Cosmos - With Neil deGrasse Tyson

[Amaris]

So, why is this the most controversial show on TV?

Seems like there's always some hoopla up over it.

Because stupid, uneducated people are afraid of things that they don't understand?

True.

Some people get antsy when scientists are confident about what they're discussing. People are so used to "science" shows where the narrator is always asking stupid questions like "is it possible that aliens built the pyramids?" which just feeds into the pseudo-intellectual bullshit that passes for intelligence on most "learning" channels.

So when you get someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson who outright says what is correct and what isn't, some people don't know how to take it.

Add it in with a media that loves to stir up "issues," whether real or wholly manufactured, and you get "controversy."

 

[Christopher]

^Actually, Tyson's doing a good job of admitting that there's a lot science doesn't know -- while making it clear that admitting what you don't know is the first step to finding real answers, as long as you ask questions in the right way. And that means not giving "equal time" to all hypotheses no matter how cockamamie, but testing them against reality and discarding the ones that don't work.

 

[Trekker4747]

Anyway, I decided to try and check it out. Haven't yet, there's a couple episodes on the DVR waiting for me to watch, along with lots of other shows I'm behind on. (Like several episodes of SHIELD.)

 

[Greylock Crescent]

So, why is this the most controversial show on TV?

Seems like there's always some hoopla up over it.

Because stupid, uneducated people are afraid of things that they don't understand?

True.

Some people get antsy when scientists are confident about what they're discussing. People are so used to "science" shows where the narrator is always asking stupid questions like "is it possible that aliens built the pyramids?" which just feeds into the pseudo-intellectual bullshit that passes for intelligence on most "learning" channels.

So when you get someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson who outright says what is correct and what isn't, some people don't know how to take it.

Add it in with a media that loves to stir up "issues," whether real or wholly manufactured, and you get "controversy."

Yup. The Demon-Haunted World, and all that. Tyson is throwing the light of science onto the darkened corners of superstition, ignorance, and political and cultural bias. Those that believe in such things tend to be, shall we say, a tad bit insecure about challenges to their beliefs.

 

[Amaris]

^Actually, Tyson's doing a good job of admitting that there's a lot science doesn't know -- while making it clear that admitting what you don't know is the first step to finding real answers, as long as you ask questions in the right way. And that means not giving "equal time" to all hypotheses no matter how cockamamie, but testing them against reality and discarding the ones that don't work.

Certainly I agree, I'm talking more about his confidence in stating facts about evolution, and the age of the universe. He doesn't pretend there are two sides to evolution, he states plainly what we know, without equivocation. That rustles jimmies.

Yup. The Demon-Haunted World, and all that. Tyson is throwing the light of science onto the darkened corners of superstition, ignorance, and political and cultural bias. Those that believe in such things tend to be, shall we say, a tad bit insecure about challenges to their beliefs.

Exactly.

 

[gturner]

Because stupid, uneducated people are afraid of things that they don't understand?

True.

Some people get antsy when scientists are confident about what they're discussing. People are so used to "science" shows where the narrator is always asking stupid questions like "is it possible that aliens built the pyramids?" which just feeds into the pseudo-intellectual bullshit that passes for intelligence on most "learning" channels.

So when you get someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson who outright says what is correct and what isn't, some people don't know how to take it.

Add it in with a media that loves to stir up "issues," whether real or wholly manufactured, and you get "controversy."

Yup. The Demon-Haunted World, and all that. Tyson is throwing the light of science onto the darkened corners of superstition, ignorance, and political and cultural bias. Those that believe in such things tend to be, shall we say, a tad bit insecure about challenges to their beliefs.

Indeed they do! They react pretty violently if their apocalyptic visions are questioned, because they think science is a battle of good versus evil, while ignoring all their beliefs that are contradicted by science, because the science that contradicts it must be the work of the Koch Brothers, big oil, and the evil Jews, and so can be dismissed as heresy.

Thanks Sagan!

 

[Timewalker]

I also remember when I did my student teaching back in the early '80s. I had a split class of Grade 3 and 4 kids, and their teacher was going to allow me to teach a science class to them - and casually mentioned she hadn't had any intention at all of doing astronomy. I was appalled at that, and wondered why kids of that age weren't going to get any sort of exposure to such knowledge. It would have been a disservice to them, particularly since my city doesn't have a planetarium, or even any in-city area that's relatively free from light pollution.

"So can anyone tell me what those bright things are in the night sky?"

"Streetlights!"

"no... Higher than those."

"Stadium lights?"

"no... Higher."

"Airplanes?"

"No... Higher."

"Drones?"

"No... Higher."

"The satellite thingies that beam down porn?"

"Um.... No... Higher."

These kids were not morons, thank you very much. And keep in mind that this was back in 1981-1982. That's pre-internet, pre-Wikipedia, where people had to go to the library and look stuff up in real books. It's not like anyone had a virtual planetarium at their fingertips on a home computer.

It was post-Cosmos, though, and I made good use of my Carl Sagan stuff (books and Cosmos calendar) and other astronomy reference materials I had.


BTW, there has been an ongoing discussion series here: www.Astronomy.com/COSMOS with various editors of Astronomy and Discover magazines hosting discussions of each episode. It's pretty interesting.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

 

[Amaris]

I loved this episode. Digging into the universe that isn't visible to the naked eye is perfectly appropriate for this show, and I love what it accomplishes. As we move along, the episodes seem to be building on the previous one, and the more we hear solid facts and figures. I'm loving it, and can't wait to see what's next.

Who wants to party with Democritus? I know I do.

Also, I want a shirt that says "The Earth was Made for Tardigrades."

 

[Timewalker]

I didn't know there were conveyor belts and ferris wheel-shaped machines in green plants. Imagine that.

Interesting, though, how old the light really is that we feel when we're standing in sunlight. Ten million years + 8 minutes is a heckuva long trip!

 

[tomalak301]

I've been enjoying the show a lot, but this week for whatever reason I was a little bored and actually dosed off. The last episode I really liked was the one two weeks ago talking about Black Holes. Now that was fascinating.

 

[Amaris]

I didn't know there were conveyor belts and ferris wheel-shaped machines in green plants. Imagine that.

Interesting, though, how old the light really is that we feel when we're standing in sunlight. Ten million years + 8 minutes is a heckuva long trip!

To be fair, the show is more about introducing people to the mechanisms of how life works, and the visualizations help. I do agree, though, that it's odd to think of the sunlight 8 light minutes away is actually 10,000,000 years old.

 

[Christopher]

I do agree, though, that it's odd to think of the sunlight 8 light minutes away is actually 10,000,000 years old.

If it helps, it could just as easily be seen as 8-odd minutes old. The photons aren't really "bouncing off atoms" like Tyson said, but being absorbed and re-emitted by them. Every photon is identical to every other photon, so the re-emitted photon could be considered to be the same one that was absorbed, or it could be considered as a brand-new one replacing the one that was absorbed.

I think I'm going to have to stop watching this on FOX, because my local cable service is doing something weird with it. It shows nothing on the HD channel, but shows the HD feed on the standard-def channel, yet with digital glitches that make the image and sound periodically stutter. And the reruns on other channels are supposed to have extra material anyway, right? So maybe I should start holding off an extra day before watching.

I wonder, do tardigrades really move like that, or were the animators taking liberties to make their leg and "hand" movements look more mammalian?

Somebody was commenting above about how this show didn't seem to be talking about upcoming space missions and the like as much as the original did. It seems to me that, instead, its focus is on acknowledging questions science has yet to answer -- in this case, figuring out the "industrial secrets" of photosynthesis and using neutrinos to pierce the "Wall of Forever" -- and suggesting to the young viewers that maybe they could be the ones to discover the solutions. So it's still trying to get children excited about the future of science, in its own way.

 

[Leo Walsh]

That was a bizarre use of CG last night - moving suddenly from what appeared to be amore-or-less realistic attempt to represent the microscopic surfaces of leaves and cells to a "photosynthesis factory" that looked like a bad Animusic video.

I'm mildly underwhelmed by this series so far - most of the episodes are rambling and disjointed, skipping from topic to topic and making very little clear for the naive viewer. I doubt that "A Spacetime Odyssey" is going to have nearly the impact or be well-remembered to the extent that "A Personal Journey" was.

 

[auntiehill]

Well, I've loved the series so far, but this last episode was probably my least favorite. It was a bit disjointed and a bit more dull. I do like, however, the suggestion made that someone in the audience might be the one to solve the scientific mysteries. Plus, the bit about neutrinos was kinda cool--I would've liked to have heard more about that.

 

[Christopher]

I guess the unifying theme was "unseen worlds" and discoveries about the realms that exist on very small scales. But it did seem to jump around a lot.

 

[Leo Walsh]

Plus, the bit about neutrinos was kinda cool--I would've liked to have heard more about that.

That, in a nutshell, describes where the series tends to fall short.

Tyson has said that his approach to the show is that, in contrast to Sagan's version, "I don't need to teach you textbook science." But if, in fact, one of his current concerns is the proliferation of anti-scientific political and social policies based partly on misunderstanding what science itself is - and that does seem to be somewhat true - then that's exactly what he ought to do.

Devoting screen time to a graphic of someone zooming along on a motorcycle while asserting that Einstein discovered that "as you approach the speed of light, things behave very differently," without giving any clear example of how or why that is, is only really useful for giving some kind of frisson to science junkies; it's not really expanding the appreciation of Einstein's work to those who are less conversant with it. So far, Macfarlane and Tyson and Braga are doing a lot of the former and not much of the latter IMAO.

 

[Timewalker]

Plus, the bit about neutrinos was kinda cool--I would've liked to have heard more about that.

That, in a nutshell, describes where the series tends to fall short.

Tyson has said that his approach to the show is that, in contrast to Sagan's version, "I don't need to teach you textbook science." But if, in fact, one of his current concerns is the proliferation of anti-scientific political and social policies based partly on misunderstanding what science itself is - and that does seem to be somewhat true - then that's exactly what he ought to do.

Devoting screen time to a graphic of someone zooming along on a motorcycle while asserting that Einstein discovered that "as you approach the speed of light, things behave very differently," without giving any clear example of how or why that is, is only really useful for giving some kind of frisson to science junkies; it's not really expanding the appreciation of Einstein's work to those who are less conversant with it. So far, Macfarlane and Tyson and Braga are doing a lot of the former and not much of the latter IMAO.

Regarding Einstein and relativity, I prefer Sagan's version where he illustrated what happens if one brother goes off on a near-light speed trip and the other stays behind; the stay-behind ages decades while the light-speed tripper ages only minutes.

 

[Christopher]

So far, Macfarlane and Tyson and Braga are doing a lot of the former and not much of the latter IMAO.

You mean Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, and Tyson are doing that. They're the main people behind this project. Druyan and Soter (Sagan's collaborators on the original) conceived the series along with Tyson and are the credited writers of the entire series, with Druyan also being one of the executive producers along with MacFarlane, Mitchell Cannold, and Braga. MacFarlane's basically just the guy who provided the clout to get the show made, and who suggested the use of animated sequences done by his own animation studio (as well as voicing Giordano Bruno in the pilot). He's described himself as "the least essential person in this equation." He was also responsible for bringing Braga on board, however. As for Braga's role as executive producer and director, from what I can find, it seems he's mainly responsible for providing the visual spectacle and sci-fi flavor to the presentation. The ideas are Druyan's, Soter's and Tyson's, with Braga and MacFarlane just providing their respective expertise to the presentation of those ideas.

By the way, it turns out that Braga has brought Voyager/Enterprise science advisor Andre Bormanis along with him to this show. Presumably this is a show where the producers are actually willing to listen to his science advice for a change.

"Being a science consultant is a role that requires understanding how television is produced and it all starts with the script," says Bormanis. "Ann [Druyan] had 13 scripts in various stages of development when I came on board."

"My job is to do the research and to make sure the stuff was current," says Bormanis. He noted particular challenges like how to describe a visual journey into a dew drop, a segment featured in a later episode.

"I have to imagine what it would look like," he says. Once the visuals are put in place, then the production has to hire the appropriate special effects vendors to realize those images. The series' 1500 special effects shots were contracted to houses all over the world.

If anything, it sounds like Bormanis is responsible for a lot of the heavy lifting of figuring out how to visualize scientific ideas for a TV audience.

Oh, and get this: Turns out the Ship of the Imagination was designed by Ryan Church, who also designed J.J. Abrams's Enterprise.

 

[publiusr]

A nice job he did with that CGI too.

I'm just glad we have a documentary available on rabbit ear TV. This might be the first time poor folks ever even watch a documentary.

 

[davejames]

I'm still loving the show, but I agree the storytelling does seem a bit less focused than it was in the original series. Which is odd considering it's written by the same people (minus Sagan, of course).

Although it could be that they wanted this Cosmos to feel a bit looser and more casual, so that people could tune in at any point during the hour and not get lost. Or maybe they thought it would be more interesting and creative to approach each subject from a few different angles instead of building up slowly from one place like in the original.

Whatever the case, I still think it's been a worthwhile effort and will be a great tool for teachers to use in the future.