otm, i think the alvarez paper is like 81 and the putative crater was known to an oil company in the late 70s, but the story didn't come together in public/become accepted until well into the 80s

i don't like any of these dudes except jacob bronowski

caek i love when you get all astronomist

in all seriousness, any one who liked the og cosmos and would like something similar to it, but about technology, and british, watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Man

ha ty xp!

Are there any pre-Cosmos Carl Sagan-hosted space specials out there?

huh

The 13-part series was shot on 16mm film. Executive Producer was Adrian Malone, film directors were Dick Gilling, Mick Jackson, David Kennard and David Paterson. Quotations were read by actors Roy Dotrice and Joss Ackland. Series music was by Dudley Simpson with Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Additional music includes, amongst others, music by Pink Floyd. Apart from Bronowski, the only other named person appearing is the sculptor Henry Moore.
Malone and Kennard later emigrated to Hollywood, where they produced Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Jackson followed them, and now directs feature films.

pink floyd in sagan's cosmos too

final scene of the ascent of man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjI3BXKBgY

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).