Cosmos - With Neil deGrasse Tyson

[Robert Maxwell]

I think it's important to keep in mind that this series has two of the same three creators as the original series. That was Sagan, Druyan, and Soter; this is Tyson, Druyan, and Soter. People who don't know that may believe this is unconnected to the original, a mere imitation. Knowing that it has 2/3 of the original creative team working on it makes it clear that it's more of a direct continuation. And that brings a very different understanding of just what this series is and how it relates to its forebear.

They should put this text up on the screen at the beginning of each episode.

They just need to be sure they credit it to you properly.

 

[Mudd]

Sure, completely ignore the Minoans, everyone else does. Besides, all the best Greek stuff was done by the Ionians anyway.

I believe that in last Sunday's show Tyson credited the Ionians with more or less first articulating the principles of scientific observation.

One episode starts off with the assumption that the majority of the viewers understand what a camera obscura is, how it works and why that matters. That's a mistake unless you're addressing an audience that you assume already knows a great deal about your subject to begin with - and if that's the case, maybe the point of the show is just for us science geeks to congratulate ourselves.

 

[Mudd]

To the extent that this series is associated in the public mind with Carl Sagan, it's doing some coasting on his "brand."

 

[gturner]

Sure, completely ignore the Minoans, everyone else does. Besides, all the best Greek stuff was done by the Ionians anyway.

I believe that in last Sunday's show Tyson credited the Ionians with more or less first articulating the principles of scientific observation.

One episode starts off with the assumption that the majority of the viewers understand what a camera obscura is, how it works and why that matters. That's a mistake unless you're addressing an audience that you assume already knows a great deal about your subject to begin with - and if that's the case, maybe the point of the show is just for us science geeks to congratulate ourselves.

It could've been interesting if the episode had burned a few minutes discussing the controversial Hockney-Falco thesis that Renaissance artists suddenly gained realistic perspectives and accurate depictions by using the camera obscura and convex lenses (polished metal) to project images, which the masters could then trace. They could even go with the phrase "What happens when a condensed matter physicist looks at Renaissance art looking for tell-tale patterns of optical distortion?"

 

[Gov Kodos]

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.

Sure, completely ignore the Minoans, everyone else does. Besides, all the best Greek stuff was done by the Ionians anyway.

I believe that in last Sunday's show Tyson credited the Ionians with more or less first articulating the principles of scientific observation.

One episode starts off with the assumption that the majority of the viewers understand what a camera obscura is, how it works and why that matters. That's a mistake unless you're addressing an audience that you assume already knows a great deal about your subject to begin with - and if that's the case, maybe the point of the show is just for us science geeks to congratulate ourselves.

Between the two shows, I'd say Sagan's kept more to explaining science than Tyson's. The episode about Hook and Newton, I guess, wanted to show how science utilizes evidence and reasoned argument to establish matters of fact and truth rather than accepting assertions that resort to appeals to authority. It was dramatically interesting, but I'd have preferred more focus on Newton's discoveries and their implications. The focus on Halley was great, and I wish more time had been devoted to like material. The historical recreations too often slide to drama, Hook and Newton for instance, than the science being illustrated.

 

[Christopher]

But if motion and velocity are all relative, why does the twin who stayed home get older, instead of the twin who left? Relative to the wandering twin, it's the stay-at-home who is traveling near light-speed, and since positions and paths are all just relative we shouldn't be able to say which twin ages quickly relative to the other.

So they called that a paradox, and Einstein had to go back and solve it.

Except it's not a symmetrical situation, because one twin has to slow down, reverse course, accelerate, then slow down again in order to get back to the starting point. So that twin is subjected to accelerations that the other twin is not subjected to. That's why the math is different for that twin and why that twin is younger than the other once they come back together.

Between the two shows, I'd say Sagan's kept more to explaining science than Tyson's. The episode about Hook and Newton, I guess, wanted to show how science utilizes evidence and reasoned argument to establish matters of fact and truth rather than accepting assertions that resort to appeals to authority. It was dramatically interesting, but I'd have preferred more focus on Newton's discoveries and their implications. The focus on Halley was great, and I wish more time had been devoted to like material. The historical recreations too often slide to drama, Hook and Newton for instance, than the science being illustrated.

The difference is that this show is a product of its time -- a time when there's a powerful anti-intellectual, anti-science faction trying to impose its values on America, a time when school boards are being pressured to teach creationism and the Science Committee of the House of Representatives consists overwhelmingly of creationists and religious nuts. Basically "the demon-haunted world" that Sagan warned about decades ago has gained a lot of ground in the past 34 years, and this new incarnation of Cosmos is a salvo against them and the ways of thinking (or rather, not thinking) that they're trying to spread.

Plus, it's on FOX rather than PBS, so there is a difference in the target audience. Before you can teach the facts of science, you need to teach what science is, how scientific thought works. I grant that the show could do better at that in some ways, but it seems to be more about presenting the basic idea that scientific thought has value, and that leaves less time to go into detail on the specifics of what science has revealed.


Speaking of which, I'm surprised nobody's posted this yet:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/fa1a1c8fb7/creationist-cosmos

 

[gturner]

But if motion and velocity are all relative, why does the twin who stayed home get older, instead of the twin who left? Relative to the wandering twin, it's the stay-at-home who is traveling near light-speed, and since positions and paths are all just relative we shouldn't be able to say which twin ages quickly relative to the other.

So they called that a paradox, and Einstein had to go back and solve it.

Except it's not a symmetrical situation, because one twin has to slow down, reverse course, accelerate, then slow down again in order to get back to the starting point. So that twin is subjected to accelerations that the other twin is not subjected to. That's why the math is different for that twin and why that twin is younger than the other once they come back together.

Exactly. I bring that up because I almost always see the discussion of time-dilation and the brothers' differential aging referred to as "the twins paradox", but the fact that they age at different rates wasn't the paradox (it's just an odd effect). The paradox was that under pure special relativity, each brother should have the same expectation that his twin was the one that aged a lot, which is impossible - and a paradox.

You gave the solution to the problem, and we should really quit commonly calling that particular time-dilation thought experiment "the twins paradox" unless we're specifically referring to the earlier debate. One twin ages, flyboy brother doesn't - and it's not a paradox anymore.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Also, I think it's important to keep in mind that this series has two of the same three creators as the original series. That was Sagan, Druyan, and Soter; this is Tyson, Druyan, and Soter. People who don't know that may believe this is unconnected to the original, a mere imitation. Knowing that it has 2/3 of the original creative team working on it makes it clear that it's more of a direct continuation. And that brings a very different understanding of just what this series is and how it relates to its forebear.

On an intellectual level, I know that Druyan and Soter were vitally important to the original Cosmos. I know that Sagan didn't make Cosmos on his own because television is a collaborative medium. I know that he didn't write the book on his own. Intellectually, I know all of these things.

Emotionally, for me, Cosmos is Sagan. It's Sagan in the Ship of the Imagination. It's Sagan walking on beaches. It's Sagan exploring the Library of Alexandria. It's Sagan at Rockefeller Square bemoaning astrology. Cosmos is Sagan. Full stop.

That's not to take away from Druyan and Soter because I know, intellectually, as I said, how important they were to the original series, especially Druyan. (Speaking of which, this article by Sasha Sagan, Sagan and Druyan's daughter, in New York about her father, Seth MacFarlane, and the Sagan library, is well worth reading.) But I think that goes to show that, even for people who know and understand the collaborativeness of television, the singular presence of someone like Sagan makes such an impression that he becomes seen as a singular creator. Especially when the original Cosmos is subtitled "A Personal Journey" -- whose "personal journey" is it, if not Sagan's?

 

[Christopher]

Allyn, I agree with you that it's not the same without Sagan. It's an attempt by his collaborators and protege to pay tribute to his creation and carry forward its legacy, but it's still at a remove.

But my point is that this isn't something that Seth MacFarlane and Brannon Braga dreamed up on their own. A lot of people are jumping to that conclusion just because those are the two people they've heard of before, and it's an erroneous belief. Those two were just brought in to execute a project that Druyan, Soter, and Tyson had already been working on for years beforehand.

 

[Amaris]

I think they're doing a terrific job, considering the environment, which Christopher highlighted earlier, in which they're making this effort.

 

[Mudd]

Well, one can construct an apologia for the show around whatever one chooses. I'm just watching the television series as a television series, and it's lacking quite a bit.

 

[gturner]

I think they're doing a terrific job, considering the environment, which Christopher highlighted earlier, in which they're making this effort.

Um, that's purely the demons in his imagination. Twice as many Republicans on the House Science and Technology committee have STEM degrees than the Democrats (Four), even counting Joe Kennedy and a BA in psychology for the Democrats.

One Republican with a handful of degrees (and a chest full of medals) even ran a planetarium (along with an aeronautics and space museum). Our member from Kentucky has multiple engineering degrees from MIT.

As for their religions, there is no statistical difference between the two parties on the committee regarding Methodists, Lutherans, or Catholics, and the percentage of the sum of Baptists and Episcopalians is also the same. One Democrat on the committee even attacked his primary opponent, an incumbent Democrat, for being an atheist who doesn't represent California values.

I think the gross misperception is part of the "science versus evil religion" thing that Cosmos stirred up.

 

[Mudd]

Well, if the Creationists feel targeted by the show they're not just being paranoid; the creators clearly consider it their brief to push back against misrepresentations and misunderstanding of science being used to further political/social agendas. That said, there's not much in "A Spacetime Odyssey" that's likely to accomplish that - just many proud assertions of scientific integrity. That's the kind of thing to bring cheers from people who already agree with them rather than enlightenment to the uninformed, misguided or uncertain.

"Herschel was the first person ever to see into the deeper waters of the cosmic ocean. There, he glimpsed the magic trick that light does with time...

'...The light from the stars travels very fast, faster than anything, but not infinitely fast.'"

That's metaphor (just what exactly does being "the first person ever to see into the deeper waters..." etc mean? What did he do?) and bald assertion. There's nothing in that animation to acquaint a viewer with how Herschel learned this, why he was convinced of it, or why the viewer should accept it as our most reliable understanding of reality right now...as distinct from, say, some Bronze Age religious writings.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Do you actually think that whoever put this together is doing as good a job as Sagan did?

The person who put the new series together is exactly the same person who put the old series together.

 

[Mudd]

Then the answer is that she's not doing as good a job as she did last time.

 

[Amaris]

There's no need for apologies. The show is good, the concepts are good, the execution is good. You don't like it, and that's fine, it's not going to appeal to everyone. I like it, I'm learning from it and, more importantly, my family is learning from it.

 

[Christopher]

"Apologia" doesn't mean apology so much as an explanation or a defense (it literally means "speaking in defense"). Which is really kind of the opposite of what "apology" has come to mean, since it means arguing that you were justified rather than admitting you were wrong. Words evolve in complicated ways.

 

[Amaris]

"Apologia" doesn't mean apology so much as an explanation or a defense (it literally means "speaking in defense"). Which is really kind of the opposite of what "apology" has come to mean, since it means arguing that you were justified rather than admitting you were wrong. Words evolve in complicated ways.

I know. I liken it to Apologetics. All I'm saying is that there is no need for any of it, at least from my point of view.

 

[Mudd]

"Apologia" doesn't mean apology so much as an explanation or a defense (it literally means "speaking in defense"). Which is really kind of the opposite of what "apology" has come to mean, since it means arguing that you were justified rather than admitting you were wrong. Words evolve in complicated ways.

Yes, Christopher, and I used it in exactly the correct way - go head, insert "defense" or "explanation" for the word in my sentence.

If you inferred something else, the mistake is entirely yours.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

He was correcting J. Allen, I'm pretty sure.